I agree that ethics don’t require God. Indeed to a certain extent God is a copout on personal responsibility. I think we have to distinguish between our corporeal, or brute lives and our contemplative lives, material and idealistic respectively. We know we exist as animals and that at base we are bestial, but then we have this other idealistic life. The hard question is whether our ideal/ethical lives have any basis in reality, and this is where God generally comes in. God validates our ideals and I think it’s simplistic thinking he was invented to keep human animals, living in a social orientation, in check, or merely to maintain the status quo. This is the difference between idealism and ideology; the former is aspirational and the latter delusional. It follows that in order to act idealistically/ethically we have to be deluded. Crisp seems to suggest that we have an innate capacity to recognise and abhor cruelty and injustice, especially when it’s pathetic, and that our ethics can be harnessed to that. But I don’t think that’s nearly enough, especially since we also have an innate capacity to be vicious and callous.
It seems to me that however our idealism emerged, even if it did start out as delusion, it can be emancipated, cultivated and enriched. It can reflect on its ideological meanness and its existential predicament and transcend them both, even if it is all in the mind; this after all is what the Buddha putatively achieved at the individual level.
At the social level, though, I believe our ethics have to be based on the rule of law, but that this still has to have genuine moral authority. That is, it has to be exemplified in the State. If we are to be ethical it has to be from the top down. As it is, there is no moral authority. Capitalist states are based on bestial authority; opportunism, expediency, rapaciousness. Globally, our ethics amount to the survival of the fittest, with some token gestures made for the sake of appearances. Appearances that are wearing very thin.

The simple fact that people could not breathe except the Creator has made it possible debunks the stupidity that we can have ethics without God. Those that ignore Him replace Him with pseudo science where their seared conscience allows the murder of the unborn despite pitiful efforts to rename it.

Kourosh obviously has not been to Australian schools where even non believers seem to think that outcomes are far better in schools that honour God than those of that encourage teens to experiment with sex and drugs.

runner,

Do you view all science as 'pseudo-science'?

Is there a category of schools "that encourage teens to experiment with sex and drugs"??

after some clever name dropping[but no proof of not god]...article/quote..""Plato expressed very clearly in his dialogue "Euthyphro".

im presuming this quotes/that..""Consider some moral principle,
such as that it is wrong..to cause undeserved suffering for amusement...""

note its not in the law[the law says not mu8rder[not not kill]
there is a huge difference..when you use actual fact

""If one believes in God,..one has to answer the question:
are such actions wrong..*because God says they are wrong,..
or does God say..they are wrong..because they are wrong.""

see how dumb athiest logic is
god didnt..say that..in his simple law[not murder/not adulterate his word..

jesus simplified it even more..
that we do to the least we do to god!..[THATS HUGE}
god dont say its wrong..

[one;..he dont judge..
2..its wrong cause the spirit of it is hurtfull
[IF ITS FROM GOD>>ITS ALL LOVE/life/logic/light/grace/mercy etc]

whats hard about if its not love its not good
not good of god..[heck lok at the letters in god[good?]

god didnt forbid it
yet we inherantly know that is the meaning behind love neighbour..not hurt him

..thus god..cant say its wrong
recall this is mosus version..of what god dictaited
[after gods dictations.the origonal law tablets..got broken..

its mans law..not gods
gods law was violated instantly
them the mosaic law..same same..from man not god

darn..wish athiests had a clue

""{Linking morality to religion
to the first option..here seems to make morality highly contingent.""

clever wittysinosysoms
then more absurdity

""So if God had said..that walking clockwise
around a tree is wrong,..it would be.''

HE DIDNT
GROW-UP!

raise real issues
real fact..not made up fictions

did dick dorkins teach you that?

cheap tricks from go to woe*

quote..""you're of course familiar..with the ethical teachings
and principles of different religions.""

he dont re[ply that
but heck it builds street cred..he knows ALL*
studied them all REFUTED them all lol

""Why do some ethicists..such as Nietzsche refute and disprove religion altogether"""[see how that got slipped in
he has beaten..REFUTED them all*[a athiest saint*]

""while all of the existing religions..in the world in general,""

lol refuted generally and specificly..lol

""and the monotheistic religions..in particular,!""

oh dear
only the converted could swallow this Guff*

mono religions..""emphasize on morality and ethics
as their theoretical basis""

theory?
you insane questioner asking loaded quiestion..in one huge question

continues..""and invite their followers to think
and behave morally and ethically?""

invite?

oh dear..show me specific instances..you know,..PROOF!

ya just gotta love the reply:..""Roger Crisp

:""The reasons for this..""

this what..specificly..*

""depend on the particular thinker.}}

lol

""So some atheists..will not be persuaded
by the arguments..*for the existence of God""

they claim no proof of god
but wait..more baffle em will bull ccc rap
""(the ontological argument,..?..the cosmological argument,?]""

that prove what
do they dispove god..or religion?

""and so on),
""and will assume therefore
that it is more parsimonious..not to assert the existence of God""

cause they got no proof*..of not god
blooming sanctimonious parsin-anonimous

words..not evidence
not fact..names..generalities
NO actual true fact..just generic foolish quasi-AUTHORITIVE/babblings..

One notes that an all knowing all seeing God allegedly carved His thou shalt not laws into tablets of stone, then presented them through Moses, to a population that evidentially, could neither read nor write?
We see in the earliest human development, evidence of a level of caring and concern? Given the artefacts that have turned up at various grave sites.
What inspires Maternal love, which is by and large stronger, than the the mother's own survival instincts; and equally valid across a range of species?
I'm not sure or even convinced anyone needs a God to be ethical and or moral; but, these elements would become entirely unobtainable without love. And here I'm not referring to romantic love; but rather, the broader universal love, which all but commands that we do unto others as we would have for ourselves.
Were we to thoroughly imbue ourselves in this universal concept, which has no borders or ethnicity, we would eliminate poverty and all unessential hardship in all its forms and guises.
Why? Is it because God is Love? Who can say or KNOW?
So why? Because ultimately, we would also receive a benefit as increased trade and vastly expanded wealth creation opportunities no longer reliant on population growth! And or, the economic equivalent of a snowball rolling downhill. Rhrosty.