However, it must be said that at least some of them may be sincere in their change if heart, I suppose. In any case, violent criminals should NEVER be let out of prison.

God provides a transcendent foundation for moral values to exist objectively, independent of what humans think.

Atheism provides no transcendent foundation and leaves us only with relativism where we each have the right to decide what is right or wrong and no one else can dispute it without being arbitrary.

Nietzsche believed, as postmoderns do, that sans God not only would we be without objective moral values, but we would be without values at all - period! He advocated Nihilism.

Richard Dawkins also believes that what we think are moral values are just the blind forces of evolution and any deeper meaning is an illusion.

“there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference. . . . We are machines for propagating DNA . . . . It is every living object’s sole reason for being." (Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (New York: Basic, 1996), 133, and Richard Dawkins, “The Ultraviolet Garden,” Lecture 4 of 7 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (1992), http://physicshead.blogspot.com/200....)

If atheism were true then we would have to look at morality as nothing more than a survival mechanism developed over millions of years of societal conditioning. We would have to believe that although we may feel strongly that something is wrong, bad or evil, it's really just an ingrained meme that aids us in our quest for survival. Humans have complex brains and therefore capable of evolving moral feelings.

Under this view morality is not objective, existing independently of human beings.

If theism is true it's entirely different. God is the source of moral values and therefore they are objective because humans don't invent them as they see fit. It's beyond human control. Moral values come from God alone and we can't change them because we don't like them. They transcend humanity.

Then there is the difference between OT and NT, both of which were not written by Jesus or God in person, but by more of a "bio/historio-grapher" type persons. BTW. But of course these two collections of books/letters contain quite differing standards of moral values. Or were certainly put in effect quite differently.

Until the big clean-up * choke * of course, as it will be like in the days of Noah. Rare consistency there.

Even apart from the fact that not one of us alive, has ever seen or heard God talk, the only thing we have is from what people who walked this earth wrote down, most of the time in second or third person, supposedly.

In other words, objectivity does not exist. Moral objectivity at that. And they are just two human made English words.

What we are left with, is what our "conscience" tells us.

This actually supports my point that without God, moral values aren't objective. You say that moral values can't be objective because if they come from God because he sets "his" standard. Well, that's the whole point! It's "his" standard and as such exists independently from human beings. If moral values came from humans alone then we would each invent our own morality and it would therefore be necessarily relative - relative to one another. I would have my moral values, you would have yours, other people would have theirs and it would not exist independent of human beings. It would be a product of thought.

Judging by your statement, I have a feeling you are misunderstanding the way the word "objective" is being used. "Objective" in this sense describes the metaphysical status of moral values. It describes how they exist. This is a question of ontology.

<The mass killings of not only peoples, cities, but also mass scale animal sacrifice to "buy off" man's sins, or make them aware of, would not pass my moral compass. Or filter if you will>

To prove your argument you are now showing that you disagree with some of the things we've seen in the bible. But, we are not talking about "what is the good" and "which moral values do I like or agree with". We are not judging the content of any moral value in this OMV argument. That is entirely irrelevent. Again, we are only talking about how moral values exist, where they come from and are they existing objectively or not.

<Then there is the difference between OT and NT, both of which were not written by Jesus or God in person, but by more of a "bio/historio-grapher" type persons. BTW. But of course these two collections of books/letters contain quite differing standards of moral values.>

This is like your last statement and is irrelevant. In this discussion about the existence of moral values we are not talking about the stories in the bible. This argument is not about looking to the bible to find a big book of moral values. Old testament, new testament; none of that matters. We are not judging if we like or agree that these things are moral. This is a deeper question about the existence and the nature of the existence of moral values. The bible could disappear tomorrow, or never have been written at all and we would still be in the same place as regards this question of whether or not moral values exist only in our minds or independently from us, grounded transcendentally in God himself.

<Even apart from the fact that not one of us alive, has ever seen or heard God talk, the only thing we have is from what people who walked this earth wrote down, most of the time in second or third person, supposedly>

In the same irrelevant manner. It matters not what the bible says in this argument. The bible is not involved in this philosophical discussion at all. You could be a complete deist and still understand that moral values come from God and therefore exist objectively.

<In other words, objectivity does not exist. Moral objectivity at that. And they are just two human made English words.>

You've made absolutely no case at all against the nature of the existence of moral values. You haven't argued one way or another that they do or do not exist objectively. You've said you don't like what you've read in the bible. Different topic altogether.

