I don't know. I think it's irrelevant. I would think that the laws of logic could be improved over time.
What I am saying is that your atheistic worldview cannot account for your use of reason or ethics because there is no basis in that system for abstract, invariant universals in a naturalistic, material, ever-changing universe governed by chance.
This is statement, nor really an argument. The 'basis' is the supposition about suffering that I mentioned earlier. If people really have a hard time understanding the real world basis for morality, you can start with the supposition about maximum suffering. If you can get them to agree on that then you have something to work with. If you can't, they are unconvincable most likely.
If people determine moral and ethical values for themselves...
I never said people determine it for themselves. They recognize if based on a realization that more suffering vs. less suffering is not a desirable world to live in.
In no way have you demonstrated how all of this would be improved by a theistic creator, especially considering that there's no evidence for one.
If the creator has real world reasons for imposing morality, what is gained above and beyond those real world reasons by a creator? All of the evidence (100% of it) points to the creator being a projection of ourselves, and manmade.
That is why most people have an aversion to the morality of the Old Testament, because our morality has improved and changed since then. We've changed, and the morality of the "creator" has changed as a result.
I am asking you how you account for or justify them in a coherent philosophical sense, given your presupposition of an atheistic, naturalistic, materialistic, ever-changing universe governed by chance.
I have accounted for it. There are real world reasons for behaving morally, and these can be justified simply by recognizing the above supposition about suffering. An amorphous creator and a;peals to the supernatural add nothing of value.
Our whole discussion has been based on the assumption that there are laws of logic and rationality that apply and that this is a rational discussion about world views. How can that assumption be irrelevant? If the laws of logic can be changed in the sense of being improved then we could just agree that contradictory systems are equally rational and call that an improvement. I think you would agree with me that agreeing to violate the law of identity and the law of noncontradiction would be absurd.
In no way have you demonstrated how all of this would be improved by a theistic creator, especially considering that there's no evidence for one.
If the creator has real world reasons for imposing morality, what is gained above and beyond those real world reasons by a creator? All of the evidence (100% of it) points to the creator being a projection of ourselves, and manmade.
Epistemologically, how could you possibly know such a thing? You would have to have experienced everything that has transpired since the beginning of the universe (assuming that it had a beginning) to be in a position to know that there is no evidence for a theistic creator. You would have to have universal knowledge. You would have to be omniscient. You would have to be God.
I'm pretty sure you do not have universal experience. You admitted as much when you said that you don't know whether the laws of logic are changeable or not.
That is why most people have an aversion to the morality of the Old Testament, because our morality has improved and changed since then. We've changed, and the morality of the "creator" has changed as a result.
The Scriptures themselves are full of examples of peoples' aversion to God's morality, from the Fall of man in his attempt at self-deification and autonomy onward. I would simply note that your claim that morality has 'improved' assumes a standard by which morality itself is measured, but to what are you comparing the universe when you assume that there is some standard that goes beyond it, or that there is some aspect of it that is not as it ought to be?
Cordially,