Christian morality is not dependant on society, that’s the whole point. They are dependant on God. Your map shows different Christian denominations across the U.S. and the world, but I am saying that morality as defined by God in the bible is absolute across all nations. Are they practically? Of course not. Should they be? Yes. Geographic location has nothing to do with it.

You said: “You are a being that can very well empathize with others, and that can assess the result of your actions. Yes there are people who can not empathize with others, they’re called sociopaths and are in need of psychological treatment (and not of for example execution).” My question is, who are you to say that they need psychological treatment? Because they don’t agree with your idea of how society should work? They don’t agree with your society? What makes you think your society is better than what they think society should be?

The standard that God sets never encouraged the supression of women or slavery. I don’t care what any church says, if it doesn’t fit with God’s standard. Equality of men and women? Set long ago by God in the bible, Genesis 1. Not always adhered to, even by the church, but I am arguing that you don’t need to change God’s standard; it’s perfect.

I still stand by what I said in my post: Without some absolute standard, it’s your opinion vs someone else’s.

Have a look at this. http://www.bluegrassreport.org/ChurchBodies.gif . Why do you think the map is clustered like this? In a bigger scope: http://www.wadsworth.com/religion_d/special_features/popups/maps/matthews_world/images/w001.jpg

Doesn’t this somehow indicate that religious beliefs (and thus, ideas of morality) are just as dependant on society as “atheistic beliefs”? Even if there is a god who favors a certain system, the key to following this system can’t be to just practice religion, it has to be one specific religion. So the name of your post shouldn’t be “Ethics without religion” but “ethics without my religion”.

That’s an inherent problem with deriving an absolute standard for morality from an authority of some sort, be it king, famous philosopher or prophet. In contrast, the categorical imperative for example doesn’t take it’s authority from the fact that it was issued by Kant, but by the fact that it’s a concept that is rationally comprehensible. You asked “who am I to say that…”. You are a being that can very well empathize with others, and that can assess the result of your actions. Yes there are people who can not empathize with others, they’re called sociopaths and are in need of psychological treatment (and not of for example execution).

Additionally, I think it’s more a blessing than a curse that moral values can, in fact, change. It is possible that concepts which are accepted as right at some point of time (like slavery or the surpression of women) eventually turn out to be wrong. Keeping a stance on one immovable set of rules would be short sighted, and it doesn’t even work in the long run – generally the church changed it’s dated standards, only often slowlier than the rest of society.

Cheers, Thomas