Insistence on any absolute moral truths brings us back to the question of where morals come from.

Morality must have existed before Moses and the Ten commandments. The classic old golden rule ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you’. This is present in the philosophies of ancient India, Greece, Judea and China.

The crux of the matter is where the core values originate:

A. From a higher being, an ultimate authority, e.g. A god
B. As a necessity for society to succeed, human in origin.

If one chooses A, then one must address these questions, avoiding them or just saying goddidit is a cop out.

• How did they come into existence?
• If you believe in Yahweh, why not Allah, Zeus etc?
• Who gave the god morals, who or what was their ‘moral giver’?
• Why do many of these beings appear to violate their own morals?
• When were the morals imparted? A million years ago, 50000 years, 6000 years
• How were the morals imparted, as Romans says ‘written on their hearts’ genetically? Integrated into the neurons? Magic? Must be a specific provable and observable mechanism.
• Would one want, as an individual to live in a society where a supernatural higher power handed down the unchanging morality?

One cannot talk about the morality that the ‘morality giver’ gave unless one first demonstrates that this ‘morality giver’ actually exists. Here’s an example. I could say “ I have an invisible fire breathing dragon in my garage that makes beautiful diamonds for me” I could produce the diamond as proof but there are other places I could have got the diamond from. It would be reasonable to ask to see the dragon or watch the dragon make the diamond before believing this extraordinary story. If someone claims there is a supernatural being who imparted morality to mankind. That is an extraordinary claim. It requires extraordinary evidence. The burden of proof is on the claimant.

Surely the moral law giver could have been just a smart individual human, one who had a bit more insight that the rest? There may have been several such people. I don’t see how it has to have been supernatural in origin.

B.Gets my vote, below are some reason why:


Let’s take one core moral. Stealing
Just looking around one can see how humans work out problems and solutions, in business and relationships. It’s not such a stretch of the imagination to see how people could have come up with basic morals to live together, avoid their own death at the hands of others and work together as a team. Again sometimes they don’t ‘rub along’ so punitive measures and laws are needed.

As humans moved from hunter gathers to agricultural/farming societies they worked for the group good, storing food/materials for future. An individual or group taking another’s/group worked for gains would not be tolerated and would undermine the whole society as others may just take what they wanted. I think this describes morality around stealing very well. There is no need for a supernatural god.
I see how some may say there as still a level below this, an ultimate ‘stealing is wrong, period’ I don’t agree. One then has to explain this. There could be yet another sub level. Then another..

The idea of an ultimate morality giver can be bad. Religious moral values handed down from a supernatural moral law giver with a ‘perfect book’ to back it up. We have abuse against women, gays, lack of free speech, intolerance etc. Not the kind of society I want to live in.

It gives justification to terrible atrocities: Burning witches, Puritans (John Winthrop), Islamic terrorism etc..

The concepts of empathy, reciprocity and altruism have a lot to do with where morality comes from.

Neuroscience:
This is starting to shed light on empathic response. For example. If I raise my right arm, neurons in the left side of my brain light up. If you see me raising my arm the exact same neurons in your brain light up even though you have not raised your arm. You inhibit the response though.

As there is no evidence for any supernatural being, there are less and less dark corners for it to hide. Science has obliterated religious views on pretty much every topic it has encountered.

Intrinsic or ‘for its own sake’ I think that is basic survival instinct. I impart value to myself because I want to continue living. Others impart ‘value’ to me because I contribute to them. I.e. work. But maybe humans do not have intrinsic value; this seems closely liked with our purpose in life. I think our purpose in life is to reproduce, more accurately to pass on successful genes for building stronger more survivable bodies.
There is obviously more to life; art, culture, relationships, passing on knowledge etc. Carl Sagan once said when asked the question and I’m paraphrasing “as a secular person, what is the point of life” he replied “to do something worthwhile”. Good answer I think, no supernatural being required.