Another 'moral' Christian..

The following is a response to a Christian who claimed that I, as an atheist, had no grounds on which to claim that an objective morality exists. He also went on to attempt to justify the slavery, genocide, and rape that god commands in the Bible.

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Morality is a pretty easy word to throw around. It should be obvious that in order to discuss morality, we must define it. After all, a statement like "If there is NO God, there is no BASIS for morality. PERIOD!!" is meaningless if we have two different ideas of what 'morality' means.

So I'll start by critiquing some common definitions.
We could take a naive approach, and say that morality is doing what god says to do. This, of course, creates the Euthyphro dilemma, of which I'm sure you are aware. Are god's orders good because god says so? If so, might makes right. Or are his orders good because they are part of a class of actions that promote well-being? If so, god is irrelevant in morality. Please don't feel like you need to respond to this dilemma. I haven't yet read any argument that fully resolves the issue, so I don't expect you'd be the first to do so. But even beyond that, I don't think any moral action taken due to a command on high is worthy of the label "moral".

We could view morality as a selective task between doing actions that are wrong and doing actions that are right. This requires that one is able to distinguish between a right and wrong action. To this end, several religions have created lists of actions that are right, and lists of actions that are wrong. These lists, which they claim come from god, form the basis of their claim to objective morality. This claim of objective morality remains especially popular among apologists, such as yourself. But what a useless and dangerous idea this is! I'd strongly oppose the formation of any such list. Consider the currently most popular of such lists: the ten commandments. Some of these rules are generally good ideas. But not always!
The 8th commandment prohibits theft. But what if the thief has stolen an antidote from a dictator bent on introducing poison into the water supply of a slum? Was stealing wrong?
The 5th commandment says to honor one's father and mother. But what if one's father is a child molester? Or what if one's mother is addicted to heroin and sells the body of her 12 year old daughter in order to buy drugs? Should they be honored?
The 6th commandment says thou shall not kill. My work here is already done by the conservative Christians who have already mentally manipulated "thou shall not kill" and "turn the other cheek" to allow them to support the execution of criminals.
Clearly, lists are worthless. The moral action is situational. Knowing the moral action requires reflection on the circumstances and possible outcomes; not a handy-dandy list of do's and don'ts.

So if morality isn't just whatever god says, and isn't a list of right and wrong actions, what is it? Morality is a set of conditions which allows for the maximum well-being for the maximum number of living beings. Remember, I believe that an objective morality exists. You were quick to spot I used the word "acknowledged". I choose my words more carefully than you give me credit for!

I said that an objective morality exists. I never said we had access to it.
Consider this analogy:
Imagine that the goal of humankind was to construct the tallest building possible in the shortest time possible. Such an endeavor would probably drain Earth of all its natural resources. This would be a massive task, requiring several levels of detailed strategy. There has to be one architectural design which could produce the tallest height. There must be one single way for people and resources to move the most effective and efficiently. There must be one location on Earth best suited as ground zero for this project. Sure, there are probably going to be several suggestions that seem equally reasonable. But we're talking about the strategy that actually works best, not out ability to recognize or conceive of that strategy. That strategy is objective; it exists without coming from any one or anything and without being recognized by any one or anything. Our task, then, is the endeavor to subjectively discover what that objective best strategy is, to the best of our ability.
The same is true of morality. There is most definitely one set of conditions here on Earth that could produce the greatest well-being for the greatest number of people. Those conditions are objective; they exist without coming from anyone or anything and without being recognized by any one or anything. Our human moral task is to create subjective moralities which we believe correspond most closely to that single objective moral reality.
It's the same with knowledge, and moral knowledge is a just another form of knowledge.

So far, I've only defined morality and shown how an objectively true morality can exist without a god. I haven't actually said anything about how one goes about constructing their personal morality, or about what actions I believe to be moral.
There's no clear method of determining right and wrong which is guaranteed to always yield results which are actually objectively morally correct. Evolutionary instinct, the ability to reason abstractly about justice and fairness, and empathy are among the best tools at our disposal. Humans, unfortunately, have used some of the worst methods of making such determinations; namely, trial-and error. Slavery is a good example because humanity so clearly and radically changed it view on it relatively recently.
On a related side note, if you're going to be dishonest about what the Bible says, be aware that I can read as well as you (I just do so through a less distorted lens). God orders the Jews to commit genocide, sparing no man or child, and slicing open the stomachs of pregnant women, but allowing his soldiers to keep the virgin women for themselves. Not only does god condone slavery, he gives commands on who one can enslave, how long you can enslave them for, how to mark them as your property, and how often and severely you can beat them. It's absurd, dishonest, and childish to claim the bible doesn't say what I can plainly read, or that it must be interpreted differently. The bible was the rallying-cry for Southern slave-owners who invoked their god-given right to own other people as property. The fact that you can find and list some sentences that seem to contradict the clear biblical commands on slavery is not a license to claim those other verses weren't serious. It's simply an obvious indication of the history of the bible as a collection of books from different authors, in different times, with different values. Of course they're going to contradict! Your attempt to spin the bible in light of your modern moral view reminds of George Bernard Shaw: "No man ever thinks the bible means what it says; he is always convinced it says what he means."


It seems all that's left is the issue of what, specifically, I find to be moral. But, what is the point in that? I, unlike many religious folk, am not going to tell you what's right and expect that you obey it. Your moral quest is one of discovery and is necessarily personal. To that end, I feel it is much more helpful to me to share what breaks my heart about you.
You're clearly a smart person who's invested much time in being able to provide reasons for your beliefs. It greatly depresses me, then, to see such intellect and work going to justify something so obviously and universally evil. I think an alien from another galaxy would be able to easily tell that genocide is evil; that the killing of children and babies is evil; that the raping of captured women and the ripping open of pregnant stomachs is evil.

And yet you defend it, because your god said to do it.

Don't you see that you've sacrificed your humanity, your ability to empathize and love and feel and care and respect other people and their right to life, when you seek to justify genocide? Your defenses are depressingly weak. "They blasphemed; they disobeyed; they were violent". Wow. So what? God created people with the free will to disobey him, but if they exercise that free will, gee, he just might have to kill pregnant women and children?
This is a morally disgusting, detestable, unspeakable form of evil. And to see a smart, hard-working, modern person say that 'no, it's actually ok' breaks my heart. I'm literally choking back tears. I don't care if it's an animal, human, or god taking the action:
Killing a child is wrong.
Killing an infant is wrong.
Cutting open the belly of a pregnant women and throwing out the fetus is wrong.
Keeping virgins for the soldiers is wrong.

You know these things to be true. I know that you know they're true.

You're telling me that the ONLY way the all-powerful, all-knowing, and supposedly benevolent creator of the universe could deal with sin was to order the mass extermination of men, women, and children?
You're smarter than that.

If god appeared to me, told me that every bit of the bible was true, and asked me to worship him, I'd give him the finger for the evils he had done and commanded.
That's the moral action.
Don't be a slave. Don't be a coward. Don't sacrifice your morality.