You need other authorities besides your family, community, and society? That's where you get your morality and your conscience from. Why do you need something extra?
Yeah, no one ever rebels against their parents, or their communtiy, or their society. If all men are equal, then it once again follows that one isn't bound to follow their laws. They have theirs and I have mine and you have yours. One can clearly see how ridiculous this becomes especially when you have one society's views clashing with anothers.
But religion is a human social force. There are plenty of Christian denominations, sects, and cults whose opinions clash over God's views on morality. Christians invoke their God to reinforce morality that they got from their family, community (including their church), and society. And it turns out that Christians violate their own moral principles all the time anyway, so there is no evidence to back up your assumption that belief in God makes people behave more morally than they would otherwise.
And that's why someone has to be wrong.
And I would ask that you point out where I say believing in God makes someone more moral than one who doesn't. This discussion is about how one can justify Law and Government whithout God as the authority behind it. Thus making religious views and ideology active in government not only prudent, but essential.
Do you not believe in free will? Not all Christians do, but most seem to. We are all free to do whatever we want, but we have lots of conflicting desires. Societies are big, complex entities, and they often constrain individuals to violate their own consciences. So does belief in God, by the way. Fanatical religious belief can cause people who might otherwise wish you no harm to try to kill you. Religion alone does not solve the problem of what is moral. It only provides people with an alleged authority to ground morality in.
As the Apostle Paul wrote ""Everything is permissable for me"-but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissable for me"-but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others." 1 Cor. 10:23-24
That's what law and morality do. They make us behave in certain ways that is contrary to our nature. The question still remains as to why must I behave in a certain way if you hold that the ultimate authority is something to which I am equal to? Why submit to something equal?
Actually "natural law" says that the ideas of good and evil, justice and injustice are divine in origin. When God designed man, He created us in a way so that we can identify these concepts. St. Thomas Aquinas called the ability to discern good and evil "nothing else than an imprint on us of the divine light."
That is how theistic adherents of the doctrine felt, but the concept was very popular among non-theists, most of whom were deists in those days. Many of the US founding fathers were deists--Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, etc. A fundamental belief of deists is that God does not intervene in human affairs and that divine revelations are entirely human in origin. After Darwin's destruction of so-called "natural theology" in the 19th century, religious skeptics tended more and more to be atheists. Of the two major influences on American political philosophy, Locke was a theist and Hume a deist (or atheist--it's not easy to tell). The Declaration of Independence was influenced more by Locke, and the Constitution more by Hume.
We went over this last time. Most of the Founding Fathers, the specific group of people who intellectually contributed to the Constitutional convention (55 delegates), shared a Christian, biblical world view. There is some question as to whether every single one of them held to all the orthodox teachings of classical Christianity; but there is very little question as to what their religious persuasions and world views were. Amoung your careful selection of examples you ignore John Witherspoon, for example, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Patrick Henry. Other important thinkers at the time.
Even amoung the deists (funny how that term would seem to indicate a belief in a Deity, thus making any claims of non-theism ridiculous), they're equivocal as Jefferson was more Unitarian than deist, and Franklin was raised Puritan and later adopted then abandoned deism by the time of the Convention. They may not have been evangelicals, or even orthodox Christians, but their thinking was thoroughly Christian.
All of which is beside the point.
The English philosopher John Locke took the concept of natural law even further...
You are ignoring the fact that there is a non-theistic interpretation of 'natural law'. It serves your purpose to ignore it, but you have to ignore the difference between theism and deism to get there. The basic premise was that membership in society required one to conform to social restrictions on behavior, not God alone or God at all. Morality is almost exclusively about social behavior. It makes no sense in the absence of other human beings.
And you give no respect to the theistic interpretation of 'natural law'. That this was popular amoung non-theists is irrelevant, as Pullman has proven their is a non-theistic interpretation of 'God' as well. It simply goes back to the point of this discussion. By what authority can we justify holding to any laws if we exclude God? If all humans are equal than society (which must have human founders and participants) is equal to any individual human. When both are equal one doesn't have any authority over another.
And I believe my post was in the context of what Locke proposed. You suggested I read Locke, why are you then upset that I have?
Plus morality makes no sense in the absence of other human beings only when one assumes there is no omnipotent omniscient God to judge all. Like Hume your arguement proves to be question begging.
All of which can not be justified without God.
But it was justified without God by writers such as Hume and Paine.
Hardly, as Humes arguements proved more question begging than anything else. As you are showing in this discussion coming up with an alternative explanation doesn't automaticly justify that explanation and disprove the other.
This goes back to the question what if one doesn't want to be a member in that society? It then stands that one can disolve the union and violate that society's laws. You did not answer this when I brought up the US Civil War. How can a society justify any action towards people who decide to not be a member at all in the abscense of God?
The question becomes if you don't believe that any God exsists, let alone belongs in government, then where do these "inalienable rights" come from? They can't come from human beings. Rights are by definition handed down by a higher authority, and since all human beings are equal there is no higher authority amoung us humans to grant all humans "inalienable rights", especially when some governments even reject those rights.
Rights are not handed down by anyone at all. You have a right to do anything you please when you are on your own.
