A Levite and his concubine

[Esquilax]

Basically, you've said the same thing that I said--"I believe".

Don't mistake my unwillingness to be rude and speak for everyone, for an admission that my position is some subjective fantasy.

That's because you have no objective evidence to support your claim.

Are you kidding me? I have no objective evidence to show that human beings are biological entities? That they work from roughly the same physical set up? That pain signals injury, and that sickness causes us to suffer? That reality is a thing?

Are you seriously telling me that we have no objective evidence that demonstrates these things to be true? And if not, then you're just factually wrong here.

Many get along just fine trampling other people down; in fact they prosper by worldly standards.

Yes, I know; people violate moral rules. But morality isn't a question of single examples, is it? It's not "Oh, someone can commit murder and get away with it, I guess murder is moral then." Morality concerns the whole of humanity, not individual members of it. If it was acceptable for everyone to commit immoral acts and benefit from the suffering of others, would the world be objectively better, or worse?

I can't see any possible argument for the claim that promoting suffering causes society to improve. Single exceptions do not render general rules unworkable. We can fly in planes, it doesn't mean gravity ceases to exist.

Others lead moral lives and live in misery. The framework of reality shows that people can prosper by living immoral lives.

Sure, individuals can. It's an unfortunate consequence of being alive. But if everyone led immoral lives, if it was morally acceptable to do so, the world would be demonstrably worse off, and in fact society itself may become untenable.

Prosperous societies are full of immoral people. Actually, I agree that if everyone followed the obvious moral standards, it would be better for society as a whole, but I don't believe that you can derive that from the natural reality of who we are as a species.

Why not? Don't just say it, justify it. Because I bet you I could come up with a naturalistic justification for any moral or immoral act you care to mention. Why can't you?

In fact, it goes against our natural tendencies as human beings. We're born with selfish natures and are all fighting the natural desire to do what is best for ourselves.

Not entirely true: altruism, relationship building and charity are also central parts of our natural behavior. You can even see it in other animals.

In fact, your claim is fairly baselessly misanthropic, here. It would take me but a moment to supply you with charities, stories of self sacrifice and bravery, lots of evidence to the contrary. In fact, I myself volunteer as a tutor to teach people to read. It doesn't benefit me in any way, but my psychology is wired to feel happiness at helping others, and the same is generally true for other people too. Yes, you get jerks and selfishness and villainy, but that's just testament to the fact that people aren't just a homogenous single character trait; we're a chaotic patchwork of heuristics and shortcuts programmed into what is, at best, an overclocked primate brain. This is exactly what you would expect if morality was a learning process derived from natural realities, and exactly what you would not expect in a world where morality is an iron clad set of dictates from the opinions of a god.

Go ahead and brush that off as a result of sin. I know you want to. But your unsupported, ad hoc rationalizations carry no weight until you can demonstrate the existence of sin, and sinful natures.

When someone is struggling against stealing some money, he's not thinking to himself how he would destroy the framework of society if he does, but he has something inside him telling him that it is wrong.

Yes, and that thing inside him is called "empathy and enculturation." He is empathetic to the harm he will cause the person he steals from- he himself wouldn't want someone to steal from him, so why should he be able to steal from someone else?- and this is reinforced by the fact that he was born and raised in a culture that prizes that empathy, and denigrates those who steal.

It's simple stuff, but you have to be looking at the real world and how people actually work, rather than searching for magic answers to fit a conclusion you've already decided was correct, because it's in a book you like.

Our morality comes from outside of ourselves and it's not inherent to our nature.

Simply untrue. All of the psychological and behavioral research says otherwise, and you don't seem to even want to support what you say, so... why should I even entertain your wild, baseless claims?