How can a moral code be based on fear of punishment? I've never understood that. It's not moral to do something just so you don't go to hell; it's selfishness in the extreme.
No actual christian will agree with that, I've found. They look at me like I'm speaking Martian.
We're sort of mixed-up on the purpose of punishment. We punish children to help them learn. They'll be less likely to misbehave in the future. We punish criminals similarly with incarceration, but there's also an element of retribution involved. For the worst criminals we keep them incarcerated until death or near death, or in some places, execute them. There's no pretext of trying to teach them anything.
The mostly-Christian idea of a punishment of unlimited suffering for what is in even the worst cases, limited wrongdoing, seems bizarre and unfair. That was one of the criticisms Bertrand Russell had of Christianity. And the punishment won't even teach you anything. Of course, Christians will argue that (1) Those are the rules, and the God who created us need not answer to us about our ideas of "fairness" (this is the lesson of Job), and (2) Though some readings of scripture may seem to contradict this, we don't really know how God will judge any of us. Maybe the threat of eternal punishment is just one way to help keep the worst of us in line.
When a Christian tells you that he (or she; forgive!) gets his objective morality from God, and asks you where you get your (presumably subjective and wishy-washy) morality, just say you get yours from the same place as him: from your biological heritage, your family, your culture, your teachers and friends, with some independent research and thought. It's not all prepackaged, and neither is his. Otherwise, Christians of every era would have the same morality.
Isn't slavery wrong? The God of the Old Testament had elaborate cleanliness rules surrounding food and sex, but said nothing against slavery. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul wrote rules for slaves and their masters, but not that it was wrong. Barely 150 years ago, Christian preachers in the American South -- many hundreds of them -- spoke and wrote in support of the institution of African slavery there. Surely some of those preachers were smarter and more learned in scripture than any Christian I personally know. How could they get it so wrong? Was it the Bible or was it their culture?
Your Christian friend may then argue that slavery is not
objectively wrong. Good luck with that.
Finally, fundies like to say that believing in evolution undermines morality: if we're just animals we're allowed to do anything, like murder and steal. Now evolution, being a scientific theory, is descriptive, not proscriptive. We don't obey gravity by throwing rocks to the ground. But contrary to the fundies' fears, evolution doesn't undermine morality, evolution
explains morality. You go around murdering members of your tribe, and you're not likely to have more children.
Unless, perhaps, you invoke scripture.
(Most of this has been said before, and better, by others. Sometimes I just gotta rant.)
