Does God exist?

[Amina13]

1 minute ago, azara said:

Okay, I see and accept your point that the idea of god does have distinct differences to other human concepts.  Yes, religion (and therefore god/s) are very important to the worshippers, hence why the word is always capitalised by believers.

Nevertheless, to a nonbeliever, "god" remains an immaterial construct and a product of the human mind.  Just as I don't capitalise "religion", I don't capitalise "god".  Just as you capitalise "God" to show his/her/its importance to you, I don't, because that is the best reflection of my beliefs.  Language can be a nuanced thing.  I don't think it's disrespectful unless my intent is to be disrespectful!

The exception (this being English, there are always exceptions!) are when I'm talking about a specific god (e.g. Allah, the Christian/Jewish God, Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whatever).  I capitalise those because they are specific names, like my name or yours.

This is a good example of the finer points of English and how words can define our beliefs very precisely, so thanks for bringing it up.

 

This is the common denominator, I guess. I find this respectful and appreciate it. 

[chrisss]

God exists, as we can "know" it through faith, one of the "ways of knowledge".

The TOK textbook I use at my school outlines "faith" as "knowing without proof".

Faith extends material world and is a different form of WOK, which explains how it can be understood without "proofs" and "evidences" that we'd need for anything that happens predictably.

Existence of God has never been falsified. A theory not falsified is considered valid.

I believe God exists. There have been many times in my life where "impossible" things happened. If we rely 100% on what we know from our experiences and logics, how can we explain such "unexplainable" and "impossible" things? What about perfect coincidences that makes everything work out perfectly?

There is obviously someone behind all this. God controls everything.

Not everything will work the way we wanted. If God would listen to ALL OUR PRAYERS, He wouldn't be God. That way we'd be the god and He'd be like a genie. 

We can ask for whatever we want. But it's up to God whether He'll let it happen, just as it's up to our parents whether they want to buy us something we want etc.

The main difference between God and a human parent, though, is the fact that God knows the future (in fact I believe he plans it too!) so he won't make any mistakes that a human parent would make.

If God exists, why would He let all the war conflicts and other horrible things to happen? Well, light cannot be seen, appreciated, or even exist without darkness.

I think God exists. This is what I think. You don't have to agree with me, but this is what I believe to be true.

[tim9800]

On 11/15/2016 at 0:32 PM, chrisss said:

Existence of God has never been falsified. A theory not falsified is considered valid.

Nor has the existence of a giant purple fluffball enveloping the entire universe

[Befuddled]

41 minutes ago, tim9800 said:

Nor has the existence of a giant purple fluffball enveloping the entire universe

But I ask you.... aren't theories meant to be the best possible way to explain phenomena?

If the reason it hasn't been falsified is because people have 'faith' it isn't a valid reason.

Also, it could just be that things haven't yet been explained fully therefore the label of "God created it" has been stuck on!

 

P.S I believe in God  

[aTeddy]

On 15/11/2016 at 0:32 PM, chrisss said:

God exists, as we can "know" it through faith, one of the "ways of knowledge".

The TOK textbook I use at my school outlines "faith" as "knowing without proof".

Faith extends material world and is a different form of WOK, which explains how it can be understood without "proofs" and "evidences" that we'd need for anything that happens predictably.

Existence of God has never been falsified. A theory not falsified is considered valid.

I believe God exists. There have been many times in my life where "impossible" things happened. If we rely 100% on what we know from our experiences and logics, how can we explain such "unexplainable" and "impossible" things? What about perfect coincidences that makes everything work out perfectly?

There is obviously someone behind all this. God controls everything.

Not everything will work the way we wanted. If God would listen to ALL OUR PRAYERS, He wouldn't be God. That way we'd be the god and He'd be like a genie. 

We can ask for whatever we want. But it's up to God whether He'll let it happen, just as it's up to our parents whether they want to buy us something we want etc.

