Damn, that's one big paragraph.
fubenkunai
I'm not sure if this is what you want from this discussion, but frankly I don't care, because this "misanthropy makes me deep" angle is tired, tired, tired. If forced to take a stand within the confines of DCT itself, I would say that certain commands and acts are good because they are issued by God, because the being in question is presumably divine and doesn't want to propagate evil.
Divine != Good (however you define good). A divine being may wish to propogate "evil" for whatever reasons it may have. Of course, in order to do so it would have to recognise certain behaviour as "evil" using a moral code external to itself, then convince its mortal followers that engaging in such actions are in their own best interests, which would likely lead said mortals to believe that the divine being's edicts were "good" when in fact they were not.
The upshot of all this is that for any being to pursue a "good" or "evil" agenda, said being must refer to a moral code external to itself (i.e., the "God commands this
because it is good" option).
If the being in question is in fact, the source of all morality (i.e., "This is Good because God commands it"
wink , then it can assign and re-assign a moral value to any action it desires to suit its needs. In other words, it can say that "Murder is good!" and "Helping the needy is evil!" if such distinctions serve its goals. To make a long story short: Morality suddenly becomes ambiguous at best.
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I mean, were I infinitely wise, I would certainly issue commands that would result in peace because that's a state preferable to all living things; I realize this is flawed bcause I'm speaking from a human and therefore fallible viewpoint,
Glad you realised this viewpoint was flawed. I'm not trying to insult you but you are assuming that an "infinitely wise" being is also "good", or more accurately, that it would desire for all living creatures to live in peace and harmony. Note that possessing wisdom does not make someone "good". Some of the most self-serving, megalomaniacal individuals I've ever met were exceedingly wise.
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but since most world religions focus on the benevolence of their God, and the notion of forgiveness, I can assume that this at least functions in a theological capacity.
It has to, since very few people would be willing to follow a malevolent deity that they knew wished them harm. A religion like that would likely die out really fast.
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However, outside the strict confines of DCT, this says to me that there is either not a God, or that we (humans) have no flippin' way to determine what He/She/It desires. Morality is too subjective to be derived from a single mandate from a single entity, and even in those cases where someone (or many someones) says "God made me do it," their morally right action has usually caused harm to someone else. So either there's nobody calling the shots except us ants down here, or we can't interpret divine commands. Maybe there's some big tenet I'm missing out on, but I'm atheist and always have been, so cut me a bit of slack?
I do not think that morality is extremely subjective, since most societies deem that which protects their members and their way of life "moral", while those things which do the opposite are "immoral".
kthxbai.
