Yes, atheism IS immoral.
Thank you for posting – I’m sure everyone has been greatly enriched by your sharing.
It’s interesting that no-one*has personally identified with the opinion atheism is immoral, maybe Freyr was right.
*I’m not counting you Jadoku, 'cause you weren’t invited to vote by the OP, but invited to explain why you feel that way. Oh and, welcome to the boards, by the way.
Jadoku, stating your opinion flat out as fact will not get you very far in Great Debates. If atheism is immoral, either explain why you think so, or stick to the other forums.
Was it good for you too, TGU?
What on earth can religion have to do with morality? If I derive my morality from natural rights, humanity qua humanity, what need is there for a posit of a god to justfy it?
Furthermore, I might suggest that religion is immoral - in that it needs must denies reason.
Uh, I’ve had better.
Slut. 
I believe morality is a by-product of civilization going back to the earliest forms of social organization. We found that by living in organized groups, we could divide labor; these people farm, these people hunt, these people defend the village, these people make arts and crafts, and these people are middle managers.
Obviously, that won’t work if the members of the society are randomly stealing from and killing one another. Stability only comes when there are agreed-upon codes of behavior. Will a chimpanzee clan tolerate a member who enjoys killing other chimps? If not, does that mean the chimps have morality?
Over time, selection pressure means the human tribes tend to be made up of people who follow these codes, because those who don’t are excluded and don’t get to reproduce. It’s not perfect exclusion, though, because there’s still some productivity to be realized by running to the other side of the mountain, killing a rival tribe, and taking everything they’ve worked to build and collect. So it’s to a tribe’s advantage to have some aggressive spirit available to tap as a resource; it just has to be channelled.
As the brain develops, there’s some potential cognitive dissonance between the “live in peace” impulse that allows the tribe to exist and the “kill and main” impulse that allows the tribe to take what it needs from its neighbors (or defend against same). There must be a balance between the impulses (too far one way, you’re weak and vulnerable, too far the other, you destroy yourselves), but trying to nail down a rational explanation for what is, after all, irrational behavior is a losing game.
Hence, something called “morality” must be invented, or, rather, “discovered.” It can take many superficial forms, but the end effect is the same. Christianity asks us to “turn the other cheek,” but there’s plenty of war and bloodshed in the same scripture. Islam asks us to live in peace, unless our territory is threatened, which can be defined as vaguely as necessary. And so on. Note further that just about every language uses some form of “the people” as the name for themselves, and some other name for everybody else (the Master speaks), a means by which enemy humans can be more easily killed without emotional consequences.
In other words, in this atheist’s opinion, morality doesn’t come from God. It developed side-by-side with social instinct and sentience at their earliest stages, and is therefore almost impossible to disentangle from them as a separate entity.
People jumped on Jadoku for stating an opinion with no explanation, but this statement is just as unexplained and unjustified as a broad generalization.
Chimps, shmimps. Studies have shown that morailty can be induced even in the lowly Sea Monkey.
Cite?
Not that I necessarily question it; I know kin selection operates in other organisms. Whether that qualifies as “morality” is another debate, I guess.
If I understand the question, it is not “where do morals come from?” nor “does athieism lead to immoral action?” but whether atheism as a belief is immoral per se. I think sickboy51 has the right idea; from the viewpoint of the theist who believes this, the atheist sets the self up as god, which is the ultimate immoral act, pride, idolatry, etc, etc. Even if one led an otherwise morally righteous life, that refusal to acknowledge the deity would be considered an immoral position to be operating from, since one has set oneself up as the final arbiter of right and wrong. If Jadoku does believe this, maybe it would be good to come back and at least indicate if that’s the case, even if he or she can’t articulate it on his or her own. Help us out, here! Are we on the right track?
Let’s say I have 2 kids and we’re going to the park.
I tell kid #1 to please take turns on the swing because the other kids will get upset if they don’t get a turn and it’s not nice to make others sad. I tell him to not push or shove because it might hurt someone and it’s not right to hurt people.
I tell kid #2 to take turns on the swing because God said he should. I tell him not to push or shove because God will get angry at him.