The main difference between God and a human parent, though, is the fact that God knows the future (in fact I believe he plans it too!) so he won't make any mistakes that a human parent would make.

If God exists, why would He let all the war conflicts and other horrible things to happen? Well, light cannot be seen, appreciated, or even exist without darkness.

I think God exists. This is what I think. You don't have to agree with me, but this is what I believe to be true.

 

Some premises are mixed up. The concept of a theory, at least in a scientific sense, are the best explanations that we have, based on observations of the natural world.
I firmly reject the concept that the Christian conceptualisation of a "God" qualifies as theory. A good theory should have clearly defined and testable concepts and accurately predict phenomena in line with future empirical research. The Bible, God and the Christian religion do not meet these criteria. First, it is an unfalsifiable concept, it does not employ concepts that can be tested, and as you say, it relies on belief without evidence. If you believe me to be wrong, show me a way to empirically prove that your premises are correct. Even if it was a falsifiable concept, it certainly does not ipso facto become true in the absence of contradictory evidence. For example, if I claimed that there is a miniature-sized tin can orbiting the Earth right now, and this theory had not been falsified, it would not be considered to be true.

The rest of your post is, if I am very honest, filled with fallacy. The first one of this is the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. You say that God exists because of miracles and unexplainable events, and that because of currently "unexplainable" events, God controls everything. Then you assert so many baseless conclusions and offer unfalsifiable claims to explain/ justify observed phenomena. Your final statement, "If God exists, why war/horrible things" seems to be a statement you can't possibly stand behind. There are definitely starving people in war-torn nations who have never heard of God and Christianity says they should be punished, or for some reason there suffering should show first-world people the light of a diety? Well, that is I belief that I think is fundamentally incorrect. There is no rational way to explain why some people have it better than others, why some die in wars and some don't. Finally, it is a colossal act of cognitive dissonance to say that is the way an all-knowning deity wishes it to be.

I've been told for most of my life that whilst I don't believe in God, it is necessary to respect and acknowledge other's beliefs. But when I see that this belief is responsible for scientific obstructionism, the systemic oppression of gay people, women and other minorities - that is a belief I find hard to respect. Whilst, you might not feel these criteria are personally specific, I see the belief in religion as one of the key systemic forces that continue to perpetuate inequality and keep our society divided. 

To answer the question, no I don't think there is a God. 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 20, 2016 by aTeddy

[agncsw]

Well, it depends on what kind of God you're talking about.

I believe in the universe and multiple dimensions and multiple universes (and parallel ones too).

It's kind of hard to explain so I am not going to bother trying 

[Carlos Rosa]

But the big bang happened because it had to?

That's a load of diarrhea. The debate of God's existence is not up to you, and the same way you would not like your beliefs questioned, religious people would not appreciate the same. The same way religion is not forced upon atheists, believers do not like to feel like their beliefs are being challenged.

[Amina13]

As a believer, I disagree with you, @Carlos Rosa. I think that beliefs should be questioned so that people can critically analyse and understand the concepts. Religious people should appreciate it and be open to criticism. I think this is one of the ways for the religious people to interact with the non-religious part of the society and form a unity. Challenging is good but when it's been done in a non-offensive manner (meaning that you do not purposefully offend someone).

 

[azara]

4 hours ago, Carlos Rosa said:

The debate of God's existence is not up to you, and the same way you would not like your beliefs questioned, religious people would not appreciate the same. The same way religion is not forced upon atheists, believers do not like to feel like their beliefs are being challenged.

I have no problem with my beliefs being questioned.  Questioning is what learning, knowledge, and especially science is all about.  If we never questioned and challenged, we would still believe that the earth was flat, the earth was the centre of the universe, and who knows what the state of "modern medicine" would be? We would stone women who had intercourse before marriage execute homosexuals left right and centre.  I'm glad people questioned religion!

