I think a sense of morality comes with life experience. You learn not to touch a hot stove because it hurts. So you avoid pain... and don't want anyone to cause you pain. Since you don't want them to cause you pain, you realize that it's not rational to cause them pain. You don't tell a lie because you don't want someone to lie to you. I grew up going to church and learned a lot useless fiction through their brainwashing, the only useful lesson I learned was "do unto others." If all people would accept that simple philosophy, Earth would be a far greater place to live... and people wouldn't have to give mega-millions to support the useless religious corporations.

I've often told these people, "If you have to outsource your morals to someone or something else, then I’m not sure you’re ready to be having this conversation.”

Nuture is required for our species, period.
The family and then cultures at large magnify and repress the evolved potentialities then availible to us. There would be a Homo Sapien morality even without language. If we watched a community of such persons, we should quickly recognise the nature of interactions we saw.

Both. We evolved as social creatures. That naturally selects us to avoid behaviors that hurt the species as a whole, like killing members of our tribe. However, cannibalism is either good or bad depending on your culture.

Simply studying diverse cultures should provide the answer. what is "wrong" in one culture can be totally acceptable, even encouraged in another (polygamy, for example). Some cultures eat beef, or pork, while for others it is morally forbidden. If not taught, the human will grow in a purely egotisical and survivalistic way without regard to morals unless other human interaction occurs to affect a change.

I can only answer a question like that with a very limited amount of knowledge. I think a lot of our social norms have evolved with the advancement of the human race. As our ancient hunter/gather ancestors went about trying to survive, there were right and wrong things that could affect the rest of the group if an individual did something to either endanger the group or strengthen the group. So these small groups of people developed certain things that were important for the group to abide by in order to survive.
I could probably go into a whole, long monologue about it, but I'd probably bore myself to sleep writing it, and I'd surely not want to bore anyone else.

It was a Kentucky University, but I distinctly remember my Sociology textbook stating that moral development results from cognative development. I happen to agree somewhat with that. When a human is born they have no moral virtues because all that they do is eat, defecate, and cry with no concern for fellow human beings, much less any other life forms.

Society plays a big part,or culture.For example when Europeans invaded Australia they imprisoned many men for killing a white man's cattle because they were hungry as the white people had stolen their land and slaughtered their bush tucker.They saw the inhabitants of the land as immoral and put them in chains on a death march.

We witness the two pillars of morality, empathy and reciprocity, in other mammals. True, humans erect an elaborate lattice work over these pillars, but our morals may always be reduced to our evolutionary roots.

What the OP just described is a wonderful demonstration of how utterly clueless christians are about their own religion.

The Priest (with his half a brain) disagrees with those who claim that we can't know morality without a belief in god. Then, with all of his (presumable) dedication and study, he forgets that (Biblically), No, god didn't give us this morality. WE STOLE IT FROM HIM! In fact that was man's Great crime for which we lost our place in Paradise.

Morality existed before there was a belief in God. The concept of morality came into being once we started to exercise our brains, so it is derived from our sense of society and how we interact with one another. The Bible has nothing to do with that.

But your trying to make sense of a Bible discussion and you can't do that. The answer from the other side will airways be "but the Bible says so" and you can't argue with someone who holds that perspective.

Empathy comes from projection so lacking empathy is either a biological condition or a learned behavior. that period where kids stop killing animals and bugs (like 3 or 4) is when it appears. I have heard of sociopathic behavior being treated pharmacologically as well as through use of therapy. saying it's biblical or whatever is horsehockey.

The only morality that actually exists is societal morality. That is the explicitly and implicitly negotiated and enforced norms of society that sustainably supports the kind of stable, civil society most people prefer to be a part of.

The pastor has it exactly backwards; religion just uses a slightly embellished version of societal morality, claims god invented it, and claims religion to be its promoter and (of course!) essential to its continued existence and health.

So it's neither nurture or nature (and honestly I've never heard it posed in those terms). Morality is an emergent property of societal interactions. The first time two people had to coexist or cooperate, morality was born. In that sense it's "natural" or "innate". However, a lot of things about life -- being self-aware, empathetic, inclusive, and much more -- are counter-intuitive in ways, such as requiring delayed gratification at various levels (individual, family, tribe, society) and learning nuances like that would be the "nurture" part. The more nuanced our understanding of benefits and harms to society and how they come about, the better our implementation of societal morality and related things like public policy will be.

Nature contributes to the challenge of morality through genetic proclivities, however, my strong assertion is that the same core nurture of morality works under any circumstances inherent in nature.
And nurturing morality is actually really simple, to the point, from my perspective, that I sometimes wonder why you're all still debating it.

1. Moral issues are of behaviour/ action, not identity. Remove identity from all questions of morality and you will nurture a healthy perspective on it, every time.

2. Compassion and empathy result from experience but ARE nature. These never need to be forced by action, they compel themselves in the light of openness and vulnerability. People are always shooting themselves in the foot thinking vulnerability and openness compel exploitation, they don't, watch yourself carefully so you can see that exploitation is the learned behaviour not the default, that's just paranoid bullsh**, needs to stop.

3. Draw the line at suffering, not consequence. Parents get this wrong every day and it is probably the single most degenerative to morality 'thing' there is on the planet. And it is pervasive, so pervasive we don't even have proper playgrounds anymore. Anyhow... Here's the thing, we have all made this mistake, we have all projected onto someone that they are too weak to endure plain consequences of their choice. I wouldn't take my younger sister out to play with me because bullies. I could handle them but she couldn't. See what I did there?/In truth she was dealing with bullies all other places when I wasn't around, I concluded on poor insight that I had to protect her from consequences. And so what happened then? She expected no consequences from her self isolating behaviour. I hadn't protected her from anything, had I? I'd just created new consequences for her, twisted them like churros, sprinkled on some sugar and 'voila' sweet moral confusion. Now I have to explain to her that she never needed to be that self defensive nor make those morally ambiguous decisions about opening up and sharing with people who love her. Backpedaling is the worst, seriously, if they want to ride the big bike and can't reach the pedals, go get the salve and Band-Aids and stay out of the way.

I think there is a portion of it that comes by nature. Think of other species, wolves
and swans mate for life. Many species care for their young with what can only be described as "love". Watch an antelope put herself between her baby and a lion. Elephants take care of unrelated members of their "community" and not only show sorrow on the death of a community member but will actually bury their remains. All these behaviors look to me like a kind of "morality" . I think people have certain "instincts" that translate into morals and values. A big percentage of women will love their baby before it is born. That makes no sense, unless it is born into us. why would you "love" someone you have never met and who is basically a parasite, living off your body unless it is related to instincts and biology?
On the other side, I think our experiences as we grow up and beyond, so a lot to form our morals/values. That doesn't mean that if your parental figures are bigots, abuse you and take advantage of others for personal gain, you will grow up to be that kind of person. Experiences outside our family can impact us as much as those from within. We can change our own value system as well, finding ourselves questioning what we believe, deciding it doesn't make sense and isn't right for us, kind of like religion.
Just like religion isn't necessary for a person to have morals, giving up religious beliefs does not take away a person's values. If you were raised with religion and you grew up to be a caring person, becoming an atheist will not make you a less caring person.

in my experience, if it is nurture based, it is less genuine than morality based off nature, or even choice (which tends to be a combination of nature and burture, but that another topic)

What else would you expect a christian pastor to say?