A 2 part question for Christians and Atheists about morals.?

Question

1. From what source do you draw your moral law or standards? 2. And to whom or what are you obligated too for these standards or law?

Answer 1

God/Jesus/Holy Ghost and God/Jesus/Holy Ghost.. The Trinity..

a roman catholic

http://www.vatican.va

Answer 2

1.  God

2.  God

Answer 3

I draw them from myself. I do what I feel is right, and I try to correct the things I maybe didn't do so well.

I'm obligated to myself for my own conduct. It is my self-respect and my personal honor at stake.

Answer 4

1-  I realize if I cause people harm, then it effects me in a negative way.  Not just because of retribution, but also because I am harming someone who adds to society and I realize I need society to survive.  Further, I like having friends and harming lots of people is a bad way to make friends, especially sexual friends.  So, my morals are from my logical observation of the world and my needs/wants.

2-  Myself.

Answer 5

I guess your question is directed to Atheists personally seeing as how the question to Christians is pretty much obvious ... personally I  believe in humanism ... everyone is ultimately good and nobody is really evil ... we just make mistakes ... mistakes that are due to the lack of perfect knowledge and understanding

Answer 6

1.  Mostly society and the rest family, religion, friends, in general

2.  I feel obligated to several people.  Society in general to be a good citizen.  My parents to be a good reflection of the values I was raised with.  My Heavenly Father (God) to be a good example and prove I am striving to progress and reach my fullest potential.  Anyone that I might influence or be a role model to.  And of course, myself, so that I can live with the choices I make in life.

I am sorry, but NOONE draws their moral laws and standards from themselves.  You had to be taught them from somewhere.  You may choose for yourself which morals and standards you are going to live but everyone is influenced by their environment and has learned morality from somewhere and I find the myself answer a bit self indulging and insincere.

Every single person that is claiming myself for the first answer, ask yourself this,

If you grew up on a plantation as the child of a slave owner and was taught that this was perfectly acceptable, can you honestly say you would not have owned slaves?

Answer 7

I am a Christian: I do my best to abide by the Commandments and Decrees of God's Word. I rely on God's Holy Spirit to empower me to obey His will and to guide me into all truth. As a Christian who has been born again- see John Chapter 3- my accountability will be at the First Resurrection- The Judgement Seat of Christ. There you account for what you have done with your life since conversion. I will not be judged for my sin because Jesus Christ is my Saviour. Those who reject God's Word and grace, according to the Bible, and die in their sin will be judged at the Second Resurrection- The Great White Throne of Judgement. Obedience to God's Word, for a Christian, is quite impossible without The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides us to God's truth through His Son. I feel that obedience to God's laws should be a response for a Spirit filled Christian. Not because you have to, but because you want to. God created laws in nature, and He gave laws that are only beneficial to mankind. According to the Bible, Christians are rewarded- with different duties and obligations and with the Crown of Life. The more fruitful you are as a Christian- and there are many ways to be fruitful- the more responsibilities, etc. We are not told precisely because it would be overwhelming. However, the works of a Christian since conversion will be tested by fire and even if all a man has is lost, he himself will be saved- though as by fire. The names of those who rejected God's grace and truth will not be found in the Lamb's Book of Life. They get exactly what they wanted, an eternity without God. The Bible says they, and the devil and his angels, will be cast into the Lake of Fire. As for where this is? don't know. Exactly what's it like?  We are given some descriptions in the Bible. It is, however, the eternity they all wanted and chose.

Answer 8

Same answer on both... myself and my society.

Answer 9

Me and societies codes...

Answer 10

1.  Ontologically, I think morals come from God.  Epistemologically, I draw my morals from my conscience and the Bible.

2.  I'm obligated to God and to other people to keep these moral standards.

Answer 11

Evolution can explain where our morals come from.

We desire to be altruistic to one another because it benefits our species that way, thus benefits our genes.

In a way you could say being altruistic is "selfish" behavior

Answer 12

1.) The desire to try to make the world a better place. This is done by trying to maximize happiness or growth for everyone/community and minimize pain and suffering.

2.) My loving parents.

Answer 13

I find it interesting that one answer has quoted Dawkins.  This is odd, because this is very different than what he put forward as an answer in The God Delusion.

He understands that no Biologist would agree with the idea that your genes are being helpful to others in the species.   A gene's best chance of survival is if others who don't have a particular pattern of genes don't survive to mate and reproduce.  Dawkins does realize that there is some push to be altruistic to those in our own in-group (which for most of human history would be close relatives who share similar genes), and states that the moral push to be moral to people not in that group is merely misfiring of this mechanism.  Strangely, he doesn't seem to understand how people are taking the idea that a mechanism is misfiring as the idea that there is a problem with the mechanism.  (Cars and Guns misfire.   Usually bad.  Seems gene complexes misfiring isn't considered a problem to this biologist.)

Logically, since I am not Arab I should be for the Iraq War because it will get people with competing genes killed so they have fewer chances for success. I'm not so my genes aren't winning, but it is a strong genetic reason for getting others to fight wars.  If you can have war, and not get killed yourself, you've eliminated breeding rivals.

Ultimately, people get their morality from society, which has been so saturated with Christian thought through the last few thousand years even devout atheists would have a hard time proving it hasn't had had any influence.  

Answer 14

bible

bible (God)