(1) Can one be virtuous and live a moral life apart from belief in God?
Yes, it's possible, but unlikely. Virtue itself is not merely human. It is a gift from God and grace is necessary to live it fully. We, as humans, are just to weak to be virtuous on our own. I cannot think of a single virtuous person from history who did not believe in God.

(2) Can one consistently affirm the existence of objective moral values apart from belief in God?
As you say, I don't think so. Because without God, there is no objectivity, only subjectivity. THere must be a transcendental moral code to serve as an object for there to be objectivity in morality.

(3) Can a society hold on to objective moral values once it has severed those values from the metaphysical context that gives them their grounding?
This is my point. I don't think this is possible. We're witnessing the erosion of those values in Europe due to that continent's rejection of God, and we are engaged in a struggle to NOT do so here in the US.

Trey,

Consider the following simplified argument:

(1) If morality is objective, then God exists.
(2) Morality is objective.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

The average person on the street might think that (2) is the premise to challenge, as a half-baked relativism seems to be in the very air that we breathe.

But, interestingly, most philosophers who have wanted to resist the conclusion at (3) do not challenge premise (2) at all. Indeed, they accept it. Rather, they challenge (1) and thus argue that the objectivity of morality--or the view you and I share called Moral Realism--may be established on a naturalistic worldview. Morality does not require God in order to be objective.

There is an influential theory of morality called Ethical Naturalism, which maintains that morality need not be "transcendent" in order to be objective. Thus, Peter Railton, in an influential article titled "Moral Realism," insists, “Moral values and imperatives need be grounded in nothing more transcendental than facts about man and his environment.” The view is that moral properties are constituted by, or supervene upon natural properties. Thus, for instance, the "justice" of a social arrangement consists of its being equitable. The moral "goodness" of a man is constituted by his non-moral characteristics of courage, temperance, kindness, etc.

Anyway, religious apologists often assume that the major battles will be fought over (2) and that even their atheistic opponents will agree to (1). Quite the reverse is true.

----------

My grandson at 22 weeks, via live 3D ultrasound.

Morality is a fact? Like saying religion is a fact, isn't it? It depends.
You certainly can muddle things, but you don't appear to allow most of us to understand what if anything you said.
I don't mean to supervene upon your ethical naturalism, but hit air hoard to not! If I ensued on your ethics, let me know.

What don't you understand?

----------

My grandson at 22 weeks, via live 3D ultrasound.

It's already a fact that our democracy is based on Christianity, as are the fundamental liberal principles of Western Civilization. I am not proposing creating anything new. I am stating what the facts are. I'm not too concerned about solving the tensions of the whole world by imposing Christianity, but I do believe that those tensions will never be resolved unless and until all the world converts to Christ. But, that will likely never happen and even if it did, there's still enough sin left in the bucket for people go on fighting.
Religious: describing someone or something which takes religion as a primary component of its identity
Judeo-Christian: referring to a religious traditions which is rooted in the Old and New testaments and share the moral code locate therein, if not the theology of salvation.
God: the prime mover, the uncreated creator, the truth, love, the absolute reality of the universe, the Father of all people, the highest power, the ultimate lawgiver, the mystery of the Trinity

I think we both agree that Christianity is the foundation of our country's moral code. We just disagree how it applies now. I'm more of a bottom up kind of guy who believes that the will of the people whose beliefs are founded upon Christian values will produce a relatively "good" government and society, but will be able to solve most problems on their own. After all, if most of the poor simply abided to Christian principles regarding sex and marriage, I dare say most poverty would be eliminated (since it is overwhelmingly prevalent in single-parent households). I think you are more of a top-down kind of guy (typical for a liberal, no offense) who believes a distilled form of Christian morality ought to be imposed by government. So, you would believe in social programs and a much less active military role in the world, since it's almost like you want government to be Christ and as such, give to the poor, turn the other cheek, punish the wicked (meaning, evil corporations and war hawks), and care for the poor (in the form of socialized medicine).

Is that a fair assessment?

I'm not entirely sure that this is your post responding to me since I do not recognize myself in your description, but if so I want to assure you that NO, it ain't me! The absolute last thing that I would attribute to Govenment is being Christ-like. Punish corporations.. NEVER! Socialized medicine.. HORRORS! I'm one of those old style liberals from your's and mine's youth: Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Or: Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. I am not a Kennedy of Dean liberal and I am sorry if I have somehow misrepresented myself as such to you. You say "if most of the poor simply abided to Christian principles regarding sex and marriage, I dare say most poverty would be eliminated (since it is overwhelmingly prevalent in single-parent households)." I agree 100%. Absolutely! 100%. As for the war, I believe I am in accord with the official position of the Pope who declared that the Irag war was not a "just war" although I support the war in Afganistan. As horrifying as it may be to contemplate, you are so far right and I am so far left that we may actually be intersecting! I will reassess my positions and get back to you after due consideration! Your Friend, Jeff

PS:I am a Darwinian, maybe we can disagree on that...

