re: Why can’t we separate Conservative values from religion?

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I assume you're trying to say that if a society had no contact with Judaism or Christianity yet developed similar moral principles, then those principles couldn't have come from religion.

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No. Those principles didn't come from Judaism or Christianity.

Another religion may have been involved somehow.

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That would make sense if my argument were that morality was transmitted to them through religious teaching. It isn't. Your "no contact" condition may show that Christianity wasn't the historical transmitter of those particular moral rules. It doesn't show that morality is therefore unrelated to God.

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Again, I understand the tricks. Hence why the distinction in the post above is important

Romans 2 isn't even a teaching of Jesus, mind you.

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Then why are you asking the question in a thread specifically about religion and morality if a religious answer is somehow disqualified?

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Because we already know the trick you'll use to answer. You just confirmed it. It's noted in the record and, as I said, isn't responsive to my question.

That's settled. Now we can move on.

Since we're past that, can you try to answer the question outside of that crutch?

If someone pretends they want to have a discussion about how morality can be created outside of the text of the Bible, and their only response is to reference the Bible, and they demand adherence to the text of the Bible to guide the discussion, they're not attempting to discuss these concepts in good faith.

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You don’t get to ask the question and then dictate which answers are permissible.

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The irony

You're doing just this by trying to frame the discussion in the text of the Bible alone. I hope you realize that.

*ETA: and the question was permissible. You're not even describing what just happened. It has been addressed, disposed of, and we can move on to actually fruitful discussions on the topic (hopefully).

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True… one’s morality is arbitrary by definition… doesn’t mean it irrational…

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Arbitrariness is irrational. However, if one's morality is based on an objective truth, then it is not arbitrary. The problem with moral subjectivity is that it is necessarily irrational, because there is no necessary reason to be moral at all, much less to adhere to any particular brand of morality. All the "reasons" all boil down to person preference, which is necessarily arbitrary. Having a moral standard that is grounded in objective truth is not arbitrary, however.

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I disagree with this premise… consequences in a society doesn’t come from an action being deemed moral or immoral rather right or wrong… no one considers not being taxes “immoral “ per se … yet we all pay our taxes because of the consequences of no paying them

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Right and wrong are synonyms for moral and immoral in the context of morality, though. Right and wrong are judgements according to some standard. In the context of morality, they are moral judgements which correspond to moral and immoral.

Even paying taxes has a moral component to it. First, there is the moral question of due submission to lawful commands by authorities. Then, is the moral question of taxation at all, and whether one should pay taxes for the good of society. Whether or not there is a penalty associated with not paying taxes, there is still a moral question about whether one has a moral obligation to do so.

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No… a murderer getting away with murder doesn’t mean that said murderer believes murder is moral…

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I mentioned this in response to you saying a child acts according to consequences, not some notion of God's command. The point I was making was that what is moral or immoral is not based on whether or not an action has negative consequences, as you can certainly have negative consequences for doing "good" things ("nice guys finish last" and "no good deed goes unpunished" are phrases that exists for a reason), just as many people prosper due to selfishness and lack of ethical/moral behavior (like politicians that get wealthy off the backs of their constituents without repercussions).

But to your statement, it doesn't matter whether or not a murderer believes murder is moral or not for it to be moral if consequences are all that matters. But even if consequences are irrelevant to the morality of an action, moral subjectivity requires that if a person thinks an action is morally good, that said action must be actually morally good.

There's also the notion that what one decides to do is what is the most moral choice, and if that's true, then if a murderer desires to murder and believes that is the best choice for them, then that action must be moral by default. After all, the murderer believed, even if for a moment, that it was the "right" (moral) thing to do over and against the alternative (not murdering).

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I’m saying the exact opposite actually… I don’t believe the Nazis or slave owners you mention believed they were standing on the moral high ground… and if they did that proves my point even more of morals being arbitrary…

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You'll need to clarify for me, then, because you initially said, "society determines if the action is right or wrong", to which I responded that Nazi Germany must have been "right", since they decided that genocide was right as a society. Therefore, I don't understand what you mean if not that society can determine moral right and wrong.

Regardless, what you've described so far is not that "morals [are] arbitrary", but that subjective morals are arbitrary. I think you're trying to lump all morality in with subjective morality. You can disagree that there is a God, and therefore there is no objective moral law-giver, but you have to recognize that if God exists, then He would necessarily be an objective moral law-giver. My contention is that Christianity should be preferred to atheism because of that fact alone, as Christianity provides a rational basis for what people already assume to be true (at least in practice), namely that there is an objective moral standard of right and wrong that all people should be accountable to.

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Of course morals are arbitrary at their core … what’s exactly the objective standard ???… right and wrong are innate qualities… morality is not

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No, morals are not arbitrary at their core. Subjective morals are arbitrary at their core, for the reasons I mentioned.

I defined the objective standard earlier: God's moral law that all people are required to obey. Specifically, the 10 commandments as a summary of that law.

Right and wrong are not innate qualities, but are judgements. "Right" compared to what standard? "Wrong" compared to what standard? What is "right" depends on the standard you use to measure it, and has no meaning apart from a standard.

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Wrong.

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What a thoughtful, in depth rebuttal.

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Not John the apostle.

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Yes, John the Apostle

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The problem with moral subjectivity is that it is necessarily irrational, because there is no necessary reason to be moral at all, much less to adhere to any particular brand of morality. All the "reasons" all boil down to person preference, which is necessarily arbitrary.

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Then why have the basic tenets of morality been seen near universally with populations that have never interacted with each other, with the vast majority never interacting with this "objective truth" to consume the content of that truth?

And don't quote the Bible, because this question presupposes those populations have never consumed that particular content.

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Non-believing academic scholars start with the dogmatic assumption that the Gospels had to be written post 70 A.D., for only one reason. Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple and if they allowed any of the Gospels to have been written before 70 A.D., they would be tacitly admitting that Jesus really made a future prophecy that came true rather than someone having reverse engineered the text to make it look like He did.

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Ignoring that you're doing exactly what you're accusing them of, you're making a bigger deal out of the destruction of a religious building than an objective historical analysis would ever give that event. It's a near guarantee that, at some point, the temple would be destroyed. What percentage of religious buildings over history have been destroyed, do you think? 99.999%? or 99.99999%?

It doesn't make sense to create this conspiracy of fraud over something so insignificant from a historical analytical perspective.

What kind of weird straw man is that? The fact that you can be forgiven for any sin and accept Jesus paid the ultimate price for our salvation does not mean sin is moral.

Why’s it weird? It was an obnoxious statement.