What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Aoi Magi]

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Sorry that I won't be able to read through the 15 pages of discussion. But replying to OP, good isn't "universal" because the concept of "good" and "evil" is man-made. For example, you mentioned "murder" as universal truth, however murder IS part of nature, and nature doesn't see it as good or bad. Animals have to murder each other in order to survive, even non-living matter will need to murder each other to make progress, like galaxies swallowing up other galaxies. We determine what is good or bad through our own perspective, and yes, it is subjective. Let's say in our society murder is wrong, but what if a psychopath tries to murder your children? Would killing her in self-defence as a last resort still be wrong? When a lion kills a deer, from the lion's perspective it is doing good because it is ensuring the survival of it's pride, but from the deer's perspective it is evil... from our perspective it is neither good nor evil because that is how nature works.

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Thank you for the response, Aoi.

Killing in self defense is not wrong, I agree with you there. What would you say about societies that believe killing is good? Let's use Isis as a current example. They are a whole society and culture of people who believe that killing infidels is good. Would you say that since they believe this is moral, they are thus acting morally? Or do you think they are definitively acting immorally even if they believe otherwise. I think my takeaway from this discussion is that most atheists do not believe in moral truths.

The keyword here would be what I think. From my perspective, yes it is wrong, but from their perspective it is not. As I said before too, morality depends on situation and perspective, and thus it IS NOT an absolute universal truth.

Your takeaway is wrong, almost every atheist I know believes in morality, they just don't believe that their morality is the absolute truth or universally correct.