Moral Relativity: Where moral values come from?

Quote:

There are complex moral questions about using violence/sin to discipline violence/sin, but harm is objective. A spanking does a certain amount of harm, as does the behavior that incurred the spanking.

Your example is laughable at best. Spanking? How about killing innocents? http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zq7yg82

Quote:

One argument supporting the case that dropping the nuclear bomb was the right thing to do, is that the immediate deaths that it caused are outweighed by lives potentially saved in the long run by the quick end of the war. An argument against using the bomb is that the deliberate killing of civilians on this scale violates the principles of just war.

From Khanacademy.org:

Quote:

Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?

Truman’s decision was framed by his belief that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would shorten the war and thereby save the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of American soldiers as well as untold numbers of Japanese soldiers and citizens.
However, in the years following the war—and to this day—the United States’ use of nuclear bombs against the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has had both proponents and detractors. Many questions remain about the necessity of using the bomb and its moral implications: Would the United States have acted so quickly to use nuclear weapons against Europeans? Was racism against the Japanese an element in the decision? Might the United States have exploded a nuclear bomb on an uninhabited island to demonstrate the bomb’s terrible power instead of destroying two cities? Might the United States have been able to gain Japan’s unconditional surrender by other means?
But there was no question that the development and use of the atomic bomb changed the nature of world warfare forever. Though the bombings of Japan remain the only wartime use of nuclear weapons, since 1945 the threat of nuclear war has loomed over international conflicts, promising a level of "prompt and utter destruction" never before seen in the world.

. Racism is a good possibility during that time in our country's history. The government put us Japanese Americans into concentration camps, but not German and Italian Americans. It was a time when the white majority and the media were racists. I was in the US Air Force from 1955 to 1959, and worked with nuclear weapons. I never saw another Asian in my specialty during the four years I was in the Air Force stationed at Travis AFB, Ben Guerir AFB, and Walker AFB in New Mexico (where the Enola Gay and the atomic bombing of Japan was planned). I had no objection working with nuclear weapons, because it was my responsibility in the military. We maintained, handled, and loaded them onto B47's, B36's and B52's. Today, the top military brass declared they will not follow any illegal order from Donald Trump to use nuclear weapons for the first time in our country's history. I support their decision, because enough psychiatrists have declared Donald Trump "mentally unstable." Ethics and morals are more important than following any illegal order from the president. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/mattiss-resignation-isnt-a-crisis-yet-but-it-probably-will-be-syria-afghanistan/

besides in the US the term "tyrant" is relative to the voter's view which has nothing to do with reality.

"Sin" is a religious concept.

Religion is just life-philosophy.

Quote:

Religion is just life-philosophy.

No. Science is life's philosophy. It seeks to find truth and facts about life. Religion is a cult that believes in some invisible god "out there" that nobody can prove exists.

Men have created thousands of gods, and most are based on mythology. Logic 101.

What is the meaning of life? Everybody has their own concept of what that means. Some feel life to be futile, and commit suicide. Others live to be over 100 years old. I'm now 83 years old, and have traveled to 88 countries; probably more than 90% of people now living. I wish my mental and physical health were good enough to continue traveling, but my wife now restricts my travels. I know that my memory is no longer dependable, so I feel her decision is the correct one. We still travel in the US and Canada, so I'll just have to accept the fact that there are limitations as we grow old. I hope, I've learned a thing or two about morals from my travels. I'm not the best human, but not the worst, and that's fine with me.

You don't understand religion any more than a climate denialist understands science.

I understand religion just fine. There are thousands of religions with as many gods around the world. Religion is based on faith, because none of its adherents can provide proof of their god.

They have an emotional attachment to their religion whether its christianity, buddhism, islam, hinduism, and many others based on culture. As a matter of fact, christianity is based on greek/egyptian mythology, and it's a late comer as religions are concerned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_comparative_mythology

I'm not "fighting" against religion. That would be very foolish, because the majority of humans on this planet believes in one religion or many. I have no control over people's need to believe in any god(s); it's a fact of life. All my siblings are christians. I just state my opinion why I'm an atheist.
Your analogy of a climate denialist provided my good laugh for today. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160422-atheism-agnostic-secular-nones-rising-religion/

According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world. The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system", but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect.
List of religions and spiritual traditions - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions

In your world, Santa Claus is also a true person; but not in mine. I'm not attached to my conclusion based on emotion; it's based on science. You cannot test that your god exists. There have been studies at Stanford and Yale that proved prayers do not work. In some instances where the ill person believes in prayer, they seemed to have improved, but the conclusion was that the mind's positive aspects were helpful. Third party prayers do not work.

