I've explained the logic of my argument again below.
No sir, didn't say there were no objective values. I said I don't need a transcendent authority, meaning a being that I get my morality from other than myself.
Making moral decisions means me doing things that will bring me the most pleasure and least pain. This is the objective standard that I would contend all people strive for as well with respect to their pleasure and pain. From that, we make our moral decisions and have our moral issues. If I observe something to give me pain, I should tend to avoid it more than I would something that gives me pleasure.
As I've said though, this isn't black and white. Some pain might be required in order to get a bigger pleasure. Giving up some pleasure might be required in order to avoid a bigger pain. Also, the specific decisions I see as moral aren't set in stone. This is where science assists in morality. If I take vitamins thinking that it will increase my health, I'm doing what I think it is moral. However, if I find those vitamins to cause cancer, then I have to change my view of it and consider it immoral to take them.
As far as people not agreeing on my particular evaluation of what is pain and pleasure, that's to be expected. We all have different physiologies and DNA, as well as different life experiences. However, the pleasure-pain principle applies to all. None of this requires the need to conclude a transcendent being who makes morality.
Again, you misunderstand my point. I said it would be logically inconsistent for him to knowingly hold his characters ULTIMATELY responsible. That's not the same as condemning it. I can't condemn something that I believe to be logically impossible. That's like asking me if I condemn someone for drawing a four sided circle.
If it's not black and white, it's not objective. When I speak of objective, I'm talking about something that applies to everyone whether they believe it or not. If they're not set in stone, they're not objective. If it's all about a person's pleasure or pain, that is also not objective. My pleasure could equal your pain. Who is right and who is wrong in that scenario?
In the atheist world, I may be hungry and find you to be a tasty meal. What's to stop me from killing you and eating you for dinner? That would be pleasurable to me because it satisfies my hunger. (And by the way, the hungry cannibal could care less about your pain.) What makes that
objectively wrong? If there is no transcendent authority, i.e. God, to establish that killing each other for those reasons is objectively wrong, then why am I obligated to align my life with values that include not eating other humans? After all, we're just evolved primates in the atheist world view. This sort of thing happens all the time in the animal kingdom. The concept of right and wrong does not exist in the animal kingdom. If one male lion kills another male lion so he can assume control of raping the rest of the females in the pride, nobody considers that
wrong. It's just
the way it is, right? But for reasons no athiest can coherently explain, during our "evolution" the concept of right and wrong started to apply to us. Why? Because we're intelligent? Why does intelligence obligate me to act selflessly instead of selfishly? It's advantageous for a civilized society? What if I don't want to be in your civilized society?
If there is no objective right and wrong (which is the case in the atheist world view) then the best thing you can say is that public opinion determines right and wrong. And the guy who acts contrary to public opinion and kills and eats his neighbor for dinner is doing nothing more than acting unfashionably. There is no transcendent authority to determine his actions are objectively wrong or evil.
You have essentially said that right and wrong, good and evil are based on human reasoning or choices - thus being relative to the individual or culture. This is logically incoherent. On the one hand, you believe and speak as though some activity (e.g., child abuse) is wrong in itself, but on the other hand you believe and speak as though that activity is wrong only if the individual (or culture) chooses some value which is inconsistent with it (pleasure, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, freedom, etc.).
When the unbeliever professes that people determine ethical values for themselves, the unbeliever implicitly holds that those who commit evil are not really doing anything evil, given the values which they have chosen for themselves. In this way, the unbeliever who is indignant over wickedness supplies the very premises which philosophically condone and
permit such behavior, even though at the same time the unbeliever wishes to insist that such behavior is
not permitted -- is "evil." What we find, then, is that the unbeliever must secretly
rely upon the Christian worldview in order to make sense of his argument from the existence of evil which is
urged against the Christian worldview. Atheism presupposes theism to make its case.
And for the record, I didn't say it was impossible for this god to send us to hell. He just wouldn't be able to say it was our fault. I explain below
Other characters can hold each other responsible within the plot of the story because those characters don't know any better, but the author, being the ULTIMATE creator of every event that happens in the book and decision the characters make, can't possibly hold his characters ULTIMATELY responsible. The same is with God in my example. Being the only preexisting thing, he is like the sole author of a book, this book being the universe.
The only way an author could honestly think that a character is really responsible for his own decisions is if the author is mentally ill or otherwise deluded (it happens all the time). Also, if there were more than one author, one author COULD claim not to have complete control. But these two scenarios don't apply to this hypothetical god. If God were deluded, that would rule out the part about him being all-knowing. If God weren't the sole creator of the universe, that would rule out the first premise of him being the only preexisting thing. Thus, I judge this god holding us ultimately accountable to be inconsistent with his attributes.
We do this all the time even here on Earth. You've never heard of the saying "ignorance to the law is no excuse?" If you get pulled over for a traffic violation - even one you were unaware of breaking - you're getting a ticket and you're paying a fine. You may cry "unfair", but you're still guilty. As I said before,
the only precondition for responsibility is a lawgiver -- in this case, God. It doesn't matter if you agree to the law. It doesn't matter if you are aware of the law. You are under the law and God will hold you responsible for it.
You have the right to not recognize other gods. That's fine. I don't recognize them either.
I know very well that the vast majority of you guys only believe in one god (though there may be some henotheists out there). However, I will and have simply recognized that others believe in other gods. In my mind, your god isn't any special and deserving of distinction than all of the other legends out there. That's where my terminology of saying "your god" comes from. Not out of a desire to taunt anyone. I'm not going to change my view simply because someone is offended by it. I think it's reasonable to expect someone to get over it, or just stop talking to me if you are that offended by me being objective about your beliefs.
Fair enough. Continue in your defiance. We're done here.