Sorry. I did get you wrong. We're both guilty of painting with broad brushes. And, I didn't mean to imply that you think gov't is Christlike. Rather, among "social justice" Christians, they tend to move the onus for being "my brother's keeper" from the individual to the state. I favor the opposite, of course. There can be honest disagreements on the issue, but what I despise is when social justice Christians accuse political conservatives like myself of being insensitive to the poor just because we don't give knee-jerk support to every government program which claims to help the poor.

Anyway, your Darwinianism doesn't bother me per se. I'm no Creationist. But, many evolution advocates take it too far and make claims which are not supported by evidence. I believe evolution is a valid, proven natural process, but I do not think it is responsible for the evolution of all new species because there is no evidence for it doing so. The jump from species to species is too great and logically inexplicable by evolution. (Just an example, the time required for evolution to work would have extended the development of species so long that we would still be eating ants out of dirt hills in Kenya if evolution were the only mechanism for species change.)

I don't recall the Pope declaring the Iraq war "unjust." He was against it, and Lord knows there are plenty of Catholic clerics running around complaining about it. But remember, the pope's opinions on current political issues are not binding on Catholics the same way his official, "ex-cathedra" teaching on matters of faith and morals are. So, while I take the pope's teachings on abortion to be normative and binding, I do not--and am not required to--extend the same degree of adherence to his proclamations about the European Union or the validity of Bush's foreign policy.

I don't know what benefits coming from on high or from the bottom have to do with religion. That is the problem, religion must stay out of government.
If the USA wants to have laws based on the old and new Testaments to govern all the types of religion we have, then democracy will take care of that. But, to try and impose such a thing on the oldest civilized country in the world, Iraq, has been tried many times and has always failed. That is why we are at war. The moral codes of Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists is somewhat different than Christianity, and it is simply foreign to them to treat women the same as men; to worship Christ; and all of the other hundreds of laws Christians follow---totally different than theirs.
I can't believe we have a government who doesn't realize that from history's lessons and not let a little oil dictate our actions.

Dollar,
"Religion must stay out of government." Where is that written in the Constitution? If the people of a state, out of a religious motive, vote to outlaw pornography, that law is valid. Sorry. Now, if they vote to make Christianity the official religion, that is a problem. If they penalize believers of one faith by imposing a tax, that is a problem. But allowing religion to form your conscience and inform your voting and law-making is certainly NOT prohibited.
What you simply refuse to realize is that our liberal democracy is based on Christian values. Freedom of religion is itself of Christian notion. Now, granted, interpretations have changed over the years, but you need to know that the origin of those ideas which make our democracy so great and so protective of individual liberties is religious, is Christian, in fact.
Do you think it's coincidence that the most prosperous, freest, successful states and economic/political systems come from countries which are (or were) Christian?
The same brilliant minds who spent their time using their God-given reason to understand the mysteries of the bible and God were also using their same abilities to understand and define political and economic rights. The Magna Carta, which established the principle of limited power for the executive, was pushed by the Catholic Church to protect it and the people from unfair treatment by the king.
It is fundamentally the Christian notion of the dignity and value of each human being that has driven all the positive developments in our socio-political-economic history.
To deny that basic reality is an act of willful ignorance and is dangerous to the continuation of our way of life, for if you don't know whence you came, you will go down the wrong road eventually.

You make it sound as if we can't possibly govern or last very long if we don't push our values onto every religion that exists. Not so.
People run our government and not the church or any church's suggestions.
You mistake individual freedom, up to what the law says, with only Christianity. The law determines that, not the church, or churches. Churches in government have caused millions to be slaughtered in the name of the church. You can't seperate church and religion.

Dollar,
The Church has caused millions of deaths? I think you mean the church-less government has caused millions of deaths. Think of the Nazis and Communists.

Check out this link: http://www.wtv-zone.com/Mary/forsakenroots.html

Let's end it otherwise. We're too far apart.

"It's thought that the number of people killed in religious conflicts through the centuries exceeds 100 million"

Try Googling "number of people killed" + "religion".

Enjoy.

