One can have morals without God

Thank you for addressing all of my points. I. Morality without god can be explained rather simply, actually. How we came into existence has very little impact on how we live today. Because we are social animals, we developed a social structure, which included morality. This happened for many reasons, some of which we are still trying to figure out, and some of which we are sure of. What we know for sure is that all social beings, from ants to humans, have evolved to work together for the greater good of the species. We also know that primates, as well as a few other animal species, exhibit signs of empathy and altruism, telling us that the more intelligent a being is, the more able they are to understand the needs and feelings of their peers (1). What this tells us is that social beings develop morality, both out of necessity and as a natural progression from awareness. Very simply, those who live in groups don't generally want to do harm, as they know it will be bad for them, bad for their community, and because they know and aren't comfortable with how they will be making another individual feel. II. What you personally feel about animal morality is irrelevant, unless you are a sociobiologist or otherwise involved in these studies. Many examples of animal morality are readily available for you to study (2, 3). True, their morals can differ from ours, but that does not negate them, it simply furthers the theory that morals are relative. If morals developed out of intelligence and necessity, their purpose is not to get us into god's good books, but to improve us as a species, making it completely logical that each species (and perhaps even each community) will have their own moral code. The common thread is empathy, which is what makes morality easy to witness and understand. Despite the many differing values of each species, community, or even individual, there is a fairly common desire to refrain from causing harm. This is seen most in animals who are highly intelligent and social, which indicates that, upon developing self-awareness and emotions, we in turn develop the ability to apply those feelings to others. "Right" and "wrong" are human constructs -- "harmful" and "helpful" are not. III. As I said previously, I struggle with the idea of moral relativism as it is commonly defined. My point here is not to defend moral relativism, but to defend morality without god. I agree that humans generally worry more about their own needs than the needs of society, but we still adhere to societal standards. If we did not, we would all be out stealing whatever we needed or living in the bush, satisfying only our own needs and wants. Most of us do not do this -- we seem to understand on a very base level that working with others betters us all. For example, I am certainly more concerned with my own needs than with the needs of my neighbor, but I still go to work, which benefits not just me, but my employers, my co-workers, my clients, my landlord, my neighborhood, etc. We, as a social species, simply have more chance of success when we work together (maximize efficiency) and refrain from harming eachother (minimize suffering). To sum up my argument, morality need not come from God. It can be explained by two separate, yet related issues: empathy and necessity: Empathy: I do not want to harm you, because I know what that feels like and have no desire to make another feel that way (the fact that this is the *only* things the major worldviews seem to agree on is very telling). Necessity: I do not want to harm you, because it is actually more beneficial to me if I don't. (1)http://en.wikipedia.org... (2)http://www.nytimes.com... (3)http://www.telegraph.co.uk...