God is not Required for Moral Reasoning

The proposition on offer is that God is not required for moral reasoning. How do we test this proposition? First, by considering what sort of evidence would refute this claim. And what sort of evidence would that be? If large proportions of devout religious persons (the more fundamentalist, the better) were willing to admit that on moral issues, the removal of God's proscription on the behavior did not change the nature of its moral import, one must admit that God is not required for moral reasoning. An excerpt from a study conducted on Catholic, Amish, Mennonite, and Jewish children (between ages 10 and 17)(http://tigger.uic.edu...) shows that: "Between 80 and 100 percent of children across denominations stated that engagement in any of the acts entailing a moral transgression would continue to be wrong even if there were no biblical prescription or statement by God concerning the act. The justifications children provided in support of such judgments all dealt with the intrinsic features of the acts as hurtful or unjust. This last set of findings suggests that even for deeply religious children from fundamentalist or orthodox backgrounds, morality stems from criteria independent of God's word." Another excerpt from one subject's interview: I: Should the rule about stealing be followed? S: Yes, or else we will go to hell. And all of those will know, and those who are on earth already know that hell is a bad place. There's fire and brimstone and you could die down there! And everybody that goes there, they know that they are a sinful person. I: Suppose all the ministers decided to drop the rule about stealing so that there was no rule about stealing. would that be all right? S: No. I: Suppose the people of another religion don't have a rule about stealing. Is that all right?) S: No. I: If God hadn't said anything about stealing one way or the other, would it be okay to steal then? S: No. If one accepts that these children are reasoning properly about their moral judgments (i.e. that there is indeed something wrong with stealing), then one must also accept that they arrived at the "correct" conclusion about a moral situation without depending on God. Thus children are capable of engaging in moral reasoning without God's help. Their responses to the interviewers questions indicate that some things are still wrong, even if God had placed no proscription upon them. Absent God's edict, they MUST consult another source to arrive at their conclusion. Furthermore, the study suggests that there is a recognizable difference between religious convention (wearing a head covering) and moral norms (stealing): "What is evident in the excerpts of both of these Christian and Jewish children is that they acknowledge that the rule about head coverings is based on the word of authority (God), that it is relative to a particular interpretation or view of that authority's norms, and that it serves the concrete social organizational function of distinguishing girls from boys and members of their particular religious community from others. In contrast with their views about head coverings, both children treated stealing as universally wrong, and wrong even if God did not have a rule about it. The wrongness of stealing, according to both children, is that it leads to hurtful and unjust consequences. According to both children, engagement in such actions has a tendency to generate acts of retaliation which themselves tend to evolve into a vicious circle of self-perpetuating harm and injustice." Additionally, interviews suggested that even if God specifically stated that an action was permissible, it would remain impermissible: I: Suppose god had written in the Torah that Jews should steal, would it then be right for Jews to steal? M: No. "Our analyses of the children's responses revealed that the majority of children from each denomination and at each age rejected the notion that God's command to steal would make it right to steal." ****************************************** Furthermore, if one accepts that atheists are capable of moral reasoning, it follows that one must also accept that these atheists are morally reasoning without the assistance of God. Holding that atheists are incapable of moral reasoning because they do not employ the morals espoused by God is complete nonsense. If this were the case, then no non-believer in the Abrahamic God and his commandments would be capable of moral reasoning. ********************************** Fact - children have shown they are capable of moral reasoning without God's assistance. Fact - Atheists are capable of moral reasoning without God's assistance. Fact - Hindus. Buddhists, Daoists, etc... are all capable of moral reasoning without God's assistance. To hold that God is required for moral reasoning is to entertain an absurdity - that more than 2/3 of this planet is incapable of moral reasoning. AFFIRMED.