If history is any indication, God is clearly not forcing us into His morality, i.e., we have free will. Thus, the closest you can come to a universal morality is in the natural law sense, that is, certain types of morality “work better” than others. You continue to assert that morality is only possible with God, and that reason is unable to provide a universal rationale. Yet if natural law is true, reason can indeed provide such a rationale, even if it’s “merely” practical. Alternately, the obvious rationale for natural law is in our nature as natural, rational creatures (as Objectivism is based upon). But once again, history and reality show us that people DO tend to follow some kind of morality, for whatever reasons they hold, and that, while a certain degree of evil and atrocities occur, for the most part people do tend to be good.
The necessity of God for morality still remains an assertion, and not shown.
The USSR, People’s Republic of China, N. Korea, N. Vietnam, Cambodia under the Kmer Rhouge, and Cuba all represent the apex of atheistic societies.
I seriously doubt that the “essence” of these nations is atheism. They just didn’t want a competing set of beliefs to interfere with their “grand vision” of society. And you left off Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, not to mention Venezula, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Columbia and others that are clearly not ‘atheist’ nations by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, history shows that religion was often co-opted for great evils. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the adoption of Christianity by Rome, etc.

Michael: “You continue to assert that morality is only possible with God, and that reason is unable to provide a universal rationale.”

That’s not what I have written or intended. The original natural law theorists used reason to derive universal moral values from the nature of God and God’s creation. Without God, man can use reason, or a Ouiji board, and invent any kind of morality he likes.

Michael: “…history and reality show us that people DO tend to follow some kind of morality, for whatever reasons they hold, and that, while a certain degree of evil and atrocities occur, for the most part people do tend to be good.”

I have written exactly that same thing. I don’t think you’re reading my posts. But I have added that they don’t have a sound epistemological reason for doing so.

Michael: “The necessity of God for morality still remains an assertion, and not shown.”

I have written that repeatedly. I don’t understand why we have to keep going over the same ground. People don’t need God to act morally; We need God to have a rationale for a universal morality. Otherwise, I can’t criticize another person’s morality if he decides it’s moral to murder left-handed people. I don’t know how to explain it better than I have. It’s not rocket surgery!

Michael: “I seriously doubt that the “essence” of these nations is atheism.”

It’s rational to claim that people hijacked Christianity in the past because the crimes committed by Christians violates Christian teaching. On the other hand, the 19 hijackers who attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center with airplanes were acting consistently with the teachings of Islam. What of atheists? If no universal morality exists, then you’re wrong to hint that the leadership of the USSR, China and the other nations mentioned had hijacked atheism. All you can claim is that you don’t like their morality and that it’s different from yours, but you have no grounds for claiming that their morality is wrong or that they hijacked atheist morality because there is none.

Ktibuk: “Why do you suppose the only alternative to ethics based on a personal god, is ethics made up by man?”

I answered that in previous posts. I’m not going to keep going over the same ground.
Ktibuk: “Can god not change what is good and what is evil on a whim, arbitrarily?”

No, he can’t because his morality is based on his nature, who he is. Some things are even impossible with God.

Ktibuk: “You dont kill because muder increases your chances of being murdered,…”

Only if I act alone. Genghis Khan was one of the world’s greatest murderers and he established a great kingdom and lived to an old age. But you’re right in that most people refrain from immorality out of a fear of getting caught.

Ktibuk: “And all animals have ethics. Social animals even have morals.”

So you can speak to animals?

Ktibuk: “Human ethics is based on rationality but everyone doesnt think every move out, because of evolution acting good and moral is almost engraved in our genes.”

Then why do some peope act immorally? Is there an immorality gene also. I haven’t read that anyone on the human genome project has discovered a morality gene.

Ktibuk: “Founders of the science of ethics were a bunch of zeus and apollo worshiping greeks but their code is used today almost verbatim.”
Morality goes back much further than the Greeks. Abraham of the Bible lived about 2,000 BC and had a few morals of his own.

Ktibuk: “That is also why atheists, like myself, arent immoral unethical people.”

By whose standard of morality? I would bet you’re quite immoral by Hinda, Buddhist and Islamic standards. Have you read the sermon on the mount in the New Testament? Do you think you meet Jesus’s standards of morality?

Years ago a TV host interviewed a prominent atheist (I believe it was Bertrand Russell). The host asked Russell why people were so quick to accept the theory of evolution. Russell responded that he guessed it was because people wanted to be free to have sex with whomever they wanted when they wanted.

Michael: “natural law, god or no god, provides a strong rationale for criticizing their morality.”

I would like to see you try. On what grounds would you say that Stalin’s murder of 30 million Russians was immoral?

