For me, a secular humanist, what's interesting is why it was assumed that knowledge of good and evil was a bad thing - something that the kids had to be sheltered from. The serpent, who is cast as the enemy of man, is voiced as supporting it, and the deity, who is said to love man, as forbidding it. That's the opposite of my values. Knowledge of right and wrong is something humanists pursue through the application of reason to the intuitions of the conscience.
Correct. You get to decide that for yourself. If you can't come up with your own set of moral values, there are plenty of isms that will be glad to do it for you, and you are free to choose one of those. Whatever you choose, you chose it.
Once again, here's the humanist perspective: Faith IS the problem, not the solution. Accepting irrational moral dicta from the past causes disharmony, and repudiation of the methods of faith is the solution - critical thinking. Look at the disharmony in the States now caused by Christianity and its moral dicta regarding LGBTQ and abortion. And where do the answers come from? Humanism. Tolerance is a humanist value, not a Christian one. Freedom of (and from) religion is a humanist value, not a Christian one. Freedom of conscience is a humanist value, not a Christian one. Democracy is a humanist value, not a Christian one. These are all values that promote harmony through tolerance, all opposed by Christianity in its effort to impose a divisive moral system accepted by faith on a government and an unwilling people uninterested in Christian values wherever they diverge from their own.
And I would reword this as when man chose to trade in reason for faith, was rebelling against religious systems that disesteem reason, constrain thought, and speak for unseen gods and their alleged sovereignty. That's what I did personally when I left Christianity. That's what the West did collectively with the Enlightenment. It's actually a good path to choose.
No, that wouldn't be good. No religion that uses divine command theory and a holy book could come up with a moral code that outperforms the rational ethics of humanism. Do the faithful know their way? They may feel that they do, but what are their results? Religions that continually bifurcate and contradict one another.
Why? Because they are tethered to nothing but scripture and how one feels like interpreting it today. Humanism is tethered to empiricism - to observable results, to what produces the harmony they seek. That is why prohibition was reversed. Good intentions produced undesirable outcomes, and so reason was brought to bear. Religion can't do that. As a result, humanism evolves as unified philosophy. What works empirically is what is advocated for.
Isn't that why there is only one periodic table of the elements as opposed to tens of thousands of gods and religions? Only the former is grounded in evidence, reason, and observed results.
So, if it's one standard you seek, and one that produces desired results, look to reason applied to moral intuitions to provide it.
