Jack the Bodiless

So now you're saying that every human shares Adam's defect? Every human will disobey God in this situation, and that justifies punishment?

That makes Adam's defect a design flaw. God is experiencing the biggest hissy fit of all time because HIS home-made toys aren't as good as HE wanted them to be.

This contradicts both omnipotence (he should have made them better) and omniscience (he should have expected this). Furthermore, this argument flatly contradicts the notion that Jesus was without sin. In order to use this argument, it is necessary to assume that Jesus shares our guilt because Jesus would have stolen the Fruit also.

The fate of Jesus proves that the Biblical God punishes innocents for the crimes of others.
Yet again, you are having problems with the concept of "justification". I have explained WHY we have an ethical code. Evolution explains WHY ethical norms are "an inherent part of reality" (that portion of "reality" called Homo Sapiens). Ethical norms outside that social context are meaningless. Is it ethical for a comet to hit Jupiter?

Furthermore, in YOUR world, there are no "ethical norms" independent of sentient beings. What is "good" is whatever the whim of God decides. Your description of God as "good" is utterly meaningless, equivalent to saying that God is "godlike". If God decides that boiling babies in oil is good, it is good. By arguing that this would be "against God's nature", you are recognizing that there IS an ethical standard independent of God: the Euthyphro Dilemma.

Furthermore, your decision to adopt the J/C God and accompanying morality is ITSELF arbitrary. You have "presupposed" that it was the right choice.
The Biblical God (specifically, the God of the Old Testament) is neither omnipotent, nor omniscient, nor omnipresent, nor omnibenevolent. I can provide scriptural examples of God's failings if you wish, but I think that justifies a separate thread in the Biblical Criticism and Archaeology forum. The "omnimax" God is not of Hebrew origin. There is a thread in BC&A discussing the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000275" target="_blank">Origin of the Omnimax God</a>.
If you wish to argue that "they are reducible to meaninglessness because of self-refutation, arbitrariness, and inconsistency", then you need to demonstrate that "they are reducible to meaninglessness because of self-refutation, arbitrariness, and inconsistency". You keep claiming that you have already done this: you have not.
1. A critique, not a refutation. Furthermore, even a successful refutation would not establish the J/C God as "the necessary precondition to knowledge".

2. You have failed to establish that God's nature is "perfectly just and good": you have merely sought to redefine those terms to make them God-dependent. If you succeed, you lose your argument, as the terms become meaningless: "God is good" becomes tautological. You must establish that the human concepts of "good" and "justice" stem from God: our moral outrage at such issues as the punishment of innocents, or eternal puishment for finite crimes, is proof that you are wrong about that.
Again, you are arbitrarily "defining yourself correct". There is no reason to assume that God's basic nature does not change. Furthermore, the Old and New Testaments portray very different gods.
Stop trying to wriggle out of your error. I have defined secular morality as "do no harm", pointed out that murder is harm, and therefore demonstrated why murder is immoral. You cannot now deny that murder is immoral in my worldview, as you previously sought to do.

Therefore your question is now "why should I behave morally?", which is a separate issue. And the answer depends on your usage of "should".
WRONG. All usages of "should" (or "ought") imply a CONTEXT, nothing more. They are meaningless out of context. Should Hitler have invaded Russia? No, in the context of sound military strategy (fighting a war on multiple fronts): Yes, in the context of our own desire to see him lose. Again, should comet SL-9 have hit Jupiter?
Yet again, you have it backwards. ALL words are defined "according to social lexical convention only". Except in the case of words invented by theologians, or given specific alternate meanings by theologians, words mean what WE THE PEOPLE declare them to mean.
Again, these issues are too big to summarize on this thread. They include issues such as the non-Biblical origin of the omnimax God, Biblical contradictions (particulary those which address moral issues, such as the inconsistency of Biblical "justice" or the practise of <a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/human_sacrifice.html" target="_blank">human sacrifice</a> by the Jews), the Euthyphro Dilemma, the Problem of Evil, and the Problem of Nonbelief.
Without a God-independent definition of "injustice", this becomes: God cannot do what God cannot do. Tautological, therefore meaningless, therefore you have no basis for the concept of justice. Because you previously claimed that you DID have such a basis, your argument is therefore self-refuting.

