:salam2:
Thank you for posting this interesting debate. It was quite unusual for this forum, since mostly people come up with a question and others go to a fatwa website and copy-paste some fatwas, or people narrate their stories and experiences and thus come into interesting interaction with others.
I am happy I was not part of that debate, so I do not have to take one or the other position. To me both of the speakers are making some sense. Although, my own understanding on that topic, coming from Quran, is slightly different. I will just summarize it in the following lines.
1. I have always understood, that moral principles are inherent to human beings in their nature, in their Fitrah, but that is a different understanding of the word "natural". The way Mr. Harris understands is, that they are natural because of man's experience with nature and his historical foundation. I don't think human experiences, regardless of how many generations they comprise of, can go into our genetics. That, what we term as "collective memory" is nothing else than a generally accepted and unchallenged view of some historical facts or fictions.
Fitrah is a bit finer than instinct. Whereas nobody can escape one's instinct, Fitrah can be escaped and can be perverted too. So the Prophet's, among other things, also nurture the right fitrah of human beings and purify them from perversions. The basic concept of good and bad is in our Fitrah. We certainly do not need Prophets to tell us, that telling lies is morally not acceptable. Quran even puts Tawheed as one of the moral principles, which are inherent and therefore it requires it from every human being, even if they are living in an unreached jungle along amazona. To support my claims, which I made above, I can quote following verses from Quran.
1. fa alhamaha fajuraha wa taqwaha.
And inspired it [with discernment of] its wickedness and its righteousness (91:8)
2. Alastu bi rabbikum. Qaalu balaa
Am I not your Lord. They said "for sure". (7:172)
In conclusion, I support the claim, that morality is natural, with a slightly different understanding of the the word "natural".
2. I support the christian guy's understanding, that God is the real motivation behind all that morality. Only because something is scientifically good does not provide you a lot of motivation. Only with the concept of God everything makes perfect sense. That is, what is described in Quran in the verse, Allahu Noor ussamawat wal ard. (God is the (enlightening) light of the heavens and earth. How unfortunate, that this verse has been misunderstood by many among muslims.
3. Even though I do not recognize Mr. Harris's concept of "objectively good for conscious beings" as an origine of the morality, I do see it as an important benchmark. Even Taliban could have removed their errors of understanding Islam, if they had tried to use that benchmark. I must add, it is not something foreign to Islam. We read it so many times in Quran, "It is better for you". "It is better for you, if you can understand". So if we have correctly understood a connotation of our religion, it should also create a positive effect on the society. And if it is not creating any positive effect, we should go back and revise it until we understand the correct connotation.
The second thing is, If I have to sit with the representatives of 10 other religions, and we are given the task of coming up with some common universal moral principles, then I am left with no other choice than to argue on the basis of impact of those moral principles on the society as a whole. So even though I will not be able to get all of "my moral principles" recognized by others, there are good reasons to hope, that we would be able to find the most obvious things using that benchmark. So there is some sense in what the atheist guy is suggesting, even though I have some differences, as discussed under points 1 and 2 above.
These are my 2 cents
