Spoke with my Congressman yesterday

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Policies should be based upon what is best for society and individuals -- determined not by moral code, but by rational thought process.

[/ QUOTE ]Ok, but how do you define what is "Best" unless you have some idea about what is "good" and what is "bad".

Just about every law (murder, stealing, etc.) comes down to some moral belief about what is right and what is wrong. Murder is only against the law because we agree that it is morally a "bad" thing. A pretty simple example, but it illustrates the point. Some people believe that this notion of murder being bad is a religious thing; some thing its a law of nature. Regardless of the source, we all (or mostly) agree. The source of our moral belief doesn't matter- that we agree enough to make it a law does.

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I think you missed the point. We can come to the conclusion that murder is wrong rationally, not just because some book says it is ot because it is a 'natural' assumption.

For example, if murder was legal, we would all have to spend time and resources defending ourselves individually. If someone suggests we pool some resources to create a policing system which makes murder illegal and punished people who break the law, its takes less resources overall and people have more time to work and more money to spend on other things, raising GNP, productivity, etc and increasing quality of life in the commmunity.

Moral codes are based on the communities current understanding of what actions are most +EV. If the codes were absolute and the bible is a valid source, then why not continue to support slavery as advocated in Exodus?

Because we now see a bigger picture and realise it was wrong. Was God mistaken at the time?