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: Jack the Bodiless ]</p>

DaveJes1979

Pompous Bastard

Dave: well, in that sense I can agree that "human values account for ethical systems." But this is not epistemic justification of any sort.

Dave: but how do you evaluate the "consequences" of your actions? This requires an a priori ethical system. Secondly, would murder be wrong if there were circumstances where no one would object and/or punish you?

Dave: so your ethical system boils down to little more than a preference - on the level of "I like chocolate ice cream."


Philosoft
Dave: you're going to have to do better than caricaturing. ONCE AGAIN - God does not overlook any violation of his moral code. All sin will be paid either by the sinner, or the Substitute.

Dave: are you trying to advocate that we should believe in that which cannot be philosophically justified? Why should "evolution" morally compel me to do anything? Why shouldn't I rebel against evolution? After all, evolution evolved me into a rebel!

Dave: what I wonder is WHY you are empathetic - given that your ethical foundation (evolution) only provides you with reason to be survivalistic. Survival of the fittest is opposed to charity of any kind.


Bill Snedden

Dave: then you fail to misunderstand the nature of a transcendental argument. I have shown how my worldview, taken presuppositionally, accounts for logic and morality. I await to hear a rebuttal of my account, and an alternative from the atheistic worldview (taken presuppositionally).

Dave: that presupposition can be disproved by the fact that Carl Sagan did not hold constant views of morality, philosophy, or science. The same cannot be said of God. It also tells us that morality cannot have existed before Carl Sagan was born! Perhaps morality does not exist now, since Carl is gone.

Ahhh, the futility of grounding moral absolutes in a contingent creature!

Dave: I have proven the truth of my assertion by showing how it is a necessary presupposition in order to have knowledge.

Dave: its "quite clear" because...&gt;?

Dave: God values things, not because he "gains" something from them, but because good things (creation, men, etc.) reflects who He is. He is like a fountain overflowing - it is through an overflow of satisfaction in Himself that God creates and redeems the world. His eternal glory is manifested in it all.


Vorador

Dave: indeed, God cannot commit an injustice. We are using God's own standards. I do claim to know Him through His revelation in Scripture.

Dave: I can because God has revealed Himself in Scripture.


Dave: I am confident that if God were to do so, He would have just reasons.



Jack the Bodiless
Dave: its not a design flaw at all. God foreordained that the Fall would happen.

Dave: Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit, though, not from Joseph. He did not inherit original sin from Adam.

Dave: Jesus' WILLING sacrifice is quite different from what you have in mind.

Dave: is it wrong for me to oppose evolution, then? How can you object, for I am merely the product of it?


Dave: God's nature does not constitute an independent ethical standard. God's nature IS who He is. And if you want to understand what "good" is, God was kind enough to write a rather large book to give us an idea about it.

Dave: I do so, not arbitrarily, but because Jesus Christ is the only coherent way TO God. He is the only One that could conceivably take away our sin and make us right with God.

Dave: a few of your best, most irrefutable examples will suffice just fine.

Dave: I have brought up moral norms and logic (specifically induction) as examples. I have shown how God's nature as good and just accounts for moral norms. I have shown how God's providence and power accounts for order in the universe - and thus logic and induction. I have yet to see a coherent atheistic alternative.

Dave: I think it was a successful critique. Thus, a refutation. I await rebuttal. Concerning Jesus Christ, no other figure would give us hope to be reconciled to God. Only Jesus Christ has died for the sins of the world, as foretold in the Scriptures.

Dave: no, your outrage at eternal punishment is only "proof" that you are measuring God by your inadequate measuring stick. Our crimes at not "finite" in merit since they are directed against a God of infinite worth.

A tautology is not meaningless - it tells us about the foundation of knowledge. If you want more specifics, then you can find it in His revelation.

Dave: I am not "defining myself as correct", I am simply arguing the Christian worldview as a whole - as a unitary presupposition. I justify my presuppositions on the basis that they, and they alone, provide a foundation on which to account for different knowledge forms.