For years, the Catholic Church had the same viewpoint as you: "don't question what we say is true".  It was a mechanism of control and oppression.  Obviously, you do not mean your comments in the same way at all, but the principle of blind acceptance is just as deplorable today as it was five hundred years ago.

We have not come into your place of worship and started raving during a service or defaced any of your holy books, and have maintained a pretty respectful tone.  You have come onto this thread, titled "does God exist", and then complained about people questioning your beliefs.  This is a space for that, so that if you don't want to see it, you don't have to.

[ILoveJesus]

Obviously God exists 

[Emilia1320]

On 8. joulukuuta 2016 at 9:30 PM, ILoveJesus said:

Obviously God exists 

Evidence? Other than you defining it into existance or subjective experiences? 

Tangible, explicit, objectively observable evidence please.

Until then the objective worth of your claim is zero. 

[Guest]

I don't want to be part of the discussion on whether god exists. But the real question. Does it matter? What difference does it make?

Even if god existed, it still wouldn't mean that we have to agree with him. In the case of Christianity, the bible says eating bacon is a sin, so is eating lobster, or having a round haircut. Whether these asinine words come from a suprime being or not, we just have enough common sense to realise how ridiculous they are. But ideas like being kind to people or forgiving your enemies are something on which we should all agree.

It is never about god. It is always about how you interpret what god says. People are just picking and choosing the quotes from the bible to justify their own causes.

 

Edited January 14, 2017 by Guest

[ILoveJesus]

9 hours ago, Emilia1320 said:

Evidence? Other than you defining it into existance or subjective experiences? 

Tangible, explicit, objectively observable evidence please.

Until then the objective worth of your claim is zero. 

Hi Emilia, think about what it means to demand tangible, objectively observable evidence for every claim. Can you proved tangible observable evidence that 1,000 x 1,000 = 1,000,000? I don't think so. As you can see, science by itself cannot answer everything.
Anyways, there are three major arguments for the existence of God, of which none have been disproven. Two of them are based on scientific discoveries (yay). Below I have provided links to youtube videos that give an awesome description of each argument.

The Moral Argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiAikEk2vU

The Kalam Cosmological Argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0

The Fine-tuning Argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE76nwimuT0

 

I'd like to see you try disprove any of the arguments. (By the way, the channel which made these videos, drcraigvideos, is from Dr. William Lane Craig, who is possibly the top Christian apologist today. Please check out his debates if you have time. He really owns them  )

Furthermore, besides these arguments, are you saying that personal experiences don't say anything about the existence of God. How did you come to that conclusion? If you were to meet God, wouldn't that say something about his existence? Countless people have witnessed miracle healings, and prophecies by the Holy Spirit, and you're rejecting evey single one of those experiences? Also, millions of people have had out of body and near death experiences in which they met a being of light, Jesus. Once again, are you rejecting every single one of those experiences?

And finally, there's the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Let me ask you a question. Would you make up a lie and spread it around if you knew that people would persecute, torture, and kill you for doing so? No because it's illogical right? Well on atheism, this is exactly what Jesus' disciples did (they claimed to see Jesus after the crucifixion, which would mean that he rose from the dead). Even atheist historians agree on this. So did they make up a lie to get themselves killed, or did they believe that it was true?

So that should be enough "evidence" to get you started Emilia. 

Kind regards!

[ILoveJesus]

38 minutes ago, LoveMyLife said:

I don't want to be part of the discussion on whether god exists. But the real question. Does it matter? What difference does it make?

Even if god existed, it still wouldn't mean that we have to agree with him. In the case of Christianity, the bible says eating bacon is a sin, so is eating lobster, or having a round haircut. Whether these asinine words come from a suprime being or not, we just have enough common sense to realise how ridiculous they are.

It is never about god. It is always about how you inteprate the bible. People are just picking and choosing the quotes from the bible to justify their own causes.