<God's moral values are NOT objective; "he" puts down a standard, but it is "his" standard.>

You say that God "puts down" his standard but you imply something that isn't so. Before I address what that is I want to make clear that moral values, as you described in this statement, still exist objectively (independent of humans and what we think of them).

Having said that, I now want to point out that you are leaning to a bit of Platonism here. By saying that God puts down "his" standard you imply that God decides what is good and what is not. This is not the case at all.

If this were the case then one could ask whether God arbitrarily decides what is good or if he recognizes the good. In the first case this would make the word "good" meaningless. God could decide today that loving your children is good but then decide tomorrow that eating them alive is good. This would make "good" meaningless and moral values completely arbitrary.

In the second case if God recognizes the good then we could show that goodness exists independently from God, and that God is not the creator of all things. It could be said (even if this is incoherent. After all, how does something like justice just exist?) that the Good has always existed and that the concept of God is flawed.

Neither of these cases is true. Rather, God, as a maximally great being, is the locus of the good because it is part of his nature. Goodness is an expression of his nature and it would be logically impossible for it to be any other way. That is, God could not choose to be evil any more than a circle could at the same time be a square. It's logically impossible.

That means that moral values are not absolute, meaning that it's not always bad to do X if circumstances change. For instance, one might say that it's immoral to cause another human pain. But if that were true then all surgeons would be immoral because they cause pain. All dentists would be immoral for the same reasons. So would physical therapy professionals.

However, even this is not relevant because it does not address how moral values exist and where they come from.

If moral values come from God then there is nothing we can do to change them. They are in his perfect nature and we can do nothing about them. We can like them or resent them but it matters not because we can't change them. They exist with God, not with us. This is why we say that moral values are grounded in a transcendental foundation, meaning they transcend humankind.

So there is a difference between absolute and objective, but only objective deals with ontology.

To talk about absolute values we would ask questions like, "Is it always wrong to tell a lie?" That is the kind of question that will flush out whether or not moral decisions are absolute or not.

Btw - a confusing and at the same time illuminating little essay you wrote there. Quite appreciated.

But now we are talking about SOURCE, nature of the source, and your ability to locate, understand, and supposedly correctly interpret this source.

Where is it?

What is it?

How do you do that?

From where?

Circumstances may change, actions upon them may change, but moral values remain, in tact.

Depending on how you define Objective, there may be some room for wasted discussion and time, but what you said in your previous post is flawed in its core.

That's a different discussion. It's not necessary to answer where or how we pick this up. For example:

We can see a radio working and ask "Do the RF signals come from the radio itself or somewhere else?" Answer: they are in the sky and the radio antenna picks them up.

"Well, how does that happen? How does the radio 'pick them up'?"

Perfect Nature?>

The concept of God is that of a maximally great being. This is the concept this has makes up the God that has been argued about for centuries. Atheists accept this concept and try to show that it is incoherent. The concept itself is not controversial.

Flawed? You didn't say how.

There are just two choices here:

1. Moral values exist objectively - independent of humans.

2. Moral values exist as a bi-product of evolution. That is, they exist in the human mind alone. That would make them relative.

Regarding objectivity: You say that circumstances change and so forth, so how can moral values be objective. This is to entirely misunderstand the question.

Justice is a moral value. Love is a moral value. Hate is a moral value. There are many moral values but what you are talking about is taking a moral decision in various circumstances. That is not the question.

Where does the moral value of love come from? Where does the moral value of hate come from? Where does the value of justice come from?

I couldn't have made it any more clear that we are NOT talking about "your ability to locate, understand, and supposedly correctly interpret this source"

Did you even bother to read what I wrote in response to <sugardom's> point?

Depending? I stated it clearly right from the beginning.

If Objective in your definition only refers to the metaphysical status eg re Moral Values, then you must be confused.

Perhaps explain to me why that must be so, and then explain what might be missing from your definition.

Note that we are already talking in circles, not really communicating optimally, because of either rigid or sloppy defining, both caused by lacking intellect, ambition, rigidness, pride, brainwashing, or any other related flaw.

Ergo: we are flawed, and arguing OMVs from a perfect place/being isn't exactly our forte; neither yours nor mine nor anyone else's.

Continue misleading, you are so good at that.