Secondly, God is the same in the Old and New Testaments, although He certainly does work in different manners.

Dave: it is YOU who have truly "defined" your position into existence. Why do you assume that "harm" is bad? Is it bad under ALL circumstances?

And, YES, my question still remains - why SHOULD I adopt your system of morality - ethically and epistemologically speaking?

You need to get beyond "is" to demonstrates "should" - or else you really don't have an ethical system to speak of.

Dave: and the context of this discussion is epistemological warrant.

I'm still waiting.


Dave: as social/lexical conventions, you are right. This still falls far short of epistemic justification.

Aren't theologians "we the people"?? What about atheistic philosophers who also must "load up" their terminology???

Dave: I await even a SHRED of non-speculative evidence.

Dave: I'd like to hear just one or two.

Dave: example?

Let's see:

Gen 22:2 - God stoppped Isaac's sacrifice.

Ex. 22:29: does not talk about human sacrifice at all.

Lev. 27: talks about "devoting" men to the Lord, but not a human (blood or burnt) sacrifice.

2 Samuel 21: is referring to penal retribution.

Jg 11:29 - does not condone Jephthah's actions at all.

I Kg 13: I think that whoever jotted this one down simply glanced over the pronoun referents. The "child" is the one performing the offerings on the altar - he is not the sacrifice itself.

Dave: addressed above. God's nature is the definition of goodness, justice, righteousness, etc. It is not an independent standard.

Dave: God has a morally sufficient reason for ordaining the existence of sin and evil.

Dave: God has foreordained the nonbelief of some.

Dave: once again, tautologies are not meaningless. They reveal precisely where the epistemic authority lies. To further unpack specifics (the many from the one), you must turn to the revelation of the one who is tautologically good. Fortunately, He was kind enough to provide us with the Bible.

Dave Gadbois

Philosoft

Substitute sinner??!! Do you actually read what you write? You do realize, do you not, that by allowing sins to be inherited you have incorporated a system whereby a single individual can receive sins exponentially, based on what his ancestors have or have not paid for themselves? By this logic, most individuals alive today should be carrying literally billions of sins.

Alas, I'm sure God is capable of arbitrarily deciding to just start over with a particular generation, no?
<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

<strong> Certainly not. Please point out where I said we must believe that all of our behaviors are selected.

<strong> Good grief, man. You are passing Strawman Building 101 with flying colors. Whoever said all selected behaviors are consciously motivated?

<strong> You're just not going to listen, are you? Natural selection is concerned with the survival of the individual, not the individual behavior. There is no reason whatsoever that social cooperation behaviors and empathic behaviors could not be selected for, if they promoted the survival of the individual.

Kassiana

I have the feeling that this is appropriate in this thread.

To those who would say, "Well, God's justice is not man's justice, and if he wants to punish people eternally, that's fine with me!"

...One would think if a God were trying to, oh, RELATE to human beings, he'd use terms that HUMANS understand from a human perspective...so the term justice must be understood as humans understand it, unless God is really Loki out to play tricks on us, or unless God expects us to become Gods ourselves in order to understand God...

Philosoft

Indeed. Furthermore, an judicially inscrutable God makes it exremely difficult to understand what is meant by "man was created in God's image."

A dichotomy:

1) Man was created to physically resemble God.

2) Man was created to resemble something about God's spirit or nature.

I'd a priori eliminate 1) from serious contention.

That leaves 2). To both hold this position and that of the judicially inscrutable God, one must assert that God purposely withheld some of the attributes of his nature during creation, namely the notion of justice. This implies that God doesn't want us to understand that his rewards and punishments are just, he wants us to take his word for it. Sounds like something a bit shady, if'n you ask me.

Jack the Bodiless

CONTRADICTION. You have claimed that we are being punished for what WE are (God can see that we're just as bad as Adam), then you lapse back into the notion of "inheriting" original sin from Adam!

