(March 12, 2015 at 5:36 pm)SteveII Wrote: All the arguments based on "it is not really in our best interest to be selfish" only provides subjective morality and not any objective framework that goes beyond a certain sets of conditions. Depending on the society we live in, you can get wide variations of opinion between the "morality" of a host of actions.
How do you define "good" as in someone as a "good person"? In other contexts, we define something is "good" by how well it achieves its purpose. With naturalism, people have no intrinsic purpose--they are an assembly of atoms that experienced an unlikely chain of events. Morality becomes a matter of opinion and is relative and/or subjective. You can't leap from the "is" to the "ought".
In our evolution, was it always wrong to murder, rape or steal? Animals do these acts every single day without being "evil". Did the unlikely leap to self-awareness suddenly endow us with a moral framework when a moment before it had not (or not to the same extent)? Would this not be proof of the subjective nature of morality.
Some of you have mentioned societal goals (or any goals) that can help get from the is to the ought. What if someone does not want those goals--has no desire to do what others consider "good"? There is no objective grounds for saying that person is "bad". Of course everything goes smoother when everyone cooperated and does not kill, harm or steal. But that does not define what is good and thereby create an "ought".
For these reason, atheism seems to me to lead you to moral anti-realism (moral nihilism).
However, we all ACT like there is objective morality. Baby studies indicate that we are born with a rudimentary moral sense. Why do people engage in self-sacrifice for others (even to the point of death)--sometimes for people he/she has not met? This is certainly not biological evolution speaking.
Do we all act like there is objective morality because it is convenient or expedient or is there really objective morality? If there really is objective morality, it did not come by naturalistic means.
If you watch two people engaging in what you would define a moral act, how could you possibly tell whether the person was acting on an objective moral or a subjective moral? Seems to me you are just tagging everything you observe as moral with the 'objective' tag.
Let's back up shall we? If I'm not mistaken your argument goes something like this:
1. There are objective moral facts
2. God is a reasonable explanation for the existence of objective moral fact.
3. Therefore, God exists.
You can't demonstrate the existence of moral facts; therefore, your argument is valid, but unsound.
Be careful about your comparisons to other animals. Strong arguments can be made that our behavior and morality is closer to chimps than chimps are to barnacles. Our infants possessing the rudiments of moral decision making buttresses an evolutionary origin more than it does a divine origin.
You should think some of this through.