Argument from Conscience

[Kingpin]

It seems no one has answered this question, so I'll repeat it. (To be fair, Kingpin and CL answered a similarly worded example before indicating that they would reject god's morality under some circumstances. I don't however understand their justification for doing so.)

Scenario to all theists:

God shows up and announces to everyone in the world that we need to know what is moral and what is not, things have not been clear enough up to this point.

"Murder and rape are moral. Helping people is immoral. Everything else is neither moral or immoral. Bye."

Now. Will you live by this moral code? It's the universal moral code, we just didn't know exactly what it was until now. Would you be fine with me murdering and raping your family? If not, on what grounds can you object? God just said it's moral, and he is the only authority.

I know this kind of question is difficult, because either answer has big problems. That's the point of me asking it. If you can't answer a simple hypothetical question, that implies a problem with your belief system. If you think the question is loaded, then please explain why it is loaded.

Also, no theists have attempted to address the below either, unless I missed it.

Slippery use of the word "moral". If an outside agency is just handing out instructions about what is and isn't moral, then the distinction is arbitrary from our point of view unless we have some way to evaluate the items on the lists. It may as well be "apple" actions and "banana" actions. The agent could reverse the lists, or mix them up, and they would still be "moral" and "immoral", because it says so. If we have no way to measure "morality" ourselves, then we can't possibly know what these lists mean and are just mindlessly taking orders.

Of course, the implication is that these lists also just happen to coincide with what are helpful and harmful actions from our point of view; in other words, the morality of consequences. That's the slippery part. There is no way to deduce such a correlation without analysing the lists ourselves and confirming the actions are actually in the right list. To just announce the lists must be right because the outside agent is always right because it says it's always right is circular reasoning. I don't give a fuck if outside agent X tells me that biting everyone I see in the street is "moral". Unless I can have it explained to me why I should do this, I'm not going to do it, because I know it is harmful.

"God" morality has it all backwards. It's simply observing the common ground we tend to find in our own morality, declaring this to be amazing and labelling it magic. It's not amazing at all, or even surprising, if you study evolution. It's no use announcing that there "must be a correct moral standard", because that doesn't mean there actually is one; and even if there was, it becomes "apples" and "oranges" again if we can't assess it ourselves. That's if we had had any way to find out what it is, which we don't. We have millions of people all with their own interpretation of "objective religious morality" and no way to show who is "right" without looking at the consequences of actions. Assessing consequences is going to vary from person to person. That is the reality, whether people accept it or not. Morality is not a simple matter of good and evil actions as religion would like to have us believe. We live forever in the grey area.

Rob, 

I'm going to answer and hope you can understand where I'm coming from in this.

In answer to the first scenario, as I stated before, I would not do that because that goes against the greatest commandments to love your neighbor as yourself.

Second, I actually agree with you that we as humans live in the grey area for moral actions.  This does not remove God from the equation however.  You are reading "morality from God" as an infinite list of do's/do not's.  God has set forth a blueprint for life that he has designed to bring us the most fulfillment.  Treating others as we would treat ourselves.  Now of course this does open it up to interpretation.  People certainly decide for themselves.  However, this does not mean that objective morals do not exist only that we subjectively assess them to suit us.  Ever see on an airplane bathroom the sign next to the smoke detector?  Don't tamper, touch, disengage, destroy, etc.  Why don't they say don't mess with it?  Because while that should be implied, people redefine the word "mess".  

The important part though is this.  No one is moral in God's eyes.  There is nothing you can do to be perfect in God's eyes.  That is why Jesus came to fulfill the law and pay the consequence of sin (death), and whoever believes in the work he did on the cross is right in God's eyes. 

I will come straight out and say IVF is not a sin.  I don't agree with the Catholic church here.  The sacredness comes in the life of the child.  The process for conception is still the same and results in a child.  However we are not judged on our sin, because if we were, we would all go to Hell.  We are judged on our belief in Jesus and our desire to turn away from sin (even though we fail).