My question is about the relationship between God, determinism and ethics.

My question is about the relationship between God, determinism and ethics.

My question is about the relationship between God, determinism and ethics. In my opinion if there is no God, then it looks like people do not have any non-physical "soul". I think most people would agree with this, partly because people usually reject God in favour of a naturalistic worldview in which the soul similarly has no place. But if people do not have any "soul" then that must mean that that people do not have free will, because they are entirely physical. But if people do not have free will then I don't understand how any ethics could exist, because ethics surely requires that people can choose. So, if this is correct, then if you want to argue for some kind of ethics, then you have to accept the existence of God. But there is clearly an endless amount of Philosophers who don't believe in God and do argue for some kind of ethics, such as David Hume or Bertrand Russell. But how can they do this? What I think you will say is that maybe ethics can exist even without free will. But surely this is ridiculous because moral responsibility cannot exist if people cannot choose.

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