 

Hey, of course it matters whether God exists or not! One reason is that if there is no God (and the natural world is all there is), then there is no afterlife, but if there is a God, then there is probably an afterlife. Whether there is or isn't an afterlife surely matters and has implications on how you should live your life.

Also, eating pork, eating lobster, and having a round haircut are not sins. They were prohibited by the Old Testament law (the first 5 books of the old testament) which was the law given to the Jews to keep them holy and clean for the preparation of the coming Messiah. The thing is, these laws were fulfilled in Christ when he came. So Christians don't have to follow them anymore. 

Just want to clear up that misunderstanding because so many people are uninformed and believe this.

[azara]

Okay, so the "moral argument" is that God provides objective morals everyone can follow, because he is good.  And then it moves on to say that if there is no God, then there are no morals in our society because nobody will lay obligations upon us and we shouldn't care if everyone just goes around killing everyone else.

There's so much to be said here...

- Moral values are not objective whatsoever.  Which religion's values would you like to choose, and at which point in time? They're not all the same. Or is the only religion we should entertain modern-day Christianity, and their values? If I decide that I'd like to follow the Aztec religion, I can start executing people to sacrifice their hearts to the sun-god.  Or, if I decide to be basically any other religion, they'll disagree and say this is a terrible idea.  Religion is no more objectively moral than non-religion, unless you want to pick one specific one and ignore the existence of all the others.

- The presenter seems to think that us humans are incapable of doing anything good without somebody telling them to.  What stops me from murdering the people who annoy me, or from taking somebody's money when they're not looking? Firstly, it's the voice inside my head which says "this is not a morally good idea".  It's also human society - we learn from a young age what our particular society sees as right and wrong, and that there are punishments for doing the wrong thing.  Moral codes are similar, but not exactly the same, around the world.  If I go to a Muslim country then I must dress more modestly than I would on the beach here in Australia (oh wow, there's a difference in religious morals again; not looking very subjective?)  The things that are morally wrong are the best for survival; so we don't kill each other, we don't have intercourse with relatives, we don't steal, and we should share and help one another.  Many of these behaviours can be seen in other highly developed species, such as dolphins and whales.  The other origin of morality are those which develop from living in human society, such as the concept of justice for wrongdoing and giving away excess to charity.

- I don't think the Christian God is good at all.  This is the being who, annoyed that his minions weren't worshipping him enough, decided to send a massive flood to kill them all.  He also manipulated a father to slaughter his child, had his son hideously tortured to death, and destroyed two cities because, well, they also weren't worshipping him enough.  Are these good and morally correct actions to you?

Edited January 15, 2017 by azara
wow so many typos whoops

[talalrulez]

2 hours ago, azara said:

Okay, so the "moral argument" is that God provides objective morals everyone can follow, because he is good.  And then it moves on to say that if there is no God, then there are no morals in our society because nobody will lay obligations upon us and we shouldn't care if everyone just goes around killing everyone else.

There's so much to be said here...

- Moral values are not objective whatsoever.  Which religion's values would you like to choose, and at which point in time? They're not all the same. Or is the only religion we should entertain modern-day Christianity, and their values? If I decide that I'd like to follow the Aztec religion, I can start executing people to sacrifice their hearts to the sun-god.  Or, if I decide to be basically any other religion, they'll disagree and say this is a terrible idea.  Religion is no more objectively moral than non-religion, unless you want to pick one specific one and ignore the existence of all the others.

- The presenter seems to think that us humans are incapable of doing anything good without somebody telling them to.  What stops me from murdering the people who annoy me, or from taking somebody's money when they're not looking? Firstly, it's the voice inside my head which says "this is not a morally good idea".  It's also human society - we learn from a young age what our particular society sees as right and wrong, and that there are punishments for doing the wrong thing.  Moral codes are similar, but not exactly the same, around the world.  If I go to a Muslim country then I must dress more modestly than I would on the beach here in Australia (oh wow, there's a difference in religious morals again; not looking very subjective?)  The things that are morally wrong are the best for survival; so we don't kill each other, we don't have intercourse with relatives, we don't steal, and we should share and help one another.  Many of these behaviours can be seen in other highly developed species, such as dolphins and whales.  The other origin of morality are those which develop from living in human society, such as the concept of justice for wrongdoing and giving away excess to charity.

