What you desicribed there doesnt differ from subjective morals.If the morals are objective there can be only 1 set of cerrect morals, and what makes me certain that my morals are correct is faith/the principles I beleive in. I dont see how ANY morals Christ gave to people can any reasonable and good person consider wrong. His morals are objectivly correct.

Well, I wasn't arguing for atheism there, just pointing out two very polar world views.

The comparison I was drawing was between world views versus ethnicity. It would seem that the OP basically said all african americans view the world in a unique way from other humans; if you care to remember the context of the OP at all pizza, that's what he was talking about or at least his example.

----

But I'll say this about your post though, Richard Dawkins if I remember correctly is a PR guy from Oxford, there is a fancy title but I don't remember it. Now Dawkins travels the world to debate popular theists and when asked who does he refuse to challenge and why? He said he only challenges "those who have a reason to believe it and all of it. Not people whose only cling to fame is that they can goof around with words." Now beyond what the man has sayed I don't know who the "anyone" category your mentioned is filled with.

You've made a mistake though, Atheism isn't about there being no god, it's that whatever god you choose to believe in that god has no holding on the changes of everyday action. That is to say that tributing and performing other rituals (prayer, mass, magicical invokation, sacrifice and so on) do  not change will not pause the laws of physics in favor of a miracle.

To put it plainly can you prove to me Unicorns exist? Well I can't prove to you that they don't either, but I can say that regardless of their existance or lack of - life goes on.

Again, define what definbes "correct, good, and righteous morals." Also, if you believe in universal morals, why are the christian morals the righteous ones? Why not the Aztec ones where you have to sacrifice yourself to a god to go to a form of heaven?

I am fully well aware of the difference between the two, you just don't realize that your logic is kind of laughable. Absolutely ANY argument you give me against fairy tales, I can use against religion. Which is why religion is just a collectino of fairy tales. It just happens to be a subset of fairy tales in which people actually believe.

This is one of the more ridiculous things I've read in one of these kinds of discussions. Let's set this up simply (though it is probably falsely dichotomous). If there is no God, there cannot be evidence for either side of the debate. It would be impossible to find evidence supporting or disproving the existence of God. You cannot prove or disprove something that does not exist.

However, if there is a God, then there could be evidence to prove the existence of God, but there will still be no evidence to disprove God's existence. In both cases, you cannot have evidence to disprove something, it is logically impossible, therefore the burden of proof falls on believers, not atheists.

Now again, this is assuming a dichotomy when that's not really the case, so I think it's better to say whether or not there is a higher power or not. Since God and other possible celestial beings can be classified as a higher power, that wording probably works better. 

Lastly, it can be difficult to discern what is actually evidence and what is merely just a 'red herring' in the end. Maybe there is some true evidence in the Bible or Koran or other religious work that truly points to a higher power but we will probably never know (in life that is).

That's only from your perspective. Your basing that on a subjective belief of what is right and wrong. I took a few philosophy classes in college, one of them was about this topic exactly. Is there an objective set of morals? A universal true set of right and wrong? That class was one of the best classes I've ever taken, but in the end, it amounted to one thing. We can never know. There is NO possible way to truly know. We can debate and theorize and think and discuss all we want. But in the end, there is really no way to know for sure either way.

You think it's wrong to kill and steal and lie and cheat. You believe in the 7 deadly sins as sinful. But morals are not that simple. Maybe other cultures/religions/species (talking about possible aliens here since we're talking about universal morals) don't have a problem with murder.  Most of us do, but who's to say we are right? You are just assuming we are right, but in fact we could be wrong. Or maybe there are no morals and what we believe in as right and wrong is merely a higher human powers' attempts to control the masses.

That's pretty much the entire meaning behind Assassin's Creed's creed of "Nothing is true, everything is permitted". Who's to say your right and that idea is wrong? You can assume and believe all you want, but there is no answer to be found, and if you think you've found the answer, you haven't. Now maybe like a multiple choice quiz, you could get lucky and stumble on the right answer, but you won't know until you get your test scores back. What you're trying to argue is that you guess on your multiple choice test, and you know you got it all correct. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't, but the key point is that you do now know, and you will not know until later, if ever (death).