I'd like a simple answer to a simple question, Dave. In your worldview, are we punished individually because WE are bad, or punished collectively because ADAM was bad? Because if you're going to argue that God is "just", you must jettison the doctrine of original sin. Punishment cannot be "just" if we are being punished for ADAM's sin!.
"Father, why hast thou forsaken me?" - When Jesus spoke those words, it's clear that he didn't know what was happening or why. However, a "willing" innocent victim is still an innocent victim. The point stands. God punishes innocents for the crimes of others, therefore God is not just.
Evolution explains WHY we have a sense of ethics. If you choose to believe evolution didn't happen, the ethics remain.
So "good" is killing the children of your enemies? The problem here is that YOU do not understand what "good" is. The God of the Old Testament wasn't supposed to be good: he was the tribal totem war-god!
No. You have arbitrarily decided to believe the Bible's claim that "Jesus Christ is the only coherent way TO God". You have arbitrarily decided to believe the Bible's claim that Jesus can "take away our sin and make us right with God".

And, if Jesus can "take away our sin", why couldn't a supposedly omnipotent God do that without the need for bloodshed?
Not in this thread. I'll create a new thread to discuss this topic.

(edit: I have, it's <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000284" target="_blank">The Biblical God is NOT "omnimax"</a>)

Yes, you HAVE seen a coherent atheistic alternative. You won't accept that it IS coherent, but you have yet to demonstrate that it is NOT coherent. Therefore your claim to have "reduced it to meaninglessness because of self-refutation, arbitrariness, and inconsistency" is false.
Your "refutation" can be summed up as follows: "In the atheistic worldview, there is no God to declare what is right and what is wrong". You have failed to establish any requirement for a God to declare this, and chosen to ignore all other perfectly valid explanations for the existence of morality independent of God. Actually, you mostly accept the validity of the explanations, but then ask why you "should" behave morally: there are many reasons why you should (your evolved empathic instincts, fear of imprisonment etc) but you choose to ignore them: according to you, "God commands it" is the ONLY reason you will accept. You have failed to explain why this is the only acceptable reason.
But, according to you, ALL morality stems from God: without God, we cannot be moral (even if we don't recognize that God is the root of all morality): this is the substance of your claim that God is necessary for morality. Therefore we are using the measuring stick that God provided! If God was a paragon of virtue, he should be off the top of the scale: and yet the supposedly God-given standard of human morality reveals that God is vain, jealous, petty, vindictive, and prone to outbursts of extreme rage and violence.
You are not supporting your assertion that "they, and they alone, provide a foundation on which to account for different knowledge forms". You are merely declaring that this is so. And if you admit that God "certainly does work in different manners" in the Old and New Testaments, then what is the basis for your assertion that God does not change?
Because you make enemies if you harm people, and this damages your own interests. Also, you are likely to experience emotional trauma due to your evolved empathic instincts and social conditioning.
You have still not demonstrated that any additional "warrant" is necessary. WE are still waiting.
Gen 22:2: Yes, in the current version of the Bible.

Ex 22:29 "Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me". Yes, this is human sacrifice. The Hebrews didn't offer their firstborn sons to become priests, therefore they would be "given unto me" in the same fashion as the fruits and liquors. The Bible itself elsewhere mentions the practice of sacrificing firstborn children (to a different God): this was a custom of the Caananite peoples.

Lev 27: The entire chapter discusses various sacrifices to God, and their relative worth. Adult males are equivalent to 60 shekels of tithes: adult females, 30 shekels.

You conveniently overlooked Num.31:25-29. A little too explicit, perhaps?

2 Samuel 21: "penal retribution"? To avert a famine, they sacrificed some of Saul's grandchildren? Remind me again about God's "justice"...

Jg 11:29 - "does not condone Jephthah's actions at all". But Jephtah is portrayed as a good man, God honored his side of the bargain, Jephtah must have known that "whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me" would probably be human, and the priests performed the human sacrifice without any qualms (or did you forget that the priesthood had an absolute monopoly on religious rituals?).

I Kg 13: what part of "and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee" do you not understand? This is a human sacrifice of somebody.

Again, 2 Kg.23:20 is explicit, so you ignored it.
Therefore the statement "God is good" is meaningless, anything God does is good, and you have no moral basis for condemning anything God does. So why do you object to the notion that God punishes the innocent? Why do you object to the notion that God occasionally requires human sacrifices? What is your motive for seeking to disassociate your God from those activities?

