The source of our morality

Inspired by a talk given by the notable and intrepid philosopher and neuroscientist, Sam Harris; my interest in evaluating the veracity of certain moral perspectives has been resuscitated.

There are two commonly circulated misnomers about the source of human morality. The first is that we were endowed with our moral sense by our creator which is revealed through the religious text. The second is that there is no objective appraisal of morality to be made, because we subjectively and arbitrarily ascribe moral value depending on our preferences. I contend that these are both false assumptions.
The worldview that states that morals are derived from our creator and standardized in the religious text errs principally in its historicity. It has been proven that civilization predated religious texts. For instance in the Torah, when Yahweh supposedly dictated levitical law to Moses which included the ten commandments. The most astoundingly obsolete commandment was, "Though shall not kill", namely, because it states the obvious. As if within the million or so years that humans have been on this earth non of those humans came to realize that killing was wrong before Moses chiseled this edict onto stone tablets. Not indiscriminately murdering people was a widely accepted principle throughout human history and prehistory( As evidenced by the enduring survival of our species). The fact that this precept predates its purported religious source precludes any causal relationship between religion and fundamental morals.

The other end of the spectrum of the misapprehension of the value of certain moral perspectives and their source of inception, is the willy-nilly appraisal of the moral relativist. They posit that objective morality doesn't exist and that everything is simply a matter of subjective preference. This is a nihilistic viewpoint which is a result of a refusal to acknowledge the link between morality and human well being. If the value of morals are assessed against a rigorous understanding of the universal components of human well being then objective morality can actually be understood and applied.

I hope this short analysis helped to elucidate the true nature of morality. I hope that it served to wrestle it from its religious and nihilistic captors alike. If the appropriate type of morality could be woven into the respective legislative frameworks of the world then I think the world would become one in which we would all feel like our best interest are truly being promoted.

I welcome any feedback or opposing ideas