Matthew T

and they could change it at any time for any reason. And that each person prescribes their own penalty for breaking that law. Would "law of the land" have any meaning?

If so, then how could morality be based upon society and/or evolution (as so many atheists claim). If not so, they why do atheists keep dwelling on slavery and treatment of gays that happened thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away?

Suppose you were living in what is now California in the year 1769 when Father Junipero Serra founded Mission San Diego. He and his fellow missionaries are peaceful and kind but within a few years, the native Americans are essentially slaves to the Spanish. Why? Because behind those peaceful missionaries was an entire culture of conquest and exploitation. Would you have voted to allow the Spanish in?

Many atheists have said on this forum that they rejected their parent''s faith in God when they were pre-teens. Once that decision is made, confirmation bias is going to constantly harden that position. Of course, this also applies to those who accepted faith at some early age.

Is there a way to do that while making morality neither self-serving nor arbitrary?

Suppose your building was on fire and you had absolutely no evidence that any door or window would open. Wouldn't you search for an exit with the belief that you would succeed (because not succeeding means death)? Or would you just sit down and bravely resign yourself to death because there is no evidence that you would succeed?

Suppose there was a drug that would cause us all to want to help each other. (We would get spectacular sensations of happiness when we helped someone.) Would our actions under the influence of that drug be considered moral actions? Or does morality require reason and free will?```````````````

But for comparison, suppose you only got to experience sex one time. It might make the experience more precious but would you want it to stop just because that one time was precious?

After all, if God healed amputees why not fix my (whatever)?

Did it come as a shock that individuals can, under full protection of law, insult and ridicule anyone and that even includes desecration of holy books?

I was looking at Norway as an example.

"75.2% of Norwegians were members of the state Church of Norway as of the end of 2013,.... However, only 20% of Norwegians say that religion occupies an important place in their life (according to a recent Gallup poll),..." from Wikipedia.

If we can judge it as good or bad, then we must be using another standard which is better than what our society provides.

For example, Christian church membership in the Scandinavian countries is about 80% yet most will say they are atheist or agnostic. In effect they allow a deception in order to gain a few benefits from church membership. If this kind of deception can occur with good Scandinavians, why wouldn't we readily assume Hitler would have done the same, i.e. lie about his Catholicism in order to have some advantage?

Just google the phrase "scientists believe that" and you get 14 million hits which is many more hits than if you try "scientists think that".

Just look at answers to questions. "Gods aren't real", "people invented gods", "gods are nonsense". all positive statements made without proof, i.e. beliefs.

Most people agree, I think, that we should suffer for our own evil deeds but so often the innocent suffer. Would we have God protect the innocent from the evil deeds of others? And how would that work? How could it work?