Furthermore, I'm not just saying that the Biblical God is evil because his actions contradict "atheistic" morality: many Christians have big problems with this, and either reject the Old Testament or eventually cease to be Christians. No "atheist presupposition" is necessary.
And it is... ?

If you claim to have a coherent worldview, then you must provide the "morally sufficient reason".
This contradicts your earlier assertion that unbelievers are "lying", and contradicts various Biblical verses.
You still haven't provided any reason whatsoever to assume the Bible is the "Word of God" and all other "holy books" were written by humans.

We're still waiting.

[ May 27, 2002: Message edited by: Jack the Bodiless ]</p>

DaveJes1979

Philosoft

Dave: that is not what the doctrine of Adam's federal representation entails. Romans 5:

12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned-- 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.

Dave: what my reply demonstrates is that your appeal to evolution really provides no epistemic basis for morality. You cannot derive "rightness" or "wrongness" from evolution. Evolution just happens, and the fittest survive. Nothing more.

Dave: obviously evolution forgot to select those behaviors in bin Laden et al.

Kassiana

Dave: this assumes that the (sinful) human perspective is at all an adequate ground to determine truth. This is precisely what we Christians deny. God reveals Himself to us in order that we may correct our skewed perceptions of what goodness is, what justice is, what love is, etc. And God has revealed Himself in terms that we do indeed understand in Scripture - given that human beings are still made in God's image and the fact that the Spirit enlightens His people.


Philosoft

Dave: because...???? The fact that both man and God are personal, conscious and self-conscious beings with emotions, goals, intentions, values, perceptions, and dominion does not matter? This proves that there is great resemblance (although I don't know where you are getting this "physical" resemblance from).

Dave: either that, or it requires the Christian's understanding. Namely that, just after creation, man fell away from God and are now corrupted by sin - thus having a skewed notion of justice.


Jack the Bodiless
Dave: there is no contradiction between these two propositions. We inherit the stain of original sin because of our corporate solidarity with Adam.

Dave: unless, of course, Adam's sin is also our sin, as I have contended.

Dave: Jesus was the only innocent one ever punished. But that is not "injustice" since sins were being paid for (that Jesus willingly took upon Himself on our behalf). Secondly, Jesus' quote on the cross ("why...forsaken me?") is a quotation of the Psalm of the suffering servant. Jesus was identifying Himself as a suffering servant. It is not like He didn't understand what was going on ("I come to give my life as a ransom for many").

Dave: this still leaves me without an epistemic reason to adopt this system of ethics. How can you argue, morally, against ANYTHING that I do, since I can just say "well, I am the product of evolution."?

Dave: huh? If you are complaining about God's jealousy (which is evident in BOTH testaments), then I suggest you rethink your definition of good. If God really is good, and mankind has forsaken the source of goodness - then how could God NOT pour out his wrath to defend His own honor (goodness itself)??

Dave: ahhh, but the answer to your question is precisely the reason why believing in the necessity of Jesus is not arbitrary. God is indeed omnipotent - but He is also just, cannot lie, and thus cannot overlook sin. He must meet sin with wrath - either in the sinner, or in the Substitute (Jesus).

Dave: I have addressed your account of ethics above. It still leaves us with no basis to challenge each other's ethical actions - since we are all the product of evolution.

Dave: since you cannot tell me why I "should" behave morally, you have not given me an epistemic account of morality. Telling me that "its 'cause of evolution" can be used to "account" for my love of chocolate vs. vainlla ice cream - but that does not justify it as a moral norm.

Also, your appeal to "instincts" is vague. My "instincts" tell me to seek sensory pleasure at all costs to others, little more. Fear of imprisonment has never stopped any dictator. You have a long way to go in order to establish the "should" of any proposition.

Dave: indeed. That's the point.

Dave: again, you are using your own human (thus sinful) measuring stick. You are dialoguing within your own paradigm.

Dave: the fact that God works in different matters does not mean that God changes - since His interactions are still based on the same fundamental attributes and His unchanging character.

