Religion, moral and values.

[Paltmull]

If it is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral, then it is God that defines what moral is. If so, if God would have declared murder to be morally correct behaviour, then it would be. Yet I think most people, even those who are religious, would consider murder immoral. A religious person might say that God would never declare murder to be something good, beacuse God is good and murder is evil.

What does that mean? It means that moral exists independently of God.

If you base your moral values solely on religion, then it must follow that you consider any behaviour potentially morally correct. If some lost part of the Bible was discovered, that revoked the fifth commandment ("You shall not kill") and replaced it with "You shall kill", then a such a person would change his moral values regarding murder.

If you don't consider every kind of behaviour potentially morally correct, then you must accept that moral is defined by something else than God. Any other conclusion is illogical.