(Then again, Quixote, you have a completely different notion of meaning, let alone of morality, don't you? So I don't really know what you'll make of the above.

Lynet, if I thought our ideas of meaning and morality were completely different, I would not be a Christian. I disagree wholeheartedly with Arch's 5, 50, or 50 million/authority contention. To be honest, Arch would you please knock it off? Just letting you know the criticisms leveled at you on this site are valid. Listen to what OMGF and others are trying to communicate to you.

But back to Lynet, what I make of the above is that I agree with EM that you put things beautifully and can always be counted on for a good answer. I particularly like "It wouldn't be useful in the same way if it could vary between people as easily as favourite colours."

My thanks to you, EM, and John Hodges who took the time to answer. Much appreciated.

These discussions aren't Atheism 101.

Most of the "objections" you raise have been dealt with in Adam's EbonMusings Atheism Pages.

Why don't you start with those? Might help get rid of the taste of shoeleather.

Actually belivers do not profess that if God did not exist we would have no way to tell what is good or no reason to refrain from selfish behavior... Believers profess that if God did not exist then we would not exist either.

Nice sweeping generalization, but ultimately untrue. I have met theists who do assert that there would be no reason not to lie, cheat, steal, murder, rape, etc. if they were to find out that god does not exist.

An important step of morality is to recognize that God created us with an ability to discern the good.

Why, and how do you know that?

What is ironic to me is that sometimes an atheist professes the same moral stance as a theist, but feels that their reason alone is what led them to their position, and that there is no moral standard of their behavior other than what they feel or what they can learn from past experience.

Please show us some evidence that god had a hand in it.

A theist recognizes God as the source of life and our human faculties, and strives to choose the good because choosing the good means choosing God who alone can fulfill us.

Thus putting the theist on a lower level of moral development.

and that if there were no God issuing commands, we would have no way to tell what was good.

For a larger majority, I think the point of contention is that if God didn't exist, there would be no reason for them to refrain from selfish, self-serving behavior whenever it suited their purposes to do so, and that religious belief gives them a reason to act morally even when it goes against their self-interest.

Actually belivers do not profess that if God did not exist we would have no way to tell what is good or no reason to refrain from selfish behavior... Believers profess that if God did not exist then we would not exist either.
An important step of morality is to recognize that God created us with an ability to discern the good. We also have a natural desire for the good and for fulfillment. What is ironic to me is that sometimes an atheist professes the same moral stance as a theist, but feels that their reason alone is what led them to their position, and that there is no moral standard of their behavior other than what they feel or what they can learn from past experience. A theist recognizes God as the source of life and our human faculties, and strives to choose the good because choosing the good means choosing God who alone can fulfill us.

Actually, Ebon, the questions I have raised are questions you have no definitive answer for, and they just don't go away. I am ready to read your answers when you are ready to explain them with definitive answers and not by explaining random experiments that have been done by atheist scientists.

The questions, I presume, are the ones where you are asking how the universe began and the like? Once again, let me remind you of a couple things. One, you don't have a definitive answer either, and to fall back on your goddidit is simply god of the gaps reasoning! If you can't understand why that is fallacious, then you are simply in over your head.

Two, no one here has stated that we have a definitive answer, yet we do have some answers. It is folly to assert that only 100% definitive answers need apply. It has been shown that life can arise from inorganic matter, which is all that is necessary to put that hypothesis on infinitely higher ground than your non-explanation ("goddidit"). Besides, once again, claiming that our ignorance necessitates your god is (cue the broken record) god of the gaps fallacious reasoning.

Three, the crack about "atheist scientists" has no bearing on anything. In science it does not matter what you believe or don't believe so long as you perform the scientific method correctly and do not introduce bias. Do you really not understand that? And, BTW, the experiments done were not random in the least. They were set up to test specific hypotheses. Your ignorance about science does not mean that it is wrong, that it is biased, or that goddidit. Perhaps you should try to learn about science before sneering at it and its practitioners simply because your wishes don't line up with reality.

Since religious ethics are based on faith...a phrase that caught my attention--never quite heard it put that way before. Is it meant as a Kierkegaardian existential faith leap, that "do unto others" is based on faith because it comes from the Bible, that a pro-life position is based on Jeremiah's claim that God knew him in the womb, that some :) atheists think that religious ethicists do not utilize reason when they contemplate ethics, that all religious ethics inhabit the nether regions beyond Kant's wall of the knowable?

To be quite honest, Quixote, I don't think most believers have thought this through in that level of detail. I think most of them simply believe that God's commands are synonymous with goodness, and that if there were no God issuing commands, we would have no way to tell what was good.

Some believers take this even to the extent you hinted at, that they would see no reason to refrain from killing and stealing if God wasn't there to tell them not to. (Or so they claim.) For a larger majority, I think the point of contention is that if God didn't exist, there would be no reason for them to refrain from selfish, self-serving behavior whenever it suited their purposes to do so, and that religious belief gives them a reason to act morally even when it goes against their self-interest.

Some definitions, from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition.

OBJECTIVE: ... in the realm of sensible experience, independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers; having reality independent of the mind.... perceptible to persons other than the affected individual... OBJECTIVISM: an ethical theory that moral good is objectively real or that moral precepts are objectively valid.

