Poll: Atheist Morality

[Lord Thodin]

Repubic By Plato. Get crackin on that OP.

Every bit of morality exists from a sociological stand point. If one were to eliminate god entirely from the worlds minds, the issue of morality vs immorality would still stand. If the ones in charge say this is right, and this is wrong, that sets the ground rules FOR morality in that society. Its morally wrong for One American to Bash another, however in the Middle East if one person has a different religion than the rest its considered immoral to go against the society.

 

[DarkLordofDevon]

Morality is based on personality, not religion. Religion can churn out mass murderers and atheism can produce upstanding members of society. And vice versa. Religion has no effect on whether you are a good person or not.

 

[Skeleon]

Of course you don't need a believe in any gods to be moral.
Hell, I'd say non-belief-based morals are actually better because they're not overshadowed by that idea of rewards/punishments but based on a concept of intrinsic values instead.
I remember reading about this "ladder" of morality back in ethics classes (unfortunately I don't remember the author).
Anyway, the jist was that moral behaviour based on fear of punishment/wish for reward is several steps below moral behaviour based upon universal principles. And I agree with this view.

EDIT: Ah, found it after all:
"Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development".

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Rehash...Rehash...Rehash...

Morality and ethics do not rely on religion, they rely on principle. An adaptation of the same stories without the religious influence can be told for the same effect: to teach a moral lesson. Aesop's fairytales did it, Mother Goose did it, the other fairytales from the Brothers Grimm all did it, and those are just fairytales.

 

[ben---neb]

it's really scary when someone says that it's God that stops them killing other people, what happens if they become atheist?!?! i am so worried

Just to clear this issue up. Christians believe that God extend his "common grace" too all people's no matter whether or not they believe in him. This common grace consists not only of a person's natural abilities but also an inbuilt sense of right and wrong (ie. a conscience). Athiests don't believe in God yet he still extends his common grace to them and in giving then a sense of morality prevents them (and all of humanity reagrdless of religion or lack thereof) from falling into even more sin.

Of course this doesn't mean that no murders will ever take place. It is within an indiduals freedom to ignore his sense of morality and do whatever he pleases. Hope this makes you feel better.

 

[WayOutThere]

how moral can a person be if his actions are based on a fear of punishment rather then an understanding of human suffering ?

Therin' lies the thing, few religonists say fear of hell is the basis of their morality. Instead, they say "objective morality" exists. This is the idea that some things are right and somethings are wrong because that is how the universe is. It is the attempt to make morality true in the same sense the laws of physics are.

 

[Shynobee]

First, let me ask you this, what moral system do you currently subscribe to? For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that you beleive in the modern western world view of morality.

Ok, with that out of the way, lets get to the meat of this issue. My answer to your question is a resounding NO. Let me explain as to why this is the case.

I'll begin by saying that the current western world view of morality was founded by Christianity. Yes it was and you can argue with me on that point if you like, but whether you want to believe it or not, it is true. So to put it simply, today's standards of "all people are equal" and "everyone is special" etc etc etc all came from a religious orginization.

So, based on that point i strongly believe, that with out a religious foundation, the morals above it cannot and will not stand the test of time. For example, I see it in the following way:

Immagine you built a beautiful castle on top of some extremely strong bedrock, but a few yeaar down the road, you think it'll be a good idea to demolish said bed rock, but you still expect your castle to be in good shape. (in case you weren't aware, the castle in that scenario were morals, and the bedrock was religion)

My second point as to why are current morals will fail without religion is the common sense argument. Lately, I've been hearing alot of people going on about how "common sense will always allow people to make the right decisions." And frankly, this is just not the case. Common sense is not so common as most people believe, and honestly, we currently believe many things that don't follow the rules of common sense. Allow me to explain.

My first point on common sense's actually rarity is a little difficult to prove to most, but when you think about it, people all over the world do things that don't follow common sense, and this generally applies to people acting in their own self interest. Consider the person who goes out to a bar to drink. They end up overdrinking and being hungover and in pain the next day. Common sense says to not do that again, but will they? Of course they will!

My second point on common sense is that we believe alot of things that contradict common sense. For example, common sense says that the earth is standing still and the sun and moon rotate around it. But, we have all come to accept that the earth is hurtling at ridiculously fast speeds through the universe and that the sun is a giant ball of fire billions of miles away. Why do we believe this? Not common sense, but because our teachers told us so. In a way, we take it on blind faith that this is so. I doubt that many of us have actually gone into orbit to verify this fact.

So, getting back on topic, common sense really wouldn't be that great of a moral compass if it ever were to replace religion.

I could go on to explain why atheism is wrong and that there is a God and Galileo was wrong, but then I'd be here all night.

 

[Kriptonite]

Of course there can. It depends on the person, not some omniscient, omnipotent being.

 

[Magic Muffin Man]

I'm agnostic and pretty moral, so yes, morals can exist without some bearded superman in the sky.

 

[MBFCPresident]

If you don't believe in any higher power, it seems questionable to me why you would have a decisive moral stance on any issue.

 

[Shynobee]

And actually, for my part, I don`t really buy that argument either. Morality is inherently logical: it is logical to develop a society where people are raised to know that murder is unacceptable behaviour, or that someone who steals from others should be made to accept restitution. If this argument were the only one upon which people base their belief in the existence of God, it would be flimsy to say the least.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. To say that morality is intrinsically logical is a big leap in my eyes. Today's current beliefs of how stealing and murder are viewed have not been around forever, and in fact, they are quite recent. For example, in ancient Greece, Infanticide was a regular occurance. Any one who has seen 300 would know that. For those of you who haven't, Spartan parents would regularly kill babies who appeared weak in any way.

