What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Mister Agenda]

And cats are so well known for how well they cooperate in large groups, I guess that blows the whole idea out of the water.

Don't take my word for it, do a quick google search!

I learned about it on the animal channel. I was pretty traumatized by the sight of lions killing baby lion cubs.

My point was that you missed the point. Cats aren't highly social animals. Even when they are social (as in lion prides), they're social in a very different way than canines and primates, perhaps because they haven't been at it as long. Your example doesn't contradict the point being made.

[Whateverist]

The question I have for atheists is how do we know what IS good?

You know how we are all immediately aware of so many things but only a few can be held consciously at any one time?  Well what is 'good' -or, what is more important, what will likely lose your social group's approval- is one of those things.  Now which of the countless factors our brains choose to present for conscious consideration isn't actually up to us.  It happens pre-consciously.  So rather than appeal to a master-of-the-universe (not that there is anything wrong with that), I'd like to describe the apprehension of morally significant factors as a disturbance in the force.  Evolution has resulted in conscious experience and has selected for individuals whose brains present the most salient factors for conscious consideration.

Is that a satisfactory answer?

[Godscreated]

That's the problem, don't you think?

Logically, society progresses and changes.  If god doesn't, that means he's myth.

I agree that society progresses and changes, that however doesn't mean it's for the good necessarily. Stability is needed to temper this progress for an acceptable society, so God can't change, if He did He would then be myth, a thing made up by man. What good is God if man has the power to change Him.

GC

[The Grand Nudger]

So, how about my moral truth, can you deny my moral truth?  Is your god exempt from my moral truth? Do I seem to be incapable of holding a moral truth as a moral subjectivist?

[Catholic_Lady]

There is, of course, a larger issue at play here too, which is this: how did you determine that god was good? If you're using god's morality as your epistemological road map, what criteria did you use to come to the conclusion that it was the correct map to follow? There had to have been some; you've clearly concluded that god is good, so how did you get to that point? You can't have used god's morality to determine god's morality, because the evaluation that it is good had to have happened before you had concluded that evaluation. I don't even need to point out the circular reasoning involved there, as a simple matter of chronology, you could not have come to the conclusion before you came to it.

Still would rather like an answer to this one, if you have a moment.

Like I said, unless we were brainwashed or have a mental disorder, I think we all instinctively know what is moral and what is immoral. We all know why it is immoral to hurt other people. Christianity reafirms that this is immoral, and helps me understand *why* it is. If Christianity taught that torturing children is good, for example, it would completely go against my gut instinct and I would never give it a second thought..

[The Grand Nudger]

-and without that reaffirmation would it be any more or less immoral?  Your op question is starting to seem very strange.  You, apparently, -know- how we determine what is good the same way that we know, and for the same reasons - such as they are.  So why did you ask?

You have -yourself- just claimed that gods slaughter of children and calls to genocide -must be- good, whether they are meant literally or allegorically is irelevant. God has never done anything bad, remember? Maybe you should have given it that second thought after all? I'm okay with you going with your gut (so long as you'll own that statement, and not insert a god or it's standards where your gut is doing the work). It's what I do too, of course. My gut tells me that christianity is immoral, regardless of whether or not the stories are true.

[Cato]

If Christianity taught that torturing children is good, for example, it would completely go against my gut instinct and I would never give it a second thought..

I would have used a different example if I were Catholic.

[Whateverist]

Christianity reafirms that this is immoral, and helps me understand *why* it is. If Christianity taught that torturing children is good, for example, it would completely go against my gut instinct and I would never give it a second thought..

I find this very comforting. One question, why not just go with your gut instinct? Sounds like you prize it as highly as I do mine, and probably with equal justification.

[Mystic]

They way I look at it, is that goodness is something spiritual that is tied to your spiritual value. We value people who good and we believe their goodness increases their value. This shows we inherit our actions and that there is a metaphysical reality to our actions and soul. The nature of goodness is spiritual, and hence it proves a spiritual reality. It's nature is also eternal and proves an eternal reality and origin. All possible goodness levels are only possible because there is ultimate goodness which is the basis to all possible levels.

To me this is a manifest fact. I've debated the issue here from different angles. I believe our rights derive from spiritual value, and spiritual value of ours derives from ultimate value. There being possible levels of spiritual value to the extent there is no limit to it, is only due to ultimate value as it's basis.

Ultimately the world trial and the evils and tribulations of this world is so we inherit spiritual value of love, honor, and goodness. The beauty in such souls that inherit good actions is worth the trial specially since the trial is only temporary and is nothing when compared to eternity.

Goodness is a proof of God because it's his light and stems from eternal reality. It manifests spiritual value which is metaphysical and living reality, not just a mere concept within our minds.

An argument I've never seen a good refutation to:

If God can determine morality to be anything he wants, then it would be arbitrary.
Morality is not arbitrary.
Therefore God cannot determine morality to be anything he wants.
This shows morality is eternal, because if God couldn't create it from nothing and determine it, then neither can evolution as he can create evolution.
Morality must exist with a mind. 
An Eternal mind therefore exists.

[Whateverist]

Calling things spiritual obfuscates more than it explains anything.