SUBJECTIVE: ... belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind;... conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states... arising out of or identified by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes.. SUBJECTIVISM: a doctrine that the supreme good is the realization of a subjective experience or feeling... a doctrine that individual feeling is the ultimate criterion of the good and the right.

ABSOLUTE: characteristic of a ruler or authority completely free of constitutional or other restraints... having no restriction, exception, or qualification... being self-sufficient and free of external references or relationships...

RELATIVE: a thing having a relation or connection with or necessary dependence on another thing... not absolute or independent... RELATIVISM: (a) a theory that knowledge is relative to the limited nature of the mind and the conditions of knowing... (b) a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them.

Notice that the two meanings of "relativism" differ in important ways. The scientific method of seeking knowledge admits that its conclusions are relative to, dependent on, the (objective) evidence gathered so far, and may be changed by new evidence. In ethics, "relativism" commonly refers to a particular view, "cultural relativism", that ethics are a matter of (subjective) individual or majority opinion. These are two different uses of the word, which must be kept distinct.

"Objective" and "absolute" are not the same, "subjective" and "relative" are not the same. Objective things can be relative, subjective opinions can be held absolutely. Religious morality, for some religions, may be "absolute" in the sense defined above- there is really only one commandment, "Obey the will of God, as reported by the priesthood." When a believer says that his morality is "absolute", it means he is resolutely determined not to apply any of his own intelligence to moral questions. When he says it is universal and unchanging, it means his morality is indifferent to the consequences of trying to follow it in the real world. He may also mean that he is willing to apply whatever force may be necessary to make everyone else bow down to his own chosen Lord.

Is religious morality "objective"? In Protestant Christianity alone there are thousands of denominations, with teachings that differ on every moral issue. There are (regarding violence) pacifists and imperialists; (regarding money) capitalists and communists, millionaires and ascetics; (regarding sex) celibates, polygamists, anti-birth-control activists, and gay churches. If the Bible is supposed to give us "objective" moral standards, it seems to be very easy to misinterpret.

Religious morality is not "objective" because it depends crucially on faith. It is not "perceptible to all observers". It requires a revelation, or at least an alleged revelation. The messenger proclaims the message, and the ordinary working stiffs who hear him have to decide if this is a real prophet, or some con artist or demagaogue who has plans to use them. After all, there is a different alleged revelation down the block. Those of us who live many centuries later have to hope the words of the prophets are reported and translated accurately, for, as Jeremiah said, "actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely". (Jer. 8:8)

For the full essay see http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/MoralityAndGod.htm

I don't claim my view of this is definitive, but perhaps it will shed some light and others can chime in.

Ebonmuse is responding to this statement from Arch:

What do you do when 5 or 50 or 50 million people reason differently about what is good or true? Who is correct? What if people believe different things about what compassion is? How can we know truth if there is no authority?

One of the most important aspects of this critique is the idea that atheist morals lack a universal objective standard by which they can be measured. When people don't agree, there is no definitive method by which to arbitrate.

By contrast, some who believe in God would say that they do not have this problem because whenever there is a dispute they can appeal to the authority of God -- in the form of "a Kierkegaardian existential faith leap, that "do unto others" is based on faith because it comes from the Bible, that a pro-life position is based on Jeremiah's claim that God knew him in the womb" or whatever other means you like!

Unfortunately, this method does not really establish a definitive, objective arbitration standard. Saying that "Morality is what is dictated by God" merely shifts the difficulty away from the question "What is morality?" to the question "What does God dictate?". Ebonmuse would like to argue that the latter question raises even more disputes than the former, and hence that if objectivity in the form of some sort of agreement is your aim, then this is not an improvement.

I would like to observe that one of the reasons we care about having some sort of objectivity in our morality (as opposed to 'meaning' and so forth where we can all make our own however we like) is because morality is to some extent based upon co-operation and/or reciprocation. It wouldn't be useful in the same way if it could vary between people as easily as favourite colours.

(Then again, Quixote, you have a completely different notion of meaning, let alone of morality, don't you? So I don't really know what you'll make of the above. But I mustn't derail the thread.)

Nurse Ingrid:

As others have said before me, if there really was a god it would be obvious. There would be no debate. And there would be no atheists.

This point has no backing. There are many, many things that people disagree about and give their own subjective view to, but that does not change the truth of a matter.

A personal god that intervenes in the world should be pretty easy to detect, yet what do those studies of prayer in healthcare show? absolutely no effect (unless the study has a methodological flaw).

It's pretty clear that there's no god answering prayers, if there were a god answering prayers we should have found evidence of that.

Then we get to the point at which a god wants to be known to us (which seems to be implied in the Christian bible and with the miracles of Christian mythology) in which case why make the proof indistinguishable from untreated schizophrenia?

I don't know exactly what you had in mind, but would like to. It seemed as though it was an important premise in your argument. I suspect that an answer is set forth at least in part in "The Ineffable Carrot..." If that's the case, no further comment necessary...

In particular I would like to read the atheist perspective regarding the claim that religious ethics are based on faith (does that mean the Bible, direct revelation, tradition, whatever any religious person happens to think at any moment).

I'm not sure I understand your question, Quixote.

And it's misleading to use the phrase "the atheist perspective." We don't have any official dogma.

My mistake & unintentional...