- I don't think the Christian God is good at all.  This is the being who, annoyed that his minions weren't worshipping him enough, decided to send a massive flood to kill them all.  He also manipulated a father to slaughter his child, had his son hideously tortured to death, and destroyed to cities because, well, they also weren't worshipping him enough.  Are these good and morally correct actions to you?

damn bro, you're truly savage, and i respect you for that. but i also highly respect your argument in that moral values are not objective. i also loved your example of other developed societies in dolphins and whales. however, there is a fault in your argument, in which observers of religion can exploit. the argument being that most human societies around earth have had their laws centralized around the laws of their religion. for example, the ancient egyptians believed in an afterlife. if they were good, they'd go to heaven, and if they were bad, well, they'd have their heart eaten by ammit. belief in a sort of afterlife is present in almost all historical societies, from the egyptians mentioned to christians, muslims, etc. even hindus and buddhists, who, although dont believe in an afterlife and instead believe in reincarnation, still do believe that their future reincarnation is based on the actions and deeds of the life they currently live in. to say that morals is not based on religions is not completely true. Atheists (i suspect you are one, so please hear me out) would have different objective morals, based on the dominant religion of the country they live in. for example, atheists in america would be very different from say, atheists in Turkey. the american would have MOST of his values obtained from a christian society, whilst the turkish person would have most of his obtained from a muslim society.

As stated before, your example of animals is very good, however, it is easily discarded, when most religions say that animals follow god's or the gods will/wills.

btw, just to provide you with context, i do believe in religion, and would love to continue this with you. oh, and greetings from sydney, my fellow australian.   

[ILoveJesus]

9 hours ago, azara said:

Okay, so the "moral argument" is that God provides objective morals everyone can follow, because he is good.  And then it moves on to say that if there is no God, then there are no morals in our society because nobody will lay obligations upon us and we shouldn't care if everyone just goes around killing everyone else.

There's so much to be said here...

- Moral values are not objective whatsoever.  Which religion's values would you like to choose, and at which point in time? They're not all the same. Or is the only religion we should entertain modern-day Christianity, and their values? If I decide that I'd like to follow the Aztec religion, I can start executing people to sacrifice their hearts to the sun-god.  Or, if I decide to be basically any other religion, they'll disagree and say this is a terrible idea.  Religion is no more objectively moral than non-religion, unless you want to pick one specific one and ignore the existence of all the others.

- The presenter seems to think that us humans are incapable of doing anything good without somebody telling them to.  What stops me from murdering the people who annoy me, or from taking somebody's money when they're not looking? Firstly, it's the voice inside my head which says "this is not a morally good idea".  It's also human society - we learn from a young age what our particular society sees as right and wrong, and that there are punishments for doing the wrong thing.  Moral codes are similar, but not exactly the same, around the world.  If I go to a Muslim country then I must dress more modestly than I would on the beach here in Australia (oh wow, there's a difference in religious morals again; not looking very subjective?)  The things that are morally wrong are the best for survival; so we don't kill each other, we don't have intercourse with relatives, we don't steal, and we should share and help one another.  Many of these behaviours can be seen in other highly developed species, such as dolphins and whales.  The other origin of morality are those which develop from living in human society, such as the concept of justice for wrongdoing and giving away excess to charity.

- I don't think the Christian God is good at all.  This is the being who, annoyed that his minions weren't worshipping him enough, decided to send a massive flood to kill them all.  He also manipulated a father to slaughter his child, had his son hideously tortured to death, and destroyed two cities because, well, they also weren't worshipping him enough.  Are these good and morally correct actions to you?

