[DannyTN]

Even if God tells us to follow these duties, why should we listen to him?

Good question. Possible arguments include:

• We owe our existence to Him since He is our Creator.
• He is smarter/wiser/more capable than us and therefore someone we should listen to.
• As our designer, He knows what's best for us.
• What He is asking us to do, love, mercy, justice is the right thing to do.
• Because He has power to determine our fate.
• Because He loved us first, while we were sinners

It can't come from God, for we can always ask why we should listen to him on the issue.

Sure it can come from God. I don't see why not. But you are right, we can always ask.

"Are you making it up? Is it just a preference of yours? Are you jsut going with the crowd or what your parents taught you? "

I don't believe it's made up or simply a preference. Certainly my parents influenced me and guided me. But in the end it was the preponderance of evidence, which included answered prayers.

"Does something make us believe it? If so, is it not freely chosen?"

Good Point. I think that is why God doesn't manifest Himself in all of His glory. That and the fact that we would die. You know He started to do that with Israel, and as His glory shown over the mountains, Israel told Him to go away, they couldn't stand it.

But I don't think if confronted by certain knowledge of the Almighty, that we would have much choice left. We would worship Him because we had to, and not because we wanted to.

Believing in God does absolutely nothing about relieving us of the responsibility of choosing for ourselves what is right and wrong. Both theists and atheists create our own morality.

I agree with the first part, but not the second. We all have that responsibility of determining right from wrong and doing right. But in the Atheists case, it's meaningless. But then why do they feel that is a responsibility? But we've seen that man can believe that he is doing right and do great wrong. Man, himself, cannot be the determiner of what is right and wrong. The human heart is too deceptive.

What the God of the Bible does is offer us a pure standard. And it's more than just don't do wrong to others, it includes loving others.

[BikerNYC]

Good question. Possible arguments include:
* We owe our existence to Him since He is our Creator.
* He is smarter/wiser/more capable than us and therefore someone we should listen to.
* As our designer, He knows what's best for us.
* What He is asking us to do, love, mercy, justice is the right thing to do.
* Because He has power to determine our fate.
* Because He loved us first, while we were sinners


Those are fine answers, but tell me where any of those rules comes from.

For example, why should we do what our creator tells us to do? Just because he tells us to? That sounds rather circular.

He should do what he tells us because he loves us first? Why should we do what the entity who loves us first tells us to do?

All of your reasons are good ones, but they are all your reasons. They are not God's. You are deciding, for better or worse, that it is good to listen to God for all of those reasons, yet the only grounding for those reasons is your own choice. Accordingly, you are making your own morality and the "pure standard" you speak of is nothing but one standard among many.

We all have that responsibility of determining right from wrong and doing right.

Why should we do what's right when that right is defined by something other than ourselves? Because God can cause us pain? But still you define your own morality. It is better to do what you are told than to experience pain. That rule does not come from God, it comes from you. You decide what is right and wrong for yourself whether you believe in God or not.