(March 16, 2015 at 12:29 pm)Esquilax Wrote: how do theists initially determine that the morality espoused by their chosen deity is good, sufficient to adopt that morality as their own?
I think they never think about it.
Good things are self-evidently good and they're good because everyone else says so and everyone else says so because god "must" have put that thought in everyone's minds.
The initial part here is where most of us around here do take the time to think about it, read about others' guesses and form an opinion about how we think mankind, as it evolved from wild animals to societal groups, also evolved a form of inherent compassion for each other in the group.
If you refuse to accept the evidence hinting toward this evolution, then you're stuck with an arbitrary starting point where morality is already in place and no mechanism to account for such a complex behavioral code seemingly "self-evident".... hence, the ultimate answer to any gap in knowledge: god.
