To 3) Then rephrase it as what was obviously meant within the context “ Western secular MORAL tradition” – do you have any feasible argument up your sleeves or do you depend solely on the play with words at it seems? For me it occurs a quite obvious - as you stick to claims which are refuted since millennia, plus the outright denial, ignorance or purposely twisting of scientific and historical facts.

Philosophical reasoning like deduction is not yielding new insights – especially not if they are based on totally wrong premises.

I am still waiting for your *philosophical* refutation of latest neuroscientific findings about morality, but I am not holding my breath ….

To 2) The ‘golden rule’ is so simple and self evident - not going into details of Kant’s refinement e.g. the categorical imperative here – so it can be ‘plausible affirmed’. Or could you outright deny the golden rule - scientific style – by showing a single example of morality which can NOT be based on the golden rule or some good/moral/altruistic behavior which could NOT BE DONE WITHOUT “transcendent foundation”. Again I remind again about examples of the animal kingdom – do you need a transcendent foundation for altruism in vampire bats, of guilt and shame in all kind of mammals …etc…. ?!?!?

And your claim of necessary divine absolute morality, seems for me therefore to stem more from personal incredulity ( I can’t imagine – therefore it can’t be) especially as this absolute divine morality claim was already shot down centuries B.C.E with the Euthyphro dilemma : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

To 1) : to repeat the old chestnut (sorry !) : extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence : so it’s up to you _XIII_ to provide proof that ONLY a theistic system is able to provide “plausibly ground objective moral values “ It’s NOT UP TO ME to provide the by PROOF OF A NEGATIVE – which is by the way is impossible as your should know as self-proclaimed philosopher.

You make bold and unsustainable claims, however *Christian morality* finally boils down - whatever pass one might follow - to the teachings as revealed in the Bible as THE basis for Christianity.

So claiming that “secular morality” is a copy of *Christian morality* and an illusion, is totally wrong – when :
-There is no common agreed *Christian morality* (33,000 sects with different interpretations ….)
-The basis of all Christianity e.g. the Bible is self contradicting on lots of topics of moral relevancy
-The basis of all Christianity e.g. the Bible is full of disgusting anti moral teachings (hail slavery, kill homosexuals, adulteress, disobedient children, workers on Saturday ….etc…)
-The Christian leadership is massively acting greedy and immoral themselves – no divine guidance to be seen here
-The “absolute morality” claimed from theist to be resting at a deity was already refuted centuries B.C.E. e.g. before the N.T. (arbitrary just because god demands - versus self-evident ).
-Claims of ‘divine inspiration’ as claimed from many religious leaders is unverifiable and contradicts each other
-The historical sequence is reversed (secular democracy actually predates Christianity) to the basis of the claim made (secular morality is a copy of Christian morality)
-And the argument is made based on wrong facts: “secular Western value systems and democracy” is based on the enlightenment, which was overcoming the Christian dark ages of a divine’ installed and protected’ emperors supported from the clergy.

>>” name me one eastern system of morality that plausibly grounds the objectivity of moral values and duties “<<

Well can Christianity “plausible ground the objectivity of moral values” ?!? If you implicitly claim the primacy of Christianity ( as not to put words into your mouth …. but your unsupported statements have some consequences when thought through …..) based on (a) a superior absolute value system or (b) historically predating “western secularism”. Based on the disgusting Bible teachings (a) is shot down and because “Eastern morality systems” predates the earliest Gospel by at least 6 centuries also (b) evaporates into thin air.

And a plausible ground or objective morality boils in the end all done - for whatever religious or non-religious value system - to the good old ‘golden rule’ (do not unto others …) which is also not a Christian invention by the way. It can be traced down all over the animal kingdom including proto humans (my earlier point) and ‘tit for tat’ is the optimal mathematically strategy to enforce moral behavior in social context – all independent from Christianity.

And another one: secularity and secular democracy can be traced down all the way to ancient Greek – predating Christianity also by centuries – therefore the *Western secular tradition* including morality is NOT AT ALL based on Christianity.

The Christian foundation e.g. as very basis finally the Bible recording the teachings of Christ is hailing slavery – also as reconfirmation in the New Testament. Or take the handling of different opinion in Matt 12:30 …. who is not with me is against me and scatters … Luke 19:27-29 where Christ says : who is not following me is my enemies and I kill him in front of me…. well and I guess as *good Christian* you will hate your entire family and even yourself to be a follower of Christ and take a whip to clean out the money changers from their shops. And I could go on and on ….
The Universal declaration of human rights (UDHR) is luckily not at all based on those disgusting Christian *morality* teachings.

And outside the Bible the greedy clergy , televangelists and the ilk is not living up to the few communist teachings sprinkled over the Gospel from extinct Ebonite or Stoic/Cynic teachings.
So what on earth are you talking about the whole time ?!?

Posts here are limited to a few lines, so not sure where I should begin.
First the alleged *very specific* claim that secular morality is *as understood by Westerners* derived from * Christian principles*.
Well what is (1) “understood by Westerners* ? or do you mean your personal private interpretation ? which in discussions with theists is usually a moving goal post to evade all arguments.
And (2) what are those “Christian principles” – there are 33,000 (some count 38,000) Christian sects all with different interpretations and all claim the absolute truth …. The Bible is highly self contra dictionary and you can cherry pick whatever suit your personal agenda – so which moral teaching to pick ?

My first post here just gives a few examples about Christian *morality* like your god Yahweh’s absolute demand to stone adulterers, naughty children (5 times in the Bible !) and homosexuals all to death ! So have you followed this Christian moral advise and killed already a bakla today ? or don’t you follow your own Christian morality ?!?

You want to ‘refute’ arguments from neuroscience made from neuroscientists ? With what ? Bible verses and warm fuzzy feeling ? Even those fuzzy warm feelings can be explained and those explanations are - because scientific - of course supported by evidence not just as play with words.

A short Youtube search shows several videos from Sam Harris about his statement that science and secular philosophy have a lot to say about morality – much more than all religions who usually claim the absolute and soley ownership:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sam+h...

Same for Patricia Churchland : http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Patri...

_XII_ claims >>" >>” Also, another problem is that secular morality is illusory. “<<

Sam Harris with “the moral landscape” and Patricia Churchland with “Braintrust: what Neuroscience tells us about morality” show clearly, scientifically (e.g. with evidence !!! ) that the one who is illusory about claiming to be the basis and origin of morality are the religious fairy tale myths.

_XII_ claims >>"'secular morality' ... is by-and-large merely derivative from Christian principles "<<

What we usually consider as morality is evident even in the animal kingdom (shame, altruism, a sense of right and wrong) – and caring for the sick is evident by fossil founds dating back to Neanderthals and pre humans for several hundred thousands of years. The sense and preference for right and wrong can be even g\found in babies before they can be religiously indoctrinated.

The much more ‘moral’ and quite concerned about all sentient being based teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism are predating Christianity by several centuries .

So if someone is a forger and copycat it’s the authors of the Bible and Christians claiming to be the first ones, but this ad nausea stated Christian claim gets boring as it was refuted thousands of times also here in the FFF Forum.