I'm not sure I understand how you're addressing this. G-d can't be removed from the mix. He exists. What I'm saying is that if He didn't exist then there would be no reason to care about morality. What we would have, instead, is social conventions that can change on a whim. There is no reason to prefer taking care of sick children to the Spartan convention of leaving them to die of exposure. Can you provide a justification? Can you provide a justification for taking care of the elderly instead of sending them off to die so they won't consume resources? Can you provide a justification for taking care of anyone, rather than demanding that only the strong survive?
My observation is that this places the essence of humans firmly within that of the other animals but not within the 'image of God'.
Are you making a distinction between whether G-d exists or whether man believes in him? I'm honestly confused. If G-d doesn't exist then man doesn't have an 'image of G-d.'
If man was created in the image of God what would cause him to, or decide to, act immorally?
Pride. That much is consistent throughout human history.
Of course we don't, because they are not part of our community structure. Our moral sense developed in the interactions of humans to humans; if we include animals in that it is through an expansion of our family group.
If we are of the same essence, why not?
What makes you believe that animals are incapable of constructing their own moral guidelines?
Lack of evidence.
The nearer the species is to our level of intelligence, and the more community based they are, the more complex the interactions and the more 'thought' goes into the formation of individual limitations of action within the group. This 'moral code' has been observed in Chimp communities both in captivity and in the wild. This isn't to say that their code is not far more primative than ours but since their intellect is not as developed as ours we shouldn't expect their code to be as advanced.
There is a huge difference between generally accepted mores and a moral code. What you describe falls into the former category. In that category, Soylent Green is not wrong as long as it meets a purpose and everyone is OK with it. Drowning your children is not wrong as long as it meets a purpose and everyone is OK with it. Offing your elderly parents is not wrong as long as it meets a purpose and everyone is OK with it.
In fact, nothing is wrong as long as it meets a purpose and everyone is OK with it.
And you're OK with that?
Shalom.
The Bible says "Thou shalt not kill" - unless it meets a purpose ....
Apparently you are.
Go rent a copy of Eating Raoul.
I'm not a terribly good communicator so I'm not surprised I have confused you.
I disagree that God exists and that his believed existence has any bearing on human morals.
What Creationists generally claim is that the existence of God influences our choice of morals; that without God we would act no better than animals, red in tooth and claw. They actually go further than this and claim that if the 'belief' in God is absent, humans do act like animals. In other words our actions are predicated on our belief in God and the list of 'morals' documented in the Bible. This seems to fly in the face of our being created in the image of God.
"What we would have, instead, is social conventions that can change on a whim. There is no reason to prefer taking care of sick children to the Spartan convention of leaving them to die of exposure. Can you provide a justification? Can you provide a justification for taking care of the elderly instead of sending them off to die so they won't consume resources? Can you provide a justification for taking care of anyone, rather than demanding that only the strong survive?"
For one thing, the 'survival of the fittest' does not mean 'survival of the strongest' nor 'survival of the most brutish', it means survival of those that reproduce the most successfully. In some cases this means the strongest, as with Lions where males will drive off competitors and kill off their offspring, but in many cases it means those that cooperate the most within a community.
Cooperation has been observed in many animals, from gopher colonies to Chimp family groups. We can convincingly hypothesize, like Dawkins does, about why groups of animals evolve altruism and cooperation, but whether or not we believe those hypotheses, altruism and cooperation does exist in the animal world. Those actions are not exclusive to humans.
"Lack of evidence [that animals form their own moral system]"
There is quite a range of intellect in the animal world, from nothing in flies to highly complex in Chimps. Unfortunately none of them can communicate easily with humans so our image of their level of consciousness is necessarily incomplete. The longer we work with animals and test their ability to form independent ideas, the higher our estimation of their ability to think. Chimps routinely create hierarchies of relatedness within their groups and interact differently with the more closely related members of the group. Those actions include altruistic acts, general cooperation and even punishment for breaking the group's 'rules'.
You may dismiss those actions as mere 'instinct', but that would conflict with observations. Much of the Chimp's activity is instinctual, they have evolved to prefer those particular actions over disharmony and conflict, but much also appears to be learned. They have no ability to preserve those rules outside of physically teaching the next generation so the number and complexity of those 'rules' has to be much less than our own.
If God does not exist (as I believe) then the actions we observe in Chimps and Gorillas allows us to predict the range of human cultures, given of course our ability for abstract thought, communication, memory, and ability to preserve in writing the consequences of our and other group's past actions.
Given the evolutionary predispositions of humans (as documented in our nearest relatives) and our ability to preserve and analyze past events, even without God we would have, at some point in our history, had much the same 'morals' as we do today.
Evolution states that as a community oriented animal we would develop altruism, cooperation, and familial support systems just as we see in other animals. Why you think humans would end up being brutish as the rule rather than the exception is beyond me.