Hey there. The argument went like this. If God doesn't exist, objective moral values don't exist. However, objective moral values do exist. Therefore God exist.
The key word is objective.
It's true what you said, that everyone can have their own moral values even if God doesn't exist, but that wasn't the point. If God doesn't exist, there are no objective moral values, meaning that they really are true, independent of what people think. For example, torturing an innocent person is wrong, even if some people think it's okay.
So if God doesn't exist, things like the Holocaust weren't really wrong; it would just be a matter of subjective opinon.

But obviously our moral experience tells us that the holocaust really was wrong. Thus there is an objective moral value, and thus God exists. Furthermore, you even seem to affirm that objective moral values and duties do exist when mentioned a couple things that seemed wrong. The ironic thing is that if God doesn't exist, you wouldn't be able righteously complain about these things because everything would just be a matter of human opinion.

 

[azara]

15 hours ago, ILoveJesus said:

Hey there. The argument went like this. If God doesn't exist, objective moral values don't exist. However, objective moral values do exist. Therefore God exist.
The key word is objective.
It's true what you said, that everyone can have their own moral values even if God doesn't exist, but that wasn't the point. If God doesn't exist, there are no objective moral values, meaning that they really are true, independent of what people think. For example, torturing an innocent person is wrong, even if some people think it's okay.
So if God doesn't exist, things like the Holocaust weren't really wrong; it would just be a matter of subjective opinon.

But obviously our moral experience tells us that the holocaust really was wrong. Thus there is an objective moral value, and thus God exists. Furthermore, you even seem to affirm that objective moral values and duties do exist when mentioned a couple things that seemed wrong. The ironic thing is that if God doesn't exist, you wouldn't be able righteously complain about these things because everything would just be a matter of human opinion.

 

What you are talking about are morals which everybody who is sane believes in - don't murder, steal, cheat, etc.  The argument that morals are objective and independent is difficult to substantiate beyond very obvious examples.  Okay, fine, saying the Holocaust was wrong is always going to be universally agreed with, so it looks objective.  But think about nuanced and subtle, difficult moral decisions, where there's no definite right answer.  Here's an example I found on the net (better than any I could think of immediately):

A madman who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been apprehended. Unfortunately, he has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It is possible that hundreds of people may die. The authorities cannot make him divulge the location of the bombs by conventional methods.  However, he loves his (innocent) wife very much.  If she is tortured in front of him, he may divulge the location of the bombs.  Is it right to torture her?

Both options - letting hundreds of people die, or torturing an innocent - are horrible.  According to you, if God exists, objective morals exist, so there is only one correct answer to this problem.  But if you gave the problem to, say, 100 people, I'm sure you would get divided opinions on what should be done.  And if you gave the problem to 100 Christian people, I think opinions would still be divided, so religion wouldn't be too much a help to them here.  

I think this is a strong example of where morals are very subjective.

[azara]

22 hours ago, talalrulez said:

damn bro, you're truly savage, and i respect you for that. but i also highly respect your argument in that moral values are not objective. i also loved your example of other developed societies in dolphins and whales. however, there is a fault in your argument, in which observers of religion can exploit. the argument being that most human societies around earth have had their laws centralized around the laws of their religion. for example, the ancient egyptians believed in an afterlife. if they were good, they'd go to heaven, and if they were bad, well, they'd have their heart eaten by ammit. belief in a sort of afterlife is present in almost all historical societies, from the egyptians mentioned to christians, muslims, etc. even hindus and buddhists, who, although dont believe in an afterlife and instead believe in reincarnation, still do believe that their future reincarnation is based on the actions and deeds of the life they currently live in. to say that morals is not based on religions is not completely true. Atheists (i suspect you are one, so please hear me out) would have different objective morals, based on the dominant religion of the country they live in. for example, atheists in america would be very different from say, atheists in Turkey. the american would have MOST of his values obtained from a christian society, whilst the turkish person would have most of his obtained from a muslim society.

