What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Catholic_Lady]

Isis thinks it's ok and even good to kill infidels. But they are wrong. It is never moral to murder someone, and that is what it is regardless of what anyone may think. That's what I mean when I say it is a universal truth.

Really? So go tell that to your evangelical brethren in christ, who repeatedly call for killing gays and transgender people.

There's only a very thin layer of society preventing these people to act out on the very same vile impulses as ISIS. The only difference being the god franchise. And sometimes that layer breaks. Then some abortion doctor is killed or 87 people on the island of utoya. And please, don't come with the "no true scotsman" argument of Anders Bervik Brejvik not being a christian. He claimed to do what he did in the name of christianity against islam.

So christianity certainly isn't a safety belt against human depravity. And I'm not even speaking about catholic priests raping children - yet.

Wow, I don't know of any Christian who believes killing people for being gay or transgender is good.
I don't know how they can think that if it's so against the teachings of Christ.
If I ever come across any Christian who believes this, I will definitely say something! 

Luckily, only 8 abortion doctors have been murdered in the past 40 years. It definitely isn't some sort of prevalent Christian belief!

I 100% agree with your assertion that "christianity isn't a safety belt against human depravity." Humans beings are never perfect and are still capable of doing bad things, even if they are Christians. And there are bad seeds in every group.

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To answer your questions:

1. We believe that God's laws establish moral/immoral, since we believe that He is the master of the universe.

So if god decided to invert the current moral status quo, so that everything good became bad and vice versa, you would suddenly change your beliefs entirely and your moral system would do a one-eighty?

Too many christians avoid this question by saying god wouldn't do that, but please don't; it's a hypothetical, it doesn't have to happen in real life.

Well, it depends on which parts of the bible you are referring too. Christianity defines itself by the New Testament. The gospels, and the teachings of Christ. From that, you will most definitely see that the things you listed above are contrary to Christian teaching.

But the old testament is still the same god, yes? All that evil stuff is still in his past.

A big part of my belief in God is my belief that He is unchanging. So if He "changed" things like that, He wouldn't be the God I thought I knew. And of course, I wouldn't change my beliefs regarding morality.

Yes, the OT is the same God, but the people of the time and who wrote the OT did not fully understand Him. This is part of the reason why Jesus came. To show us what God is really like and how we should really be. Jesus himself talked about this multiple times, most famously when he said "You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.'[url=http://biblehub.com/matthew/5-39.htm][/url] But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."

That is why so many Jews of that era did not accept Jesus. Because their understanding of God was so different from what Jesus brought to the table. They wanted someone who would fight and help them kill off the Romans as they believed was the right thing to do. Jesus told them differently.