Replacing Religious Morality

[Esquilax]

Well, the objective godless argument sinks before it hits the pond. Everyone figures out their own morals? From deep inside them? Like, "I don't know, its just hard to explain. I know it to be true and so it is for me."

What does that sound like to you? Like someone talking about GOD?

Ah, come on, brother: don't oversimplify like that.

We live in a physical universe that has constants, right? I mean, we can know things to be true about how we interact with the world and respond to stimuli; we know that humans don't like pain for a number of (obvious, I should think) reasons, we know humans don't like dying for similar reasons, and on the flipside we value those things that allow us to live stable and comfortable lives. There's your basis right there.

The trick is this: try to develop a moral system for yourself, without knowing the position you'll be in once it's enacted. You've got a natural empathy for your fellow man that has elevated us to dominance on the planet, but if that's not enough of a reason to follow moral precepts, imagine the risk of those bad things you're thinking of doing happening to you in a world where nobody does.

You don't like pain? Nobody does, by definition! Great, now you have an objective moral right there: inflicting pain (we can add some qualifiers for the masochists in the room) is immoral. You don't want to die? Most people don't, so let's go there too!

It's actually quite easy to start small, with those few things we know about humans, their welfare and interactions, and construct a moral system from there that, with adjustments made for context, functions pretty damn well.