Also, looting and stealing were common place among any ancient country at war. Robbing the enemy was expect of the victor. But try that today and you get thrown in a court martial.

 

[Shynobee]

Rehash...Rehash...Rehash...

Morality and ethics do not rely on religion, they rely on principle. An adaptation of the same stories without the religious influence can be told for the same effect: to teach a moral lesson. Aesop's fairytales did it, Mother Goose did it, the other fairytales from the Brothers Grimm all did it, and those are just fairytales.

Ah, but little do you know, all of those listed poets had strong religious backgrounds...

 

[Akai Shizuku]

Without religion and principle, everything becomes subjective and thus there is rarely a strong moral backbone that is invariably followed.

 

[WayOutThere]

Just to clear this issue up. Christians believe that God extend his "common grace" too all people's no matter whether or not they believe in him. This common grace consists not only of a person's natural abilities but also an inbuilt sense of right and wrong (ie. a conscience). Athiests don't believe in God yet he still extends his common grace to them and in giving then a sense of morality prevents them (and all of humanity reagrdless of religion or lack thereof) from falling into even more sin.

I've never heard that "common grace" thing before but okay except for one thing. Not everyone has a sense of right and wrong. Psychopaths are people born without such a sense.

This might not actually be a flaw with the idea of "common grace" but it is something to be aware of.

Without religion and principle, everything becomes subjective and thus there is rarely a strong moral backbone that is invariably followed.

Why would a moral code built through reason that is also deeply held be rare?

If you don't believe in any higher power, it seems questionable to me why you would have a decisive moral stance on any issue.

This is one way.

I've sure you've heard this before:

Posit 1: Socrates is man
Posit 2: Man is mortal
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal

The same thing can be done with morality:

Posit 1: The only reason for someone to value their own life is because they are conscious (they can feel pain and joy). Any other reason is based on false premises (God favors me, genetic superiority, etc)

Posit 2: Everyone is conscious

Conclusion: No one can assign value to their own life without assigning value to everyones life

The conclusion is inevitable. That's pretty decisive.

 

[Razorback0z]

I'm an atheist and a moral relativist. If not a moral nihilist, depending on mood.

But yes, whatever we call morals exists without God. Pretty much the Golden Rule.

The notion that in the abscence of religion we would all revert to raping and pillaging.... says a lot more about the people making that claim than it does about Atheists.

If you watch "The War on Science" Dawkins interviews an English christian school teacher and asks him this question. The christian school teacher answers that "in the abscence of a belief in god, everyone would run out and rape and kill" Dawkins puts it to him that what he has said is that the only thing stopping him from raping and killing was his faith in god. The gentleman had basically no response, he realised quite quickly that you can not have this argument both ways.

If you asert that abscence of religion results in anarchsitic behaviour, you need to accept that you are saying that your faith stops you from being a rapsit and murderer.

For those of us without faith, who do not feel compelled to rape and murder, we worry about you folks and you scare us with your lack of self control and need for an external influence to stop you rampaging.

Not very christian at all really.

 

[dragonburner]

I think that you can have morality without "God" but a lot of the general knowledge of what is moral came from the ideas in the ten commandments from "God." But, I think the idea of morality is individual to every person.

 

[Skeleon]

*snip*

You do realize that much of our current moral system (especially the Human Rights) has its basis in ancient Greek morality based on rationality and logic (attributed to people such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle)?

Without religion and principle, everything becomes subjective and thus there is rarely a strong moral backbone that is invariably followed.

It's true that morality is subjective, but it's always this way. Just because a large number of people follow a certain creed of morality (based on their religion) does not make it objectively moral (there is no such thing).
I agree with you, however, that it's easier for a society to live together when everybody shares the same subjective morals.
There are other ways of morality to consider besides the religious ones, though.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Rehash...Rehash...Rehash...

Morality and ethics do not rely on religion, they rely on principle. An adaptation of the same stories without the religious influence can be told for the same effect: to teach a moral lesson. Aesop's fairytales did it, Mother Goose did it, the other fairytales from the Brothers Grimm all did it, and those are just fairytales.

Ah, but little do you know, all of those listed poets had strong religious backgrounds...

Actually, I do know that. I also know that there was no figure analogous to God in any of the stories. It was only the characters that interacted with each other, and their actions in either an ill or favorable light force their surroundings or other characters to either enact retribution or reward them, for the appropriate deeds. The surroundings were often blanked off as either mystical, magical, or terrific (and these were back in the days when that word meant terror-inspiring, not better than good). So, while they had a fair religious background, that background was not utilized in almost any of the stories written. They relied on forces other than religion to teach a lesson.

 

[KarumaK]

Of course. If there is a god, then it would probably be unable to understand our morality. If you can bring things to life, then killing has no lasting value for you.

Morality is not a creation of God, but of men.

 

[Shynobee]

*snip*

You do realize that much of our current moral system (especially the Human Rights) has its basis in ancient Greek morality based on rationality and logic (attributed to people such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle)?

Incorrect sir! Ancient Greeks, while being very progressive in their own way still had many flaws. Including, but not limited to, slavery as a standard means of sustaining ones living, an extremely male dominated society, extreme disdain for the poor, and there are others.

Most of the changes in our society were originally taught by Jesus believe it or not. Some of the main reasons people hated Jesus in his time were because he socialized and even accepted people like, women, slaves, and the poor!