Secondly, I HAVE argued that God is necessary for various knowledge forms. I have criticized atheistic accounts of morality above, and I would reiterate my positive argument: morality is accounted for because God's nature is eternally good and just. It is non-contingent. And He has created us in His image, thus giving humans a measure of worth as well as the mandate to reflect God's nature as good.

Dave: not always.

Dave: again, not always. The last Chinese emperor who recently died lived a very long, comfortable life, quite aloof of the tyranny his regime carried out.

Dave: if you have no warrant for your moral norms, then why should anyone adopt them, philisophically speaking. You have not epistemologically justified your position.

Dave: is there an older textual variant that would prove otherwise?

Dave: the text does not say that children are to be offered to God IN THE SAME WAY as the fruits. Nor were the fruit offerings always burned in the OT.

Dave: sacrifices to God does not always mean a burnt or blood sacrifice.

Dave: a "tribute" is not necessarily a blood or burnt sacrifice either. Reading far too much into the text here.

Dave: again, this is not a blood sacrifice - vengeance for the wrongs of Saul's household were in view.

Dave: the fact that God grants military success does not imply an endorsement of Jephthah's promise. Nor is it inconceivable that Jephthah carried this out himself.

Dave: if this person had bothered to look up the fulfillment of this prophecy in II Kings 23:15-16, they would know that this is not talking about some sort of ceremonial blood sacrifice. Josiah took bones of those who were ALREADY dead and burned them on the altars he was DESTROYING in order to defile them.

Dave: actually, this verse shows that Josiah did the same thing to the Samarian altars that He did at Bethel, as described above.

Dave: its not meaningless. Please defend your assumption that tautologies are meaningless. It tells us that God will always act in accordance with His nature.

Dave: God does not punish the innocent.

Dave: the Bible says that God does not tolerate human sacrifices ("sacrifice" understood as being ceremonial and atoning in nature). In another sense, he calls all Christians to be "sacrifices" go God, in that we live for Him.

Dave: obviously atheistic presuppositions were coarsing through the minds of those "Christians" who had problems with God in the Old Testament. They just didn't want God to be God. They imposed their own (human, sinful) criteria onto the Old Testament God, assuming that they did not need to begin their reasoning FROM Him (a necessary Christian presupposition).

Dave: I think I do know (at least part) of that reason. But I do not need to know that reason necessarily. I just need to know that it exists, and that God knows it. But whether I know it or not, my response alleviates the alleged contradiction in the POE.

Dave: I do believe unbelievers are lying. But this does not contradict the fact that God has foreordained that some are condemned to this self-deception.

Also, I highly doubt you can produce "various biblical verses" that contradict God's work of predestination, when it is explicitly taught in Ephesians 1, Romans 8-9, etc.

Dave: the proof lies in the fact that the Scriptures present us with knowledge that is necessary to come into a saving relationship with God. There is no way for man to come into a right relationship with God because of our sin - unless there is a Substitute (Jesus) to bear the wrath that our sins merit.

Dave G

HRG

And why do you think that we need to come into a saving relationship with anyone - or that the Christian method is the correct one ? According to Muslims, confessing Allah as God and Mohammed as his Prophet is the only method of obtaining the right relationship with God. Sin in the Christian sense doesn't enter into it.

IOW, your argument reduces - as always - to "Christianity is true. Therefore Christianity is true".

HRG.

Philosoft

</strong>

I have no idea what this is supposed to support. It certainly doesn't appear to refute my argument. I do find it interesting that one can apparently sin without repercussion as much as one's heart desires as long as there are no laws.

<strong> I can't understand your basis for this argument. Evolution provides a perfectly adequate answer if your question is 'by what mechanism...' but you apparently insist the question must be 'for what purpose...' in which case you must demonstrate that there is a purpose to begin with without simply asserting or defining that there must be.

<strong> This is pathetic. And you have the gall to complain that my understanding of Christian doctrine is incorrect or incomplete? If this is actually your warped understanding of evolution, I implore you to get your nose out of the apologetics books and into something by Gould or Dawkins. Please tell me you are using "evolution forgot" as a colloquialism for something else.

