I'd like to say, IA has made a very good argument.
Uh, no. Why on earth would I bother trying to explain my beliefs to someone who is so happy to put me in a box and tell me what I believe? I'm sure it will come out at some point and you'll have ample opportunity to poke holes in my evidence, but here, now, with you? No.
In other words....And excuse me if I'm mistaken......It seems like you refuse to make positive claims, because then those claims could be challenged.
There is a bit of a double standard. Before you can claim your morality as 'absolute universal truth', you need to show evidence that it is.
The fact is, Morality is never 'absolute universal truth'. Never, even if there is a god it wouldnt be.
To quote Paradise Lost:
* A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n
If Satan's morality differs from god's it is Proof, that morality is not absolute or universal.
To bring it back to the real world, If my morality differs from god's definitions it is proof that it is not 'absolute universal truth'
Made worst by the fact that almost nobody can even agree on what god's absolute perfect morality is.
There is no universal absolute morality anymore than there is universal absolute tasty food.
I have no problem with saying it is 'What ever rocks your boat', since that is what it is. For example, Helping old people 'rocks my boat'. It truely does not matter if there is a god or not.
Since there are moral standards independent of God, then morality would retain its authority even if God did not exist.
This goes back to an ol chestnut of the Euthyphro dilemma:
"Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?"
Which in itself raises the questions
If there are moral standards independent of God's will, then there is something over which God is not sovereign.
If there is no moral standard other than God's will, then God's commands are arbitrary (i.e., based on pure whimsy or caprice). This arbitrariness would also mean that anything could become good, and anything could become bad, merely upon God's command.
There is also a bit of 'cart before horse'. Would you believe in a god who commanded you to rape babies? Would the baby raping part play a part in your conclusion not to believe this religion is true? What objective reason would you have to make that jdgement?
For an atheist and his 'morality', there quite simply is no evidence and he knows it. And yet he goes around complaining that there is a lack of evidence for God. Quite astonishing hypocrisy.
Sparky, there is evidence...the evidence is Me. I exist, I can think stuff up. This is self evident.
Morality does not require a definitive normative sense [much less a supernatural one] to exist, this is again, demostratively true.
Since I exist, any moral argument I make automatically wins by default....If my opposition does not exist.
Topic: Future of religion