So both kids act good at the park.
kid #1 acts good because he thinks it’s the right thing to do and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feeling.
kid #2 acts good because he doesn’t want to go to hell.
Do you really think kid #2 is more moral?
The rigidly controlled experiments in inducing morality in Sea Monkeys were conducted by our very own members and documented in this very forum: Can we induce morality in Sea Monkeys?
Interestingly, the topic of whether it was necessary to intoduce religion into their environment to induce morality, or whether an ethical atheism was possible was debated then as well.
Thanks for the cite, pravnik. It appears as though the results might best be categorized as “inconclusive.” Personally, the fact that such a thing as a vibrating Mr. Potato Head is actually permitted to exist in the world makes me seriously question the existence of a beneficent deity, although I am prepared to admit it may be evidence for a Supreme Being With A Weird Sense of Humor.
While “ethical atheism” is an interesting debate, I still don’t think it’s the point of this OP, though it might be by extension. Isn’t it whether disbelief itself is immoral, not what kinds of actions or judgments it leads to? Would someone who took the position that atheism was inherently immoral disqualify any good action of an atheist, because it was based on an allegedly immoral foundation?
Diogenes, there are some “atheists” who seem to be more “anti-theists”- who hate God & religion so much that there seems to be more than mere non-belief going on in their heads. Those are the ones I was speaking
…Those are the ones of whom I was speaking.
PREVIEW IS MY FRIEND!!!
Ok, this I would agree with. Anti-religious bigotry is no better than religious bigotry.
I’m against any religion that supports bigotry against gays, racism, and sexism, and doing away with reproductive freedom or civil rights.
I’m “anti-religion” to the extent that religion wants to enact those beliefs into law or actually harm or discriminate against unwilling others. I will do whatever I can to persuade those people to keep their beliefs to themselves and let God do the judging, or failing that, exposing their beliefs to ridicule so others won’t follow them.
Whether atheism or anything else is immoral depends on one’s moral code. Whether it is wrong is a question of fact, but one that depends on ultimate reality, not perceived reality.
Someone asked a general question about whether ignoring God, if he existed would be immoral. I think the biblical answer (although I do not presume to speak for all Christians) would be something akin to the following:
Jesus said that the laws given to the Jews were based on two great commandments:
- To the love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength and mind, and
- To love your neighbor as yourself.
(As an aside, there is nothing in there about do good or you will burn in hell, which some atheists assume to be the impetus for all Christian moral codes.)
If you assume that the above two laws are the basis of all Christian morality, then it would appear that atheism would be contrary to commandment one, although an atheist could still fulfill commandment number two.
I don’t see that labeling atheism as “immoral” achieves anything, though, since you are dealing with different moral codes coming from different perspectives with different foundations. What is moral to one person is immoral to another because we have the freedom to believe in and choose our own moral codes for any reason we feel is compelling. From my perspective, the dictate of commandment number 2 prevents any Christian from looking down on or feeling morally superior to an atheist. God’s view of human morality is expressed in strongly negative terms (as noted by pravnic), and therefore IMHO no Christian can biblically claim moral superiority.
On the subject of: “What is moral to one person is immoral to another”
I don’t know if I accept that at all:
[ul][li]*Those who act in a way that they believe to be right are behaving morally. * [/li][li]*Those who act in a way that they believe to be wrong are acting immorally. *[/ul]For me this is a universal credo. At least it’s a universal credo that I insist upon in others, lest I find them to be immoral:[/li]
Those who do not recognise others as having moral values because they are different from their own are ignorant. This ignorance seems so wilful as to be immoral in itself, but then I’d have to argue that there are two types of ignorance: common-or-garden, amoral ignorance, and, wilful, immoral ignorance.
I think there’s at least one case that I would classify as wilful ignorance:[ul][li]The failure to recognise that one’s beliefs might be wrong in actuality is wilful ignorance. [/li][/ul]That is, to confuse belief with knowledge is a wilfully-ignorant (and therefore, immoral) act.
Fundamentalism, of whatever flavour, embraces this wilful ignorance. Fundamentalism is amoral.
Hitler believed he was acting morally.
Huck Finn believed he was acting immorally.
I don’t think belief enters into it.