Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarste
Anyway, atheists generally have some secular philosophy of morality, of which there are an absurd number to choose from (the philosophy of secular morality has been discussed since ~500 BC at the very least; the Greeks even had a simple "proof" that morality must exist prior to God). The most basic of course is "treat others in the way you'd like to be treated" or some derivation of that.
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There's no such thing as secular morality. Ethics is secular in and of itself, which you indicated. The divine command and natural law theories have been dismissed long ago. Any theist claiming morality comes only from religion is simply uneducated, and shouldn't be paid attention to.
It was Socrates who asked the following: "Is conduct right because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is right?"
Both ways lead to serious difficulty. If something is right simply because god has commanded it, than anything would have been okay prior to god making it a rule, including murder and lying. So from an objective standpoint, god could've just as easily chosen things the other way around and murder would be completely alright, which goes against human reason. Therefore it's more likely morals are derived from reason, not god given. Otherwise all atheists would be murdering.
If you go the other way, there must be some kind of "rightness" that exists independently of god, which he in his almighty wisdom has acknowledged to be right and therefore commands it. However this view is quite secular since god wouldn't actually be the almighty creator. Morality would somehow be greater than god.