Reply To: Morals In Religion

Nm,
“Stealing is bad because of what it is.”
That’s not a very logical statement, although it does feel good.

“ how would the commandment ‘enlighten’ him to realize that it is bad?”
I don’t think that that is the point of the commandments. I think the point is simply to let us know what God wants.

“ He would think ‘the Torah forbids all the good stuff’, and would deny the very basis of moral ideas.”
See, you’re going in circles. You’re trying to address my point, but your using your ideas to do that. So when you say “ deny the very basis of moral ideas“ I don’t think that’s even a issue simply because I don’t think you can have a basis for morals that isn’t God.

The basic idea of what I’m trying to say is, that to believe in morals coming before religion is to believe that there is a power which comes before God which is not something that Judaism believes in.