Conflicting statements in the bible

[Sal]

Our conceptions of what is good come from judgments we make about the various states of affairs. We compare these with each other, find common features, and conceive a universal category of goodness. Since those common features accord with attributes of God, God serves a universal standard.

All through reasoned discourse and experience without ever invoking an authority on who's right.

Except, who gets to decide what attribute is of god and its "universal standard"? The pope? Your local priest? The Council of Nicea?

If it's agreements from judgments about the state of affairs - then it's merely a human consensus. No god needed.

Thus you either accept God as the standard or you do not. "Choose this day whom ye shall serve." Should you obey God? Its up to you. Choose wisely.

How would I be able to determine if that standard is arbitrary or not?

Again, if I simply "obey", then I wouldn't know whatever authority (those speaking in behalf of god, e.g. priests) would be good or bad - somewhere down the line, no matter how much one dodges, one is effectively using ones own ability to reason to determine what is moral without ever invoking a god or any authority other than ones own reason, lest one submits to authority and in effect following commands, not a morality.

---

Personally, I think morality is derived from our interaction with our immediate environment, in particular those who respond to stimuli (from a plant to another human being). I don't think this interaction gives in any sense an objective morality, but merely that the interaction with the immediate environment shapes my moral values and (cultural) ethic. My main tool for this is comparison between own stimuli with the stimuli I can see in my immediate environment. We have more asserted names for these stimuli like "joy" "suffering" and whatnot, and since I receive no stimuli response from, e.g., a stone, I can only reason that it has no moral value (no offence to people with pet rocks).