The only universal morality is our ability to empathize. The source is not God but instead biological. Or did God make my biology?!
A couple questions for those believing morals are defined by THE creator, do those peoples with spiritual belief systems that don’t believe in a Single God, not have moral codes of behavior? Is there a moral universal relative to killing? Are there any universals? Is Christian morality different than that of Islam? If different, does that mean they believe in a different ‘One God’?
The only way we can gauge that is by looking at atheism in control versus religion in control and we find: Concerning atheism and mass murder, Christian apologist Gregory Koukl wrote that "the assertion is that religion has caused most of the killing and bloodshed in the world. There are people who make accusations and assertions that are empirically false. This is one of them."[1] Koukl details the number of people killed in various events involving theism and compares them to the much higher tens of millions of people killed under atheistic communist regimes, in which militant atheism served as the official doctrine of the state.[1] Historically, atheism has generally been an integral part of communist ideology (see: Atheism and communism). Communist regimes killed 60 million in the 20th century through genocide, according to Le Monde, more than 100 million people[2] according to The Black Book of Communism (Courtois, Stéphane, et al., 1997).[3] and according to Cleon Skousen[4] in his best-selling book The Naked Communist.[5] It is estimated that in the past 100 years, governments under the banner of atheistic communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40,472,000 and 259,432,000 human lives.[6] Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.[7] https://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_Mass_Murder I think this is a good comparison of morals between deities as a source of morals versus self indulgence as a source of morals since murder is based in morals.
sorry but the ability to empathize is not universal. In fact it appears to be often subordinate to the need to treat anyone different as “other”and in extreme cases not human. Slavery is an obvious example.
I think categorizing people in such a manner, sub-human, so that you can refrain from empathizing with them is a learned trait and not by default. It is implemented by upbringing and Society and is primarily done out of a perceived necessity to survive. Slavery was a often required in civilizations in order for those societies to function until technology more recently in human history was able to satisfy those needs, making slavery no longer necessary.
irrelevant to the issue. The definition of a child as you pointed out has been fluid over time. But if you arbitrarily want to define child as ending at five that is your prerogative although I doubt you can demonstrate that every society in history has punished having sex with a five year old. In fact you probably cannot prove that every society in history as considered it wrong.
5 is just an example and of course not every society. only the vast majority of them, and certainly all the long-term successful ones.
Empathy is an individual vs individual interaction. Group empathy is a more indirect implementation based on experience or memory of empathetic experiences shared with individuals within that group. So yes, it can be more tribal especially if a person never interacts with an outside group. This doesn't mean the person does not have the capacity of empathy. It is only the capacity for empathy that is required to prove my case that empathy is a universal guide to one's morals.
They evolved just as moral systems did. Like the evolution of animals, morals evolved and adapted ensuring the success of the species or society. A group of people is stronger and likely to survive where an individual may not. Morals are necessary for society to function and so they evolved where such morals were beneficial for our success.
that makes no sense. Empathy within a tribe and for members of the tribe is still empathy. There is no evidence for universal empathy. And if empathy was a universal guide to one’s morals then all moral codes would be the same across all societies and all history. We know given slavery and the German dehumanization of the Jews and the US dehumanization of the Japanese during the war that empathy is not universal nor is it constant.
It is still empathy but you are only being emphatic with a memory or concept of those people as individuals and not being empathetic with that group directly. Are you confusing sympathy or compassion with empathy? I didn't say all peoples morals are based on empathy. I said empathy is the only universal moral code. It is the only one we all share as being a moral value.
Laws are just the enforcement of our moral systems. People can have or understand the moral but not follow or conform with what they know to be the moral thing to do. I am not sure why you think this applies to what morals are.
You didn’t answer the questions I asked but went off on a tangent to make an entirely different point.
If you don't like bacon....don't eat it. I will eat more than your share. See, that is the idea. Moral relativity means what is good for you may not be good for me. In other words, morality is not transferable. Everyone lives to themselves.
In the Book "Mere Christianity' C.S.Lewis has a good way of explaining morality right and wrong. Of course many who don't believe, won't accept it.
