Getting back to Clayton's essay, I had a few more thoughts on the claim that god is necessary for morality. Seems to me that, if the Christians are correct about the nature of god, then we wouldn't need morality at all.
According to Christian theology, god was the only entity or thing that existed at some point. Whether "outside of time" or not, if god is the only "uncreated" entity, then there had to be a moment when it was only god. Did morality exist then? How could it? What would "being good" mean if you're the only thing that exists? Then god creates someone else. According to the Christians, god is perfect, which implies that god lacks nothing, so he must not have created other beings because he was bored or lonely, because that would imply imperfection. Whatever the reason, god creates someone else. Now how does morality work? How do any values work? The only way it can work is to set up a system of behavior that's entirely subjective. God would have to create this moral code of conduct. But if god had made people perfect like he allegedly is, then there would be no need for morality.
If everyone were perfect - i.e., not lacking in anything - then we wouldn't need morality. We wouldn't need anything by definition. Morality is necessarily subjective because it's contingent upon the needs of the people.
But the Christian account of our origins says god created a couple humans, then those humans disobeyed god's command, so god cursed those humans and every one of their descendants, thus making both them and their world flawed. But they were already flawed. "Adam and Eve" weren't created perfect, because they had desire for something they didn't have. God made them this way, then punishes them and all their children for acting in accordance with how god made them. How does this make any sense?
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A Few More Thoughts on God and Morality
A Few More Thoughts on God and Morality
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