Jack the Bodiless

Do we really need to point out that Osama Bin Laden is another theist who got his morals from a "holy book" just as YOU did, Dave?
But Adam's sin is NOT our sin. I did not eat the fruit: Adam did. You did not eat the fruit: Adam did. Jesus did not eat the fruit: Adam did. Therefore we CANNOT justly be punished for Adam's sin. Unless you are arguing that we are just as "bad" as Adam: that we WOULD eat the fruit.

Your inability to give a simple, straightforward yes-or-no answer to this question clearly illustrates the incoherence of your worldview.
...So why was he punished? Why punish ANY innocent person for the crimes of others? And even the guilty shouldn't be punished for the crimes of others, but for their own sins. The Bible clearly states this, and equally clearly contradicts it. Therefore the Bible is incoherent and provides no moral foundation.
You have the following reasons to behave morally:

1. The Golden Rule.
2. Evolved human empathy.
3. Socially-conditioned conscience.
4. Fear of making enemies.
5. Fear of imprisonment.

If you don't think these reasons are binding, then you may feel free to mistreat others. This freedom, however, will not protect you from the consequences of your actions. Maybe you will get lucky and escape the consequences anyhow, but this is unlikely.

If you are asking how metaphysical naturalism accounts for an absolute, universal moral code which supersedes all these other reasons, then it accounts for it as follows:

An absolute, universal moral code DOES NOT EXIST.

...So what part of DOES NOT EXIST will you now pretend not to understand? This fully accounts for it. You may not like that answer, but that's just your personal preference: you have presented absolutely no shred of evidence whatsoever to support your assertion that this worldview is factually incorrect.

Further, the nonexistence of this universal standard does NOT magically make all the other reasons disappear. "No absolute morality" does NOT equal "no morality".
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that any of this is true.
You still have 5 reasons. You're accustomed to a system of arithmetic in which 3=1, so maybe that's why you think 5=0.
Surely even YOU can see the contradiction between "the measuring stick that God provided" and "your own human (thus sinful) measuring stick"!
According to the Bible, God DOES change his mind about many things: he REPENTS.
There was a thread in BC&A some time ago in which it was suggested that Abraham originally sacrificed Isaac. The Bible was heavily edited during the transition from polytheism to monotheism during the Babylonian captivity.
The context is clear.
There are many examples of "burnt or blood" sacrifices. That IS the Biblically-approved method.
There are only two ways of giving PEOPLE as tribute: making them join the priesthood, or sacrificing them. The text is quite specific here: the PRISONERS (along with the sheep and so forth) were given for a "heave offering". They were sacrificed. Your refusal to accept the plain text of the Bible is telling.
Nope, the monopoly of the priesthood was absolute. King Uzziah was struck down with leprosy for daring to perform a religious rite. He was one of several Biblical figures to suffer unpleasant fates for unauthorized forms of worship. The priests would have killed and burned Jephtah's daughter.

Incidentally, in Leviticus 32, the Israelites captured 32,000 Midianite virgins as war booty. 32 of those virgins became human sacrifices: the Lord's share.
Yes, this is a Biblical contradiction. But we have long since established the fact that the Bible provides no consistent basis for morality. You still have not explained why "no human sacrifices" is your preferred option. You could just as easily have insisted that human sacrifices are good, and dismissed the Biblical injunction against them as an error or a temporary rule for that time period (just as modern Christians seek to argue that "eternal" OT laws are no longer binding).

Why didn't you?
So now a person raised as a Christian, who presupposes that the Christian God exists, has "atheistic presuppositions"? Yet more of your case dissolves into incoherence.
And, if I was as desperate as you are, I could argue for anything at all in the same way: "I do not need to know how the naturalistic Universe supports an absolute moral code, I just need to know that it does". This is another huge, gaping HOLE in your worldview. You cannot plug it. Your ship is sinking.
Why would God do this? Let me guess: "I don't know". Glug, glug, glug...
And I'm sure you realize by now that I can provide Biblical justification for salvation by faith alone, by works, or by predestination. Glug, bubble, bubble.
This is not PROOF, Dave: this is fantasy. You can no longer tell the difference.