What is the point of morality if you're a theist?

[Esquilax]

When I hear the "what's the point of doing good" question from a theist, what I hear them actually saying is "if I didn't have a god watching over me commanding me to do so, I would be out raping and murdering." It's an admittance that the only thing holding them back from being a complete sociopath is the retribution they believe they would receive for being so, and that is acting out of pure self-interest. The atheist that does good for the sake of doing good can be considered more moral than the theist that does it simply because of the whims of their deity.

That's partly why I created the thread: you're absolutely right that that's how it comes across at first blush, but when confronted with it, miracle of miracles, the theist is suddenly able to come up with plenty of reasons sans god for their moral behavior. Because morality does correspond with reasonable behavior within context, for the most part.

The type of theist who would ask that question generally relies upon a lack of self reflection to maintain their position, because just a cursory glance at religion shows that it rarely has solutions for the problems it highlights in secular morality. Their god must have reasons for its pronouncements, and since there's no necessity for god, it doesn't need anything it can't create, there's no reason for god to do anything, beyond the limitations of the physical world. Rules and strictures don't make sense in a realm where anything is possible, after all.

There's this great Discworld book, Monstrous Regiment, that has the other kind of god in it, the kind that makes pronouncements based on nothing at all, prohibiting all sorts of things based only on his whims. That god was characterized as fucking insane.

I submit there's a reason for that.