I would like to see you try. On what grounds would you say that Stalin’s murder of 30 million Russians was immoral?
I’m sure you’d like to practice more selective skepticism. Instead, I’m still waiting to understand why God is necessary for morality.
For example, “Locke and the other Christian advocates of natural law believe that natural law is in accordance with the will of God not because they claim a divine revelation concerning the will of God, but because they believe that the nature of man and the world reflects the will of God. [from http://jim.com/rights.html ]. In other words, they recognized natural law as coming from the nature of man and the world, and thus it reflected the will of God. But as I already said, “A belief in God is not necessary to believe in natural law.” The nature of man and the world is what it is, whether God exists or not. Saying that God created it, or that it is the expression of God’s will, adds nothing to our comprehension of natural law, or of morality.

Actually, I thought of another way to explain it. In the ancient Middle East, every nation had its own gods that people thought had power only within the borders of that nation. As a result, their morality extended only to people of their nation. They could not murder or steal from a fellow citizen, but they could do anything they wanted to non-citizens outside their borders. That’s how morality operates with many limited gods, or no God at all. But if people realize that there is just one God over all people, then all people become citizens and the morality applies to all.

Yeah right Fundy! It’s been said by theologians that a sin isn’t just doing what God has forbidden but it’s also not doing what God has commanded. Another said that traditional rights didn’t exist per se but were given by God – so if the Hebrews were commanded by God to slaughter the men, women and children of certain tribes then they effectively had the ‘right’ to do so. It’s rather tricky to know what ‘rights’ are ‘God-given’ compared what rights people think they should have nowadays. Women rights? Children rights? Animals rights? Being against slavery, polygyny, witchcraft, polytheism, working on the Sabbath, homosexualitiy, etc.? These are perceived rights by some that aren’t clear-cut from the Bible.

Walt, interesting quote. Can you tell me where you got it? Thanks! Here are my thoughts on it:

Russell: If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.

Actually, Kant didn’t invent that defense of God. Natural law theorists recognized it long before Kant came along.

This gets complicated because now you’re dealing with not just Christian theology, but Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist and other theologies. Russell’s statement reflect Islamic theology well. In Islam Allah determines the difference between good and evil by fiat and neither he nor his prophet Mohammed are constrained by that fiat. So for Allah there is no difference. I’m not a Hindu/Buddhist expert, but my understanding is that their morality is similar since what we consider reality is just a dream of the Supreme Being.

Christianity is very different. The laws of God come from his nature. Who God is determines what is good and evil. In fact, evil doesn’t exist as a separate entity in Christian theology. In the same way that cold is the abscense of heat, evil is the distortion of God’s will. As CS Lewis wrote, evil comes when man takes what God intended for good and disfigures it.

From a secular perspective, Russell is absolutely correct. If you look at the evil in the world, the wars, mass murders, disease and natural disasters, it’s hard to claim that God is good. You’re more likely to say what one of my religion professors (a liberal, unbelieving theologian) said: I have met god face to face and he is the devil! This guy had a PhD in theology from Princeton. Muslims face the same problem. In Islamic theology, Allah has predetermined everything, every human action and word, every natural disaster, every disease. How can you assert that Allah is good?

So how can Christians claim that God is good? Because God created the world and mankind good and none of the evils in the current world existed in the original creation. What happened? God gave man free will to choose between good and evil. Man chose evil and rebelled against God. Some people will assert that since God gave man free will, he also gave man the ability to choose evil and therefore is the creator of evil. OK. I’ll accept that. God has a choice to make—either create more animals without a free will, or take his chances with a being who had free will. He seems to have valued the being who freely chose to follow him over having more animals. No one knows why. But when man rebelled against him, God took a step back from our world and let us have our way. That’s why the existence of God isn’t so obvious. There is some truth in the liberal theological idea that God is distant. That doesn’t mean that he is totally asleep at the wheel. He intervenes when it suits him. But for the most part, people are free to choose good and evil and we all suffer the consequences when people chooses evil.

fundamentalist
Thank you for you interesting reply. The Bertrand Russell quote is from his book “Why I am not a Christian”, which you can find online with Google.
You may also be interested in a historic debate he had with Jesuit Catholic Theologian, Father Frederick Copleston.
There is an old adage – When you take away somebody’s ability to fail you take away their ability to succeed. That would be a rationale for God to give us free will. However, the question then arises as to what happens when my failure,(by choosing evil) impacts on someone else’s ability to succeed?
Libertarian philosophy addresses this by concepts such as non-aggression and property rights.

TLWP: “Dang! What I meant that trying to define ‘natural rights’ with a religious/Biblical angle is tricky at best. ‘Natural rights’ would say that a woman would have the same rights as men yet they are considered secondary to men in the Bible. Likewise slavery would be wrong in ‘natural law’ (except for maybe bond slavery) but is condoned the Bible.”

I don’t think adding a Biblical angle to morality creates any more confusion that already exists in the field of ethics currently. Most people can agree on the basics of murder and theft. Beyond that there is enormous disagreement. But I think you’re wrong that the Bible give second place status to women. The NT particularly emphasizes the equality of the two before God. And as for slavery, if you study what the Bible meant by it in the OT, it’s more like our concept of indentured servants. The Bible condemns outright the type of slavery the US practiced. That makes it all the more strange that so many pastors and churches supported slavery.