Actually, atheism is the rejection of belief of any deity or higher power. Agnostics believe in a possible higher power but it is indefinable. A belief in a powerless higher power is almost oxymoronic, but would still constitutes as a theistic belief. Essentially, you would be believing in a power that created the universe and life as we know it but has no power/reason/desire to influence/control/change. Believing in a powerless deity is still belief in a deity, that is merely ascribing a trait of powerless instead of the typical omnipotent.

I can't really answer the question. To put bluntly, there is always the question of whether subjective human experience can ever reach a universal, objective truth. I'm not religious, so I honestly don't know how a Christian would respond, but I imagine God would have access to the moral law becuase he is the one objective observer in the universe (being omniscient).

The main point I was making is that morality is not determined by God's decree (eg. the words in the Bible). There is an objective moral law, and Christian morality can be derived from these laws. If God just determined what was good at his own decree, there would be an arbitrary aspect to the nature of the laws, hence, morality would be arbitrary. The answer accepted by most theologians is that the moral law exists outside God, and God decided what was good based on these laws. If I'm not explaining it well, I would suggest reading Plato's Euthyphro. He discusses the problem better than me.

Yes, our ideas of good behavior are subjective. That is why we have disagreements over what is morally right and wrong. I would not say they arise from cultural indoctrination though. Some beliefs might arise from cultural indoctrination but not all of them.

Just to reiterate, the fact that our ideas are subjective does not preclude the fact that there might be an objective moral law. There are just some serious hurdles confronting human's ability to establish or identify objective laws because of the subjective nature of human experience.

First off, I like your posts. You raise some good points.

With your claim, "You cannot prove or disprove something that does not exist", the truth of this statement depends on your criteria for knowledge. I can definitely make a strong inductive argument for the non-existence of unicorns, the flying spaghetti monster, the little green man who sits in my hand, etc. I can base these arguments off of observations. Their truth will never reach certainty, but I would still classify these inductive arguments as proof that these things do not exist.

However, the statement is clearly false when moving away from observation and into the meaning of terms. I can prove without observation that there is no such thing as a square-circle because of the meaning of the terms square and circle. You can transplant any counter-example in here and get similar results using characteristics such as color, weight, measurement, etc.

I agree that either something is or is not, no 3rd option there. Still, every kind of argument, positive and/or negative can`t exist solely on words, there needs to be something to back up each argument. Therefore the burden of proof relies on each side of the argument. So, it isn`t that simple. In the end, how does one reach a conclusion?

The basis of any given ethical system is to see men as an end per se and not a means. That`s how reach a universal stand point, as humans are equal. If you take that out then there can`t be universality (spealling?). Any ethical system must see one man and all man alike; consider one and speak about all.

I don`t know a lot of ethical systems but the ones that i know and that rightfully call themselves universal don`t necessarily differ much from one another. The biggest issue here that people seem to forget is, first, the source of that ethical system and second, it`s understanding (moral rules ans moral principles).

In the Christian ethical systems, the core of that system is the result of an act of revelation by God and Jesus. And what we were shown is that God spoke to all humanity - are basis for it being universal. But there`s more than just that. We believe that we were made in God`s image, so we get Love, Unity (in us all as equals, as sons of God), Respect, Dignity, etc. as core values. What then changes is how we understand, and as a result, express that understanding - through one simple commandment that Jesus left us with: love one another like I loved thee.
God and Jesus' actions upon our lives is the basis of our ethical system.
So, in essence, our ethical system is not a construction but a revelation - something a priori.

It`s also not a question of choosing the best but feeling it is the best for you.

There are more proofs of God than just the Bible. There are miracles, Apparitions well documented (with many not considered true by the Church) that make God present to this day and not all are just visions of a single person.
Actually this part is pretty much set aside by most arguments about religions and it`s need to prove itself, that and that the concept of faith is never truly explored.