It seems to me thay some people think that being an atheist is wrong. Those that feel this way, I’d like for y’all to explain why y’all think atheism is immoral.
Atheism is not immoral. Morality is not a religious concept.
Atheism is morally neutral.
I’m asking why some people feel it’s wrong.
good luck.
OK, if I believe that God exists & we are accountable to Him/Her, then quite obviously, I will believe atheism to be incorrect or erroneous or factually “wrong”. If I also believe that people can have adequate experience of God if they are so willing, then I might also believe that at least some atheists are willfully & defiantly denying God, and thus are morally wrong.
But how can you willfully defy or deny something that you sincerely believe does not exist?
The usual reason given for atheism being immoral is the idea that all morals and all motivation to obey moral laws comes from God. For example, murder is wrong because God says it’s wrong, and people don’t murder because of fear of punishment from God. Those who subscribe to this mindset often assume that those who don’t believe in God have no reason to believe murder is wrong, or to refrain from murdering people.
Not that I agree. That’s just what I’ve heard people say.
It’s like the flip side of Pascal’s Wager – I don’t believe that god exists, but I defy him anyway just to make sure.
I’ve just been reading Brothers Karamazov, and I thought this might have some bearing on the OP:
“…there exists no law of nature that man should love mankind, and if that there is and has been any love on earth up to now, it has come not from natural law but solely from people’s belief in their immortality… so that were mankind’s belief in its immortality to be destroyed, not only love but any living power to continue the life of the world would at once dry up. Not only that, but then nothing would be immoral any longer, everything would be permitted… for every seperate person… who believes neither in God nor in his own immortality, the moral law of nature ought to change immediately into the exact opposite of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to the point of evildoing, should not only be permitted to man but should be acknowledged as the necessary, the most reasonable, and all but the noblest result of his situation.” (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, p 69)
In other words: If one believes that all morality comes from religion, then it follows that one with no religion would not have any morals. Clearly, this was a much more common viewpoint in 19th century Russia than it is today in (for example) the United States, but I think the reasoning is applicable.
There’s also the idea that all humans are born sinful, and that we can only be cleansed of sin by accepting a certain faith. If you’re aware of the fact that you can cleanse yourself of sin by finding Christ or whomever, and you opt not to, then who knows what other wickedness you’re capable of?
This is my impression of the situation, anyway. Being myself a godless heathen, I can only attempt to understand.
I feel that the religious person thinks that morals can only be taught through religion. Kinda short changing the human species if you ask me, but if one thinks this way, one can assume that not having a religion would make one amoral. No one has taught them right and wrong etc…
I’ve never had it explained to my satisfaction how, even if there is a God, not paying any attention to it is in and of itself a moral wrong. Unbelief is often considered the worst sin of all, but what’s so morally wrong about it, without inventing some convoluted and indirect story about how you can’t “really” be good to others without accepting God. What is DIRECTLY so immoral about it?
I think there’s an emotional element hiding behind the rational “atheism is immoral because all morality springs from god.”
Many religious people see atheism as a rebuke and as mockery. They are making a leap of faith, they are expressing their beliefs in an unknown God. Atheists are saying there is no God, any more than there is a Santa Clause or a Tooth Fairy. No matter how carefully we might express our disbelief to avoid mocking them or belittling our faith, they see what we do as belittlement.
And of course a lot of “believers” inwardly suspect that we atheists are right, having all the evidence on our side and all, and so their outrage at us might well be in part because we are showing them a part of themselves they do not want to see.
Other religions, though they might challenge the superficial forms of religion, at least do not strike so powerfully at the heart of it.
If morals come from God, and God is not to be questioned , then cannot anything be brought forth as moral if you can convince people that it came from God?
I don’t think you’ll find the answer you’re looking for. Most of the people who regularly post here do not regard Atheism as immoral.
But very interesting in what it says about people who believe morality comes only from an external source. A better question might be, why are religious people so amoral that they need an external threat to keep them in order? 
Boy! That´s the world oldest story!
T o agree with most of those who posted in this thread, most beleivers (Christian beleivres, note) think of moral as something which comes directly from God. As an example, if you read the Bible (Genesis) you´ll find that Adam and Eve´s sin was to eat from the “Tree of Good Good and Evil Scinece”. That is, first of they questioned what was good or evil (they disobbey a God´s direct law) and then, by eating from that tree, they made themselves capable of moral reasoning (you see, questioning what can be marked as good and what can be marked as evil), which was a God´s prerrogative.
Thus, in some way, atheists, since don´t beleive in God, have no reason to obey God´s law. The might consider God´s law as moral (like Thou shalt not kill and all the other stuff), but the inmoral thing is: first, to deny God´s existence, and second, to questioning themselves what is moral and what is inmoral.
By the way, I´m an atheist and I´m mostly disappointed at religious fanatics. I´ve never heard about atheists killing and torturing thousands in the name of uh… “No-God”, while examples on the other side are vast and numerous.
I am an atheist. IMO theists invoking God’s will to justify a “moral” position craven and utterly amoral. Certainly if something is done to avoid the threat of eternal damnation (for instance) then that is nothing but a selfish act.
Giving up one’s will to another is an abrogation of one’s moral responsibilities – I don’t honestly know if this is exacerbated if that “other” does not exist, but I think it makes it sadder.
Never mind the angst, feel the liberation.
In defense of theists: to a Christian theist, being moral won’t help you avoid damnation; it won’t even come close. All your “rightousness and good deeds are as filthy rags before the Lord.” Isaiah 64:6. Salvation comes by Grace alone, and is completely undeserved, no matter how “good” you think you may be. You should be moral because it’s pleasing to God, and because it’s right, and for all the reasons ethicists say, fully knowing that it won’t even come close to helping you achieve salvation.
For the same reason some people believe their lives are controlled by the position and movement of distant stars, or that certain numbers or rituals will increase the probability of events happening in their favor?