When a belief is based on emotion and faith and not on evidence, it has to be questioned. I believe Homo sapiens evolved from primates. That's the conclusion of anthropologists who have studied the subject.

Proof that prayers do not work: https://www.quora.com/Has-science-proven-that-prayer-does-not-work

The children follow the religion of their parents, culture and race.

Maybe? LOL. Give science and anthropologists some credit. They attempt to provide conclusions on available evidence. As determined by the Bible, earth is only 7,000 years old.

Most things on this planet evolved based on environment. This world went through a couple of ice ages. The Earth has been alternating between long ice ages and shorter interglacial periods for around 2.6 million years. For the last million years or so these have been happening roughly every 100,000 years - around 90,000 years of ice age followed by a roughly 10,000 year interglacial warm period.
What causes an ice age and what would happen if the Earth endured ...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-06-15/what-is-an-ice-age.../7185002.

Homo sapiens are short-lived on this planet. The earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are from the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago such as the Omo remains of Ethiopia and the fossils of Herto sometimes classified as Homo sapiens idaltu.

Species: H. sapiens
Suborder: Haplorhini
Homo sapiens - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

It's difficult for christians to accept what are based on facts.

the Bible is only 2000 years old, and during that period in human history, there was no way to determine by scientific methods the evolution of Homo sapiens or the age of this planet. Trying to rationalize science against a book written two thousand years ago is a losing proposition.

Did you know that scientific research also found that prayers do not work?

That's hard to accept for those of religion, but those are facts founded on study after study, research after research, at Stanford and Yale University. Don't feel offended; all my siblings are christians. I just learned in my early teens that the Bible had too many errors, omissions, and contradictions for it to be any word of any god. Many of the stories in the Bible are taken from Greek and Egyptian mythology. https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/greek-mythology. Here's an excellent article on prayer. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/27/should-atheists-pray/prayer-is-useless-and-has-a-downside. Based on available evidence, I do not know if there is a creator, but I rely on science for most of my beliefs about life on earth. I do believe in evolution, because there are evidence to prove it.

We too often forget that not only is there “a soul of goodness in things evil,” but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous. While many admit the abstract probability that a falsity has usually a nucleus of reality, few bear this abstract probability in mind, when passing judgment on the opinions of others. A belief that is finally proved to be grossly at variance with fact, is cast aside with indignation or contempt; and in the heat of antagonism scarcely any one inquires what there was in this belief which commended it to men’s minds. Yet there must have been something. And there is reason to suspect that this something was its correspondence with certain of their experiences: an extremely limited or vague correspondence perhaps; but still, a correspondence. Even the absurdest report may in nearly every instance be traced to an actual occurrence; and had there been no such actual occurrence, this preposterous misrepresentation of it would never have existed. Though the distorted or magnified image transmitted to us through the refracting medium of rumour, is utterly unlike the reality; yet in the absence of the reality there would have been no distorted or magnified image. And thus it is with human beliefs in general. Entirely wrong as they may appear, the implication is that they germinated out of actual experiences—originally contained, and perhaps still contain, some small amount of verity.
⚓
✪
[4]

What does giving anyone credit have to do with anything.

...but believing science has nothing to do with disbelieving religion.

Quote:

besides in the US the term "tyrant" is relative to the voter's view which has nothing to do with reality.

. But, that is their reality. Two people providing their opinion on the same issue can come up with completely different interpretations based on their subjective understanding of morals.

Quote:

What does giving anyone credit have to do with anything.

That's how we educate ourselves about life in general. Reading is a good source of information and learning. Philosophy has always been of interest to me, and it was my minor in college. I rarely rely on one source for information on anything, and generally do not base my trust on poll results. That's one reason I'm an atheist within an environment where the majority believes in one religion or another.