Morality

[vulcanlogician]

A few things here,

Good is an external reality, that tells us that we ought to be Good, endows moral obligations and duties upon us, served as its own moral authority. Sounds very much like a God to me, but not to you?

In fact in Plato’s conception the Good is the author of everything beautiful and right.

Okay. Plato is talking about the sun in the line you quoted, not God. (Though the sun is a metaphor for the form of the Good). The Jowett translation (though poetic in places) has some confusing language in it.

Here is the same line from a different translation (G.M.A. Grube):

"And at this point he would infer and conclude that the sun provides the seasons and the years, governs everything in the visible world, and is in some way the cause of all the things he used to see."

Let's unpack this a bit. The "he" to which Plato refers is the one who has escaped the confines of the cave. Before, he was unaware of the influence of the sun on the phenomena that he perceived to be real when he was trapped inside the cave. Now that he has left the cave (and seen the sun) he knows that many (and in a way, ALL) of the things he used to see were, in fact caused by the sun.

The thing to remember is, what he (the escapee) took to be real before was not real. When he leaves the cave, he not only begins to realize what he saw before was an illusion, he also sees the Truth behind the illusion. He sees the reality that created all that smoke and mirrors which he (formerly) took to be real.

PS: Are you avoiding the Euthyphro argument?