Rights are most certainly handed down from somewhere. Blacks didn't have much rights if any till they were granted rights.
You have a right to do anything you please when you are on your own. If you wish to be a member of society and interact with other individuals in that society, then you must behave in a way that is not at odds with the principles of that society.
Not really. I don't have a right to torture animals even if no one's around. I don't have the right to trespass on another's property when I'm on my own. If you read the law more you may find a lot of things that doesn't really involve human interaction. So I wouldn't recommend speeding just because you think your on your own, or telling a minor it's ok to smoke and drink if he does it while no one's watching.
The strongest societies until now happen to have been those that allow their members to practice the greatest amount of freedom possible. Religions are totalitarian by nature. They attempt to govern every aspect of a person's life, including thoughts and behavior. Hence, religion and politics do not mix well, since they lead to authoritarian political regimes.
Clearly you have no clue how strong Nazi Germany was as a society, or various other dictatorships. Or how totalitarian a communist society can be. You think Stalin's Russia wasn't authoritarian?
So where then do they come from?
Human society. Rights are types of conduct that are permissible in the company of other human beings. I don't see why you have such a problem with this. Perhaps you just aren't used to accepting that authority can be fallible. Democracy has risen on the principle that authority is fallible, and it is weakened every time we forget it. Governments often seek religious endorsement, because it enhances their power over citizens. That is, it turns citizens into subjects. Religions seek government endorsement, because it likewise enhances their social power. Religion and politics corrupt each other.
Of course human authority is fallible. That's why I ask why should we hold to laws from a fallible authority? It's almost like you're defeating yourself with this.
Surely you realize that people whose faith has been just as strong as yours, if not stronger, have deconverted to atheism. You cannot know for certain that this will never happen to you, no matter how strong your faith is today. Christians have crises of faith all the time, although most seem not to fall into full apostasy over it. The hypothetical is a reasonable one.
Clearly you have not known me for very long. And I would have to question the legitamacy of their original faith, or at the very least how educated or strong they were in it. And conversly known atheists have been saved by Christianity.
The atheists I've met who have deconverted are also people that I haven't known well or at all, so your objection carries no weight. If you ever deconvert, other Christians will also question the strength of your original faith, but it is so strong in you now that deconversion is inconceivable. So my hypothetical remains reasonable.
LOL. You don't know them well or at all, and yet you presume to say they're faith was strong or stronger. The confidence that your beliefs will persuade anyone has crossed the line into arrogance.
And I conceded the hypothetical by placing myself in atheistic shoes. And what I found directly goes to the heart of the matter. I was not bound by any laws from an authority to which I am equal to.
Do you really think that fear of civil and criminal penalties do not deter crime? Would you really want to live in a society that had no penalties for criminal behavior? How long do you think you would last? The scary thing is that people who believe in God seem to make up more than their fair share of the criminals out there. The Mafia is not made up of atheists. And that fact doesn't tell you that there is "something wrong" with your conviction that a god is needed as an authority to back up moral prescriptions.
You mistake deterent as the primary purpose, when it is in fact the secondary. And I have no qualms about breaking the law. Or specificly unjust laws. Martin Luther King Jr. was a criminal, arrested multiple times. People who hid Jews in Nazi Germany were criminals under the law. The issue is not penalties per se, but justification for punishing people for doing what is right when the law says it's wrong when God is excluded. Under your arguement based on Hume no one can break the law even if it were unjust.
It's interesting to note that this nation was founded by criminals. As Franklin said "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." So your tone that immoral is the same as illegal does not hold water.
The same as what happens when different religious authoritarians clash over what is right and wrong--social conflict. Democracies provide us with a way for such disputes to get resolved. Religious authoritarianism does not provide us with any social safety valves. That is why history is full of religion-inspired violence, and we are still seeing it throughout the world today. The only "naivete" here is your belief that religion somehow puts an end to social conflicts over right and wrong. It often has the opposite effect.
No, because Democracy is moved by the majority. And popularity does not make something right. I hold that democracy is a very bad form of government, it just happens to be better than everything else. One can even destroy democracy by using democracy.
Since you freely admit "Religions are totalitarian by nature. They attempt to govern every aspect of a person's life, including thoughts and behavior." it would seem that when the religion attempts to instill a since of moral thoughts and behavior it is not so at odds with a moral governement. What you seem to have trouble with is that you seem to blame religion for all the evils, when in fact I can name some atheistic governments with greater offenses. Nietsche's Nazi Germany being a dominate example.
That naivette I was talking about was your forgetting that Man is not basicly good. And since you hold that your "ultimate authority comes to human authority" seems to lead to the same thing as "religious authoritarians", I do not see how it is any improvement.
...Lack of faith in a god seems not to make people more prone to behave immorally and illegally.
No, but you lose any significant justification on why one can't behave more immorally or illegally. Or what "immorally" even means without a moral Law Maker. If the ultimate authority is humans, aren't those people in jail their own ultimate authority?
No, my friend. It is the folks outside of jail whose authority has prevailed. 
So what? You're saying they are not equal? Some humans are superior than others? That seems contradictory to what you've been advocating.
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