What I hate about all this "God tells us to do it, so its okay" is that it actually makes many actions morally neutral.
I was at a friends house and we saw a program about the holocaust. He started going on about how detestable it was to kill innocent people and kids. I said but God told the jews to do that. (jericho Stone Ax Massacre)
He reacted angrily and shouted "That's different!"
In other words, if you smash a baby's head against a door post because you feel like it, it is wrong. If you smash the same baby's head because Satan told you to it's wrong. If God told you to it's okay. The act itself has no moral weight apart from who told you to do it.
I asked "would you kill children if Jehovah told you to?"
"Yes, but I wouldn't enjoy it." He was shocked when I said that if Jehovah told me to kill children I would refuse.
After all, the God of the bible has a proven talent for slaughter. Let him do it himself for a change. Even God can only kill me once, and at least I wouldn't be living with the memory forever. I don't want to live in a paradise fertilised by the blood of dead babies.
Most christians believe he drowned millions of children in the flood. Does this make God evil?
I think Plato's arguments in the Republic are interesting on this point.
Derek Parfit "Reasons and Persons" deals with the whole issue of what it means to be a morally upright being without recourse to religious systems. Godless morality if you like (bet not one of those christians will dare read or learn from it)
HB