Morality based on religious authority and dogma can be good or bad. The problem is, how can one tell which is the case? This is the Divine Command understanding of morality and history has clearly shown that it has created much more harm than good. The opposite of this "Top-Down" understanding of morality is the "Bottom-Up" morality that is known as Secular Morality. Observation of human activity throughout history clearly shows that morality actually comes from within normal humans through biology/evolution and social influences. The problem with secular morality is that it is subjective and everyone has at least a little different perspective on the subject. So, societies that have governmental organizations based on secular law and not religious laws are contentious because of such. So, what to do about it? How about first agreeing on what morality is and then turning to science for the various effects of actions for informing moral decisions?
Click on the link below for a 15-min video that presents many of the subtleties of secular morality:
Humanism fails as a moral code?
