A Levite and his concubine

[Esquilax]

You're judging the morality of God and people in the bible, so I'd like to know where you get your authority to judge others by your moral standards. It doesn't make me right, but it shows by what authority you judge. Is it by an ultimate moral authority that you are judging or is just your individual preference?

And as I've pointed out, not only is authority entirely irrelevant to morality, but to appeal to authority in the stead of an actual real world justification is entirely circular. I can easily point to a murder and detail the reasons why it's immoral: it has terminally harmed a person, chief among them. Your response seems to be that it's preferable to refer to god rather than those real world consequences, that "murder is immoral because god says so," is a better answer than mine, but why actually is that?

Who the hell is god, and what makes him such an authority? What makes his commandments necessarily better than my judgment? Because he says they're better? That's circular.

For that matter, from whence does god derive his moral judgments? Is a thing immoral just because god says it is? Is his authority the only justification on which the morality of an act leans? If that's the case, morality is just fiat declaration to you, and it's ultimately completely meaningless, as god's authority could be used to turn an act you understand to be immoral today, moral tomorrow. In that scenario no action is inherently good or bad, their moral status depends on god's opinion that day, and it is you who has no stable method of judging morality.

Or is it that god's moral judgments are based on something else, that god actually has reasons why certain acts are immoral and others are moral? If so, then we're left with another trio of options; the first is that god's moral judgments are based on his aversion to sins, but that's no better than fiat declaration, as it leaves morality solely down to god's personal opinions based on things he finds icky. Not a terribly wonderful basis for morality.

The second option is that god's moral judgments are based on real things, like the consequences, potential benefits and harms of an action. In which case, god has reasons which correspond to real world effects and realities, and they would be well within my ability to determine and analyze too, if they are truly moral. If god's morality really is limited to the sanitized, feelgood stuff that modern christianity pretends it is, and lacks the barbarism they make excuses for, then not only should I be able to determine what is and is not moral in the same way that god does, but my determinations should be entirely amenable to you because they would be the same ones that god came to, if our morals happen to align for reasons that are logical. In short, if I come to a moral judgment you happen to agree with (murder is wrong) and I list reasons why (it hurts people) wouldn't that reason be the same one god is using? Or isn't it good enough, and why?

The third option is that god has reasons, but we as human beings are unable to understand them. In which case I can dismiss all god related justifications for morality out of hand; if we can't understand them then you have no good reason to accept them beyond fiat demand, and we're done.

So what's the answer Lek? Where does god's authority come from, why should I recognize it, and what reasons does he have for coming to the decisions he has?