As stated before, your example of animals is very good, however, it is easily discarded, when most religions say that animals follow god's or the gods will/wills.

btw, just to provide you with context, i do believe in religion, and would love to continue this with you. oh, and greetings from sydney, my fellow australian.   

Hi also from Sydney

I like your point that societies are often centred around religion.  I was mostly interested in disproving that objective morals come from religion, not that any morals can come from religion, because, as you point out, they often do.  

To be more specific, I would argue that both religion and morals, as well as laws, stemmed from humans organising themselves into larger communities - basically, all of them provide rules by which we should live our lives correctly, without harm to other people.  So yes, morals and religion are closely linked.  I just don't think religion provides objectivity to morals.

As a sidenote, the example of animals was to disprove a point in the video, which said that only humans are bound by morals, and it's what sets us apart from other animals.  I pointed out animals also follow morals, so we're not that different after all.

[talalrulez]

3 hours ago, azara said:

Hi also from Sydney

I like your point that societies are often centred around religion.  I was mostly interested in disproving that objective morals come from religion, not that any morals can come from religion, because, as you point out, they often do.  

To be more specific, I would argue that both religion and morals, as well as laws, stemmed from humans organising themselves into larger communities - basically, all of them provide rules by which we should live our lives correctly, without harm to other people.  So yes, morals and religion are closely linked.  I just don't think religion provides objectivity to morals.

As a sidenote, the example of animals was to disprove a point in the video, which said that only humans are bound by morals, and it's what sets us apart from other animals.  I pointed out animals also follow morals, so we're not that different after all.

hi again. In your last point, you mentioned something about a video. For that, i am sorry if i wasn't able to regard your previous statement, as i legit do not know where this video is, nor do i know the point that it made. 

Concerning your point on the objectivity of morals, i'm not sure but i feel as if you're confusing objective morals with subjective morals.  By definition, "objective" means it is universal towards everyone with no exception, and of course "subjective" means it varies from person to person.
 
There is not one type of morality that is universal towards everyone, it really depends on that person's nature and nurture, in fact, morality may not even be the same for two people raised under the same rooftop (such as a pair of twins where one happens to be a vegan). However, religion does try to provide us with objective morals. In your statement against @ILoveJesus you gave us the example of a madman bomber who is incredibly affectionate of his wife, bla bla bla. you then stated that 100 people, no matter if they are all Christians, would give different answers to whether they should torture the innocent woman or not, and again, i cannot argue that you are right. but i'm not at all surprised. 

i don't believe in objective morals. i believe that objective morals don't really exist in people, but as i mentioned before, religion does try to give us objective morals. obviously, it doesn't work, however, i believe that it can somewhat fine-tune our beliefs to be almost in line with it's beliefs. 

you are right. situations are not always simple. for example, my TOK teacher gave us an example where the guy from "texas chainsaw massacre" one day came to our school, and attempted to kill the teachers. obviously, all the teachers are hiding, and this guy is searching for them crazily. now you know the location of one teacher. if this guy came up to you and asked you if you knew the hiding spot of a teacher, would you give it up, or say you don't know? (btw, the madman won't kill you if you don't know where the teacher is) immediately, i asked my TOK teacher whether the teacher is someone i like or dislike. 

Because, our attitudes towards people will always dictate our moral decisions. in this example, if it was a teacher i liked, i wouldn't have given up his hiding spot, and if it was a teacher i disliked/hated with all my guts, i would give his location in a heartbeat (lol jk). however, as mentioned before, religion sure would love to impose upon us its moral values, but its impossible, so it attempts at at least making us have moral codes that are close to the moral codes of the religion. our moral decision will remain subjective in nature, but will be close to the objective morality of whatever religion you believe in.   

 

lol i feel like i rambled on towards the end, and stopped making sense. i sincerely apologize and srsly, i wouldn't mind if you told me if my words stopped making sense or not.