Whaddya know... they agree on something.

Your example is ridiculous, and also works in the other direction, in the case of popular vote:

Marty: I vote we each pay for our own food.
Lisa: I vote Marty pays for all us.
Tom: Yeah, great idea Lisa, I vote Marty pays as well.
Marty: Dammit, why do I always have to pay for you two?

That's the popular vote.

Yeah. It is. And if Marty's ideas didn't suck, people would vote for them.

Hmmm, so you just implicitly stated that everyone having to pay for their own food was a bad idea...

Why am I not surprised?

I'm a progressive and an atheist. Yes, I think feeding the hungry is a great idea. We have a moral obligation to care for each other.

If you don't believe in your Creator God, then what defines your morals. You have nothing to base them on except your feelings. And your feelings may not sync with someone else's. Who are you say they are wrong if they don't believe your moral code of taking care of each other?

As a Christian, I do believe that we as *individuals* are to take care of our neighbors as we can. What not "moral" is to have our funds and resources stolen from us by the collective (government) to distribute as they see fit (100% of the time in ways to maintain power and increase dependency on the government). It's always a person responsibility and not one that can be fawned off to the group as a whole.

Humans are capable of being moral and ethical without religion. You don't have to believe in a divine being to be a good person.

My particular brand of atheism is a mix of FreeThinking and Humanism.

FreeThinking says that opinions should be informed by science, logic, and reasoning. Humanism focuses on finding the way for humans to lead happy and functional lives.

With those two frameworks, it becomes very evident very quickly that killing someone is wrong. That hitting them is wrong. Allowing someone to suffer is wrong.

The universe is cold and brutal and it does not care. There is no grand organizing plan centered around our existence. Our sentience is random chance. We weren't fashioned in some beings image. It was an accident.

But we're still here. The universe is still awful. So we may as well make the best of it.

Shitty people who abuse their positions or those who abuse systems don't absolve you of your responsibility to care for other humans.

Taxes are the dues you pay to live in civilization. Money isn't being stolen from you.

Never said they couldn’t be moral. Just without God there is no concrete foundation. Each person is free to create their own moral code.

We know time, distance, and other realities by agreed on measures. If ever person sets their own standards there is no compatibility.

Okay. The first hang up is that there is no proof of the existence of God. But we'll set that aside.

Next you have to ask How Does God Know What Is Moral? Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good or is it morally good because it's commanded by God?

Another way to say this is something innately moral or is it only moral if God says so?

This is known as the Euthyphro Dilemma.

IF something is innately moral, then it exists separate from God. It is Universally Moral.

This is something that you could come to on your own.

Like murder. Murder is bad. Murdering someone is immoral.

Given time a human being could figure this out on their own. We see this in societies that were not exposed to Judeo-Christian religions.

People came to that murder is bad all on their own without a Christian God telling them not to murder each other..

IF something is moral only because God commands it, then morality is arbitrary.

And changeable.

God could appear today and say "Murder? Yeah, it's cool now. You won't go to Hell if you kill someone. Have at it, y'all!"

If you say, "God would never suddenly appear and say Murder Is Okelie Dokely. Murder is wrong. That would be wrong." Two things:

1) that's admitting that morality exists independently of a divine being.(good is good whether or not God says it's good)
2) God changed his mind a lot in the Bible. The whole premise of the New v. Old Testament is God changed how the religion worked.

Lots of proof God exists.

Point 1. I said you can be moral and reject God. So that point is meaningless. I likewise pointed out the fact that without a standard measure everyone can create their own moral code. No one can agree.

Point 2. Nothing changed at all from old to new. A proper understanding of Scripture makes that very clear.

Nice chat. Hope you learned something.

Question was not to you, but thanks for butting in.

You know I’m not discussing faith issues with you. Your other points simply prove my point about ungrounded morals being subjective. Everything you cited was rooted in opinion, nothing substantial.

Ok, so you wanna move the goalposts again. Typical.

America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.

What a twisted distortion of reality. The EC insures each state is equally heard but also in proportion to its population. Perfectly fair to say the least.

Fact is Trump got 0 votes and Hillary got 0 votes as no popular vote is recorded. The vote is only for the electors of the state.

Here's a more rational example of the Electoral College, without the kneejerk misconceptions.

Five families are going on vacation together, but first they have to decide where to go. They agree they all want to go together, but some want to go to the Grand Canyon, while others want to go to Disney World.

Each family gets to vote on the destination.

The family of 10 really wants to go to Disney and when they are each polled, Disney wins 8-2.

The head of that family is very close to the head of the family of 6 and tries to sway them to Disney as well. It works that that family votes 5-1 for the Florida trip.

Another family, this one with five wants to go to Arizona, so they vote 5-0 for the Grand Canyon. Likewise a family of three and four.

So when the five families each cast their votes, the Grand Canyon wins 3-2. Each family got a vote and each member of each family had their vote heard at the appropriate level.

Rather than two larger families dictating the course for the entire lot, the vote was fair and equitable for everyone involved. No one imagined their intra-family vote should be factored into some fictional vote at the family level.

Funny. What happens if the popular vote happened in 2004 and California gave all of its electoral votes to bush?