Jeff, first let me say that my hat's off to you for managing and earnest, honest response when you have amoral louts like me taunting you (that was a joke!). Seriously, though, hat's off.

Let me clarify a little (since I've been hammered for this before). What I'm not arguing is that only Christians can be moral.

I was pretty sure the implication was there, but let's move on...

And yes, this whole thing depends on how you define morality. However, my basic argument is that unless humans figure out how to live for ever and transend even the life of the universe we're in, or there is some external judge of our actions, ultimatly all we do has no meaning since nothing we do permenantly effects anything.

It is interesting to hear you say this in all earnestness. I can't nor shouldn't put words in your mouth, but what you say here sounds familiar -- echoes many late-night conversations I've had. Like I've said, I find the persistence of religion in cultures through time puzzling. To the extent that I understand the phenomenon a little bit, though, I defintely see religion as a continued search for meaning.

Your "ultimatly all we do has no meaning since nothing we do permenantly effects anything" is considered, I think, the perennial question of mankind :

Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing

As a life-long depressive, this question of meaning is always hovering over my shoulder..."What's the point, Jim?"

Ask the question often enough, though, and you can come to the conclusion that the question is pointless...or at least not helpful.

Does my life have meaning? I am not sure. I may *yet* go work for some NGO and try to keep some poor African kid from dying of cholera. In the meantime, I am going to my favorite niece's wedding this weekend in Worcester and hope to have a good time. I suspect that she and her handsome beau will have litters of children very, very quickly and will do their best to raise them as moral little people, all the while asking "What is the meaning of all this?" on occasion. They have, I think, become somewhat dissilusioned with the pedophile-ridden diocese where they reside, but if they regain some loyalty to all that -- and find some eternal meaning there -- I would not be surprised.

It then follows to me that if there is no meaning to life and our actions have no ultimate consequence, anything percieved as "good" or "bad" is really only a temproary perception, for in the end all there are are actions without real result. And if there is no "good" or "bad" then there is no morality.

Your logic is internally consistent and valid, I think. I don't accept the "there is no meaning to life" part, though, I guess that I prefer to "park" that issue, though, continuing to wonder "Hmmm, what might the meaning be?" whilst trying to observe some semblance of morality that I finde described on dictionary.com.

It sounds silly to say, but until we achieve eternal life or unless there's some external being to our existense, even murder isn't really wrong.

Oh, I don't know. As an empiricist, I can say that if you murdered me, I would be *really* pissed!

For ultimately all will be dead, violently or not, and the experiences of our lives will be meaningless. Some have said that the purpose of life is to influence positively those who come after us, but that only works out if someday someone achieves a lasting result with their lives: ie- transends a temporary existense. Otherwise it's "turtles all the way down!"

I have to figure out that turtles reference!

I've said all of this before and it's been recieved quite negatively, which I understand because it really isn't positive stuff, but it should explain my thoughts on why morality is dependant on there being a God or some impending transendence of humans in the future. I believe if there is a God then morality exists for the Athiest and Christian alike (and since I do believe in God, I also believe in morality), but I also believe that if there is no God, morality cannot exist because there is no real "right" or "wrong" when all is said and done.

Jeff, you may feel free to take this the wrong way -- to interpret this as condescending -- but I don't think that what you have expressed with respect to life and meaning is much different from what many thoughtful people have struggled through over the ages. People just differ in how they sort that out.