No? As a way of restating my earlier point about the potential lack of transcendent consequences not precluding the existence of more contemporaneous consequences, imagine a society where everyone was free to murder with impunity, where murder was, if not condoned, at least tolerated, and therefore freely practiced on a whim. What would such a society be like? Would the freedom to murder affect the way such a society was organized, the way its members behaved, the social conventions and traditions in force? Wouldn't those effects be fairly labeled as the "consequences" of the freedom to murder at will? Would you want to live in a society that had to deal - indeed, positively embraced them - with those consequences?
What is the explanation for THIS hunger; namely, that hunger and thirst in our hearts for justice against the wicked? The complaint of our hearts that the wicked "get away with it" makes no sense, and is ultimately meaningless anyway, from an atheistic perspective!
We have an instinctive dislike for the consequences of letting the wicked get away with it - consequences which I asked you to envision above. Your heart complains because your heart knows that in a society without rules, your life is very likely to be short, brutal, and nasty. It is precisely because we are selfish that we have rules. A few people will try to selfishly lie, steal, and murder their way to the top, but most of us instinctively know that there can only be one top dog - making the odds rather long of that top dog being you or me, and so we decline to play that game by selfishly opting for self-preservation instead.
Suppose for example, that a thunderstorm comes though St. Louis tonight and deposits hail on my front lawn which accidentally happens to spell out the words, "Love your wife". Should I feel any obligation to obey the random pattern of hail that gives the appearance of a moral proposition and command? Of course not.
Imagine that your glass of water were to suddenly change to wine as you were holding it. Suppose the hailstorm deposited a perfect representation of the Virgin Mary. Suppose you were standing on the beach one day, and the sea parted before you. All of these events are entirely possible without supernatural intervention, albeit highly unlikely to occur. Are these potential events actually more significant than a random hailstone commandment to love your wife, or are they only more significant because of the significance you assign them? Suppose you had a random and accidental set of quantum fluctuations that only appeared to be Christ conversing with you in your living room - again, highly unlikely, but not impossible. Would you feel obligated to obey it? Would you even be able to tell the difference between mere appearance and true reality?
Here's my question; in light of the foregoing, what is the atheistic ground for asserting the existence of an "immoral act" in the first place? You yourself have acknowledged that "evil exists", but how does one account for it in a random, purposeless, impersonal cosmos?
Impersonal, yes. Random, sort of. Purposeless? Not at all - in that case, the field is open for any purpose we desire to create. Will we create a world that tolerates what we might call "evil", or not? What's your preference, if God should turn out to be absent?
You know, I can't really disagree with anything you have said here about the practical or temporal consequences of immorality. A society will reap what is sows. Yet an impersonal universe provides no basis for complaint about the 'wrongness' of a Pharaoh or anyone else, for that matter, "getting away with it". If the universe just is and there is nothing objectively right or wrong about it, then complaints about it or any part of it are unintelligible and meaningless,
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
All of these events are entirely possible without supernatural intervention, albeit highly unlikely to occur. Are these potential events actually more significant than a random hailstone commandment to love your wife, or are they only more significant because of the significance you assign them? Suppose you had a random and accidental set of quantum fluctuations that only appeared to be Christ conversing with you in your living room - again, highly unlikely, but not impossible. Would you feel obligated to obey it? Would you even be able to tell the difference between mere appearance and true reality?
Great questions. Let me start with the apparition of Christ conversing with me in my living room. (I can just see myself trying to convince people here of such an event!:^) If such an apparition were nothing more that the result of some accidental, random quantum fluctuation would I be able to tell the difference between that and an actual personal encounter with Jesus Christ? Probably not, you're right. But what obligation would I have to obey an accidental, random quantum fluctuation? I think that Jesus Christ is presently finished with the living room circuit and so is not in the habit of appearing in bodily form and conversing with persons in their living rooms, but even so, which is the more likely explanation, if such an apparition should appear? Of course another possibility is simply that I might need to be confined for a time on the 5th floor of St. John's hospital!
You ask if the significance of such potential events is dependent upon the significance I would assign them. Well, if that’s the case, then whatever significance is assigned is entirely subjective, is it not? Is evil merely subjectively defined? You are saying that evil exists, but I get the feeling that you don’t believe it actually exists objectively. If it's entirely subjective, what's the ultimate significance of our feeling of angst when someone, perhaps a Pharaoh, 'gets away with it', or a Pharaoh’s feeling of triumph, or if we end up living short, brutish, nasty lives, or I see apparitions in my living room? If evil is subjectively defined the very word itself becomes relative and incoherent, because there is no actual, objective ‘wrongness’ in any act. ‘Good’ and ‘evil’ become nothing more than a random quantum fluctuation; a matter of molecules in motion of mere personal preference.
Will we create a world that tolerates what we might call "evil", or not? What's your preference, if God should turn out to be absent?
I humbly submit that the only way any of these notions can even have intelligibility, much less transcendent significance, is if there really is a Personal, Infinite Creator of the universe. The 'fairness' and ‘justice’ that we seek in the universe is absurd and meaningless without Him.