It is beyond dispute that "religion" has been an occasional tool for murder throughout history. Look in the Old Testament. Look at the Crusades, the Muslim response, the Second Crusades, the Muslim response, etc. It is not simply "God-less" states. Hitler invoked the Almighty and God regularly as sanctioning a divine tyranny which made Germany feel like a warm and cozy return to the Prussian kings. Hitler used a subverted interpretaion of Martin Luther's anti-Judaism (which was religious) into anti-Semitism (which was racist). Hitler appropriated the support of Protestants and Catholics, getting the Vatican (through later Pope Pius) to enter into the Concordat, which was a political sellout in which Rome promised to look the other way. Only a fraction of the clergy in Germany protested Hitler (e.g., Dietrich Bonhoefer). Religion has routinely been used to murder. The Albeigentsian Crusades were probably the most twisted rejection of the Commandment "Thou Shalt not Kill". The sometimes inextricable connection between religion and the state places church figures clearly in prominent roles in war and atrocities.

Of course people have been killed for the sake and cause of religion. So, what's your point? That makes religion "bad"? People have been killed in wars for economic resources. Does that make oil bad, or land, or bauxite?

Give me a break with your Hitler example. That guy put Catholics in the concentration camps and was openly hostile to the Catholic Church and Christian leaders in general. He sought to bring back a mythical Aryan paganism and rejected Christ and Christianity as Jewish phenomena.

The Concordat you talk about wasn't a sell out by the Church. It was a treaty signed by the Vatican and the 3rd Reich guaranteeing the Church the right to continue to operate in Germany. The reason it had to be signed was because the Nazis had begun persecuting Catholics, because Catholics in a variety of forms were resisting Nazism. The Church continued to speak out against Nazism (Pope Pius XI's "Mit brennender Sorge" letter harshly and openly criticized Nazism in 1937), but did indeed have to be careful with its public pronouncements because the Nazis would punish Catholics for what the hierarchy said.

The Albigensian Crusade was a product of its time. Albigensians, or Jansenists, were not only heretical, they were downright evil. The rejected marriage, encouraged abortion, and generally were highly disruptive not only to the Church, but to society itself. They're held up as heroes now because our society assumes anyone or anything which was against the Church was good, but they were a culture of death at a time when heresy was considered a capital crime by the state. YOu may not like such laws, and we are well beyond them now, but that was the reality of the time and it's ahistorical to judge the time from 20th century standards.

The Crusades weren't undertaken for "religion" per se. They were primarily a defensive effort aimed at curbing the seemingly unstoppable expansion of Islam by the sword. Remember by the time of the first Crusade, Islam had spread from a small tribe in Arabia to all of North Africa, most of Iberia, most of the Middle East, and much of Asia Minor. The Crusaders had zero interest in converting the Muslims in the HOly Land. They just wanted them out and to stop the expansion and to preserve one small area of very important, holy land for Christian pilgrimages.

Thank, AMDG, for the wonderful response. Though you challenge my contentions, the debate is exciting and you have made my day. Thank you. The point of my response was the general suggestion that when state sponsored violence occurs it must be separate from religion. Not always true and and in fact sometimes quite the opposite. My background- I am middleaged, “Protestant”, and I accepted Christ as a teenager, fasting one Easter weekend. I have often considered converting to Catholicism but can’t seem to do it. Lately, I have been struck by the simplicity of Bonhoeffer, who introduced a new teaching to theology students--- read the Bible as though God is speaking to you. Back to the issue of religion and violence. How can Moses, for example, in Book 3 of Deuteronomy recite his slaughter of innoncent women and children and in Book 5 relay God’s commandment that “Thou Shalt not Murder” ? I do not know the answer. The Albigentsian Crusades--- I don’t believe that the Cathars were evil, just non-conforming and that the real issue was the independence of the Catholics of Southern France (and their money). Pope Innocent was hardly that. As to the Catholic Church and Hitler, I would agree with most of what you concluded. However, they showed little courage and Bonhoeffer and many from his family paid with torture and ultimately their lives. Finally, I am not sure that it is historically accurate that Islam was spread “by the sword”. Mohammed did not. For example, when Saladin retook Jerusalem from the Crusaders, he left the civilians alone. He let them stay or leave and he let many Crusaders escape. So, there was essentially blame on both sides. Hey, where is PTCGuy--- we need to copy this over to Fayette Squeaks.

I think I remember something about a French king and a Pope having something to do with that too.

Didn't that start a little spat between the church and anyone that didn't run fast enough?

You really intrigued me there "Bad". The Knights Templar were somewhat glorified in "National Treasure" but history sure makes them look like tools. I never read the book or saw the movie Da Vinci Code because author Dan Brown unabashedly admitted that the book and movie and were largely fictional. Therefore, I considered it borderline blasphemous. However, I did rent the History Channel "Beyond the Da Vinci Code" which points the true and untrue. Unfortunately, the book is so disturbing from a religious standpoint that it would probably put PTC Guy in a nuthouse. Worth seeing to watch the interviews Richard Leigh.

It sure did. I had forgotten all about that. You are on top of alot of things bad, how do you find the time?