Euthyphros dilemma...

[houseofcantor]

God ain't good.
/dilemma.

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Life and love are the basis of all good.

Nope. Life and love are chemistry.

You cannot be good without God even though you think you can be.

That's kinda like saying Zagyag created language so you cannot speak without Zagyag. Which is silly. Inclusion of extraneous variables is without bound.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Life and love are the basis of all good. Since god is life-itself and love-itself it follows that all secular morality ultimately derives from God. You cannot be good without God even though you think you can be.

Except that would mean that you would have to define god and then demonstrate that it exists and that it has those properties. Something that has never been done.

Why don't you start by demonstrating that anything of moral value does not derive from the intrinsic value of life and love...with or without God.

@ house...and the moral import of chemistry, Mr. Heisenberg.

[houseofcantor]

@ house...and the moral import of chemistry, Mr. Heisenberg.

Chemicals in the brain make us feel good when cooperating.

Here, we show that the neurotransmitter serotonin directly alters both moral judgment and behavior through increasing subjects’ aversion to personally harming others. We enhanced serotonin in healthy volunteers with citalopram (a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and contrasted its effects with both a pharmacological control treatment and a placebo on tests of moral judgment and behavior. We measured the drugs' effects on moral judgment in a set of moral 'dilemmas' pitting utilitarian outcomes (e.g., saving five lives) against highly aversive harmful actions (e.g., killing an innocent person). Enhancing serotonin made subjects more likely to judge harmful actions as forbidden, but only in cases where harms were emotionally salient.

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/40/17433

Just one of many studies which indicate morality derives from chemistry.

[Neo-Scholastic]

So you side with the utilitarians? That still leaves open the question of what makes good good. What makes the biological imperative to increase population an inherently moral value?

[houseofcantor]

Consensus makes good good.

And the consensus is changing about unchecked population growth.

[Neo-Scholastic]

And who's concensus has authority? The state? The tribe? The mob? And just how is the content of said concensus determined? By vote? The name of the king?

[houseofcantor]

Nope, more like that consensus and chemistry continually reference each other. Slavery was part of the natural order of things before individuals began to re-evaluate their nature, leading to a new consensus.

[Chas]

And who's concensus has authority? The state? The tribe? The mob? And just how is the content of said concensus determined? By vote? The name of the king?

All of the above - it's called the zeitgeist.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Zeitgeist? What a joke! That doesn't even count as a real answer.

[Simon Moon]

And who's concensus has authority? The state? The tribe? The mob? And just how is the content of said concensus determined? By vote? The name of the king?

The consensus is what is agreed upon that would contribute to the well being of the maximum number of people, and be detrimental to the well being of the minimum number.

The above can be agreed upon by empathetic, rational, critical thinking people.

The parameters should be based on the following; life is preferable to death, comfort is preferable to pain, health is preferable to disease, freedom is preferable to slavery, etc.

The above may not always lead to the correct answer to every circumstance and situation, but at least it is a framework to critically examine possibly complex moral dilemmas.

In a theist beliefs, morality is an edict from a god.

I don't seem to remember when your god cam down and corrected Exodus 21. It sure wasn't in the New Testament where the Jesus character tells Christians to obey their masters, even the cruel ones.