If there is a God, we still have to figure out what is and isn't murder, in broad terms, in specific terms, in legislation that changes over time and applies in new ways on a case by case basis.

But that's already a secondary question.

First: "If there is a God..." -- How do you know He exists? How has He communicated to us? Which God or Gods? Which us? Who guards and expresses His/Their law against murder? How do we know who is right about what Their/His law is? Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Our understanding of morality is subject to change in some ways, not in others, regardless of whether people follow the Bible or not. People once though slavery was OK and later decided it was very evil. The Bible informed people's lives over the course of both those times, and therefore they were able to make the moral leap to the latter, more enlightened thinking without direction from the Bible.

At the same time, that murder and stealing are wrong are constant tenets throughout civilisation, regardless of whether the civilisation uses the Bible.

In terms of society thinking we need to kill half our population to save the world, this seems like a contrived form of a partial Malthusian problem. Population can be controlled either by death (your notion here of killing half the world) or by stunting the birth rate. Anyone proposing a need to save the world by halving the population could do it within a fairly short time by controlling birth rates without murdering anyone. But to play along with your scenario. Let's say that theoretically everyone dies unless half the world first dies instead, bizarre as that sounds. Are you saying the moral option is to let everyone die? How does that work? 

For the past several presidents, I have been pretty intrigued and even anxious to see the SOTU address. Even if predictable, I like to hear and see the president stating his opinions, his plans, his knowledge and mindset. Even with W, because at times it was entertaining as well. (Obama had a sense of humor, so I enjoyed his entertainment too... but W's weren't usually intentional.)

But after knowing of (not watching) last year's State of the Uniom (not misspelled), I can't bear to watch 45's. I get enraged at not only the points espoused (and I know that there was no surprise... I saw some of the summaries), but the way they are presented offends me. This man is DUMB. He cannot use the English language to express some basic concepts, let alone the necessity of communicating as POTUS. As I didn't watch, and no one has mentioned it, I don't know if it was the first campaign speech of "Trump in 2020" - but so many other of his public speeches seem to be setting it up that I have to assume that was the case here.

And OH how I wish this blasted thing (and its predecessors) were "Please refrain from standing until the speech has come to a complete stop." A brilliant point might (mind you, I said might) deserve a standing ovation... but it seemed as if the damned things were written into the speech. Clap if you must, but stay the hell seated, and give him your adoration after it's done. YOU'RE WASTING MY TIME.

COROLLARY: Has any voter ever been impressed by their representatives' standing ovation at a SOTU? Do many voters watch the SOTU? I have to wonder what the ratings on the thing are. Perhaps there will be a day when the SOTU will have to be broadcast over Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, CBS All-Access, etc. That might give a better read on who's really watching the thing.

And - purely as an unlikely possibility - those other party responses are going to get really unwieldy when there's a non-Republican/Democrat in office. Why don't the Green Party, etc. get their own replies NOW? To be democratically fair, any party that puts up a presidential candidate should get to reply.

Now we get to the involvement of religion in statesmanship. I trust God/Buddha/Odin/Ra/Zeus/FSM to affect our national policy as much as I trust W's or Trump/s guts. We need factual input to obtain factual conclusions and factual output.

And no offense intended, but until heavenly intervention can be proven to be real, then it should be left out of discussions of how to deal with shipping policies or law of the sea. I have no objection to anyone's religious beliefs, as long as they aren't hurting anyone, but keep it out of my politics, as the Founding Fathers intended. This isn't a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Thomas Woods: "If there isn’t a God, then murder isn’t wrong." This is entirely the wrong forum for such a comment and I hope the religious discussion is over. Please start a new forum topic for such a discussion; I doubt it'll lay fallow for very long.