The title might seem provocative, but the subject isn’t. Basically, I’m a Christian who has had many friends who were either atheist, agnostic, or at least subscribed to a different brand (paganism) than mine. I kind of understand that people do not necessarily require a theist (or even religious) framework to justify their attitudes and actions regarding how to deal with others without being a doormat. I think it would be helpful if some of you would come forward and explain in simple terminology (if required), how your personal system of ethics works with regard to things like right and wrong, the degree of consideration of others one ought to exercise (if any), the problem of pain, and who, if anyone, is morally bound to render assistance to others in distress, etc.
Those who wish to take issue with any of the following responses, be so kind as to do it in another thread.
For me, it’s basically empathy and basic reasoning. I don’t like to be hurt; I can assume, even without the overwhelming number of others who have expressed it to me, that other humans don’t like to be hurt, either. So I do my best not to hurt others. I do like to be helped when I need it; therefore, I will do my best to help others. Really, the Golden Rule is a pretty basic rational concept without any need for religion - I don’t understand why religious people have such trouble understanding how atheists can arrive at an uncoerced moral code.
most people who call themselves atheist base their philosphy on humanism. one’s cosmology is objective reality. epistemology would be reason and logic. ethics is self-interest. politics revolves around a free market.
I think a kind of reverse question might be “Why does a religious person, to do the right thing, need the concept of a God?” I mean, we all know what is right and wrong. So what is it about religion that makes doing the right thing an imparative? Is it the threat of hell?
My ethical system works the same way yours does. I have an intuitive sense of right and wrong that is derived from my social instincts as a human being and the societal norms that I grew up with. Using this intuition as a guide, I then extrapolate abstract rules of ethical and moral behavior that I use to help me negotiate situations in which right and wrong are not obvious.
The only difference between me and you is that I readily acknowledge the socially constructed nature of my ethical system. In my opinion, this make it much less likely that I will attempt to rationalize an extreme ethical break through an imagined appeal to a higher standard.
For example, if God spoke to you and commanded you to kill your son, would you do it? After all, by your standards, God is the ultimate arbiter of morality. So if he explicitly tells you to kill your son, that’s the moral and ethical thing to do, right? And even if your gut tells you that you shouldn’t do it, God’s word still should trump your moral instincts … .
1.) I have empathy. Even without a god to tell me to I feel bad when bad things happen to other people. So I don’t do bad things to those people. And yes, this is all without even having to define “bad” to myself.
2.) Even if I didn’t have empathy, something that most people have, I’d know that society could only function if we all lived by agreed upon sets of rules. So being good is in my own interests. Yes, I could be bad in the hopes I won’t be caught, but really, it’s not like believing in a god has stopped people from doing that. Most people, including most law-breakers, are religious.
3.) You don’t get your morality from your religion as much as you might believe you do. The Bible says that misbehaving kids should be killed, that women shouldn’t be allowed to talk in church and that children being mauled to death by she-bears for calling someone a “bald-head” is all well and good. I don’t think anyone that believes those things can be moral, at least not by my standards and the standards of the community I live in. I think you would have the same basic moral framework regardless of which god you worshiped- and in each case you would look for justification of that framework within the teachings of whichever religion you picked.
Too late to edit: “and in each case you would look for evidence of that framework within the teachings of whichever religion you picked.” is a better way to put what I was trying to say.
It’s a fair question, but I can raise some objections, most importantly:
If we are really “morally bound to render assistance to others in distress” as far as I can see that only really applies to our immediate neighbors/friends/family or in reality, we are pretty much all not living up to that standard - religious or not.
Now I can give some practical/evolutionary reasons why I think humans have a moral sense that gives more importance to people we know vs people we don’t - for one, if we really did feel everyone should be cared for equally, we’d be doomed to failure; we just can’t do it. Gods - if there are any - don’t seem to give us any good example to follow in any case.
Anyway, my personal ethics are pretty much hedonistic; I feel that life is short and here to enjoy if you can. I try to share that enjoyment with the people I meet and I give to charities (for example) because I think it sucks that people have rotten lives just because of dumb luck and I can do a little bit to change things for the better.
People don’t need to be saved for the “next life”; make this world a better place right now dammit. At best, nobody knows what will happen after you die; if you’re worried about that, I think you’re just deluded and I can still like you, but if you’re giving up making the only world we do know exists better because you don’t know what happens after you die, you’re dangerously fucked in the head.
I have no emprical reason to believe in god; however, I generally subscribe to the morality outlined in most religions. They’re general altuisms, anyway, why not? Anyway, last time I checked, I haven’t broken any of the commandments in quite some time, utterly without assistance from any deity. I’m not sure why some think a lack of deism = amorality of some sort; I happen to think that believers tend to think they have a “get out of jail free” card due to their beliefs, and that while the earthly humans who rewrote scriptures to suit their own version of morality might be the sanctioned authors of the preferred religious doctrine, I really feel no compunction to believe that, either. Bwaaahahaha, I’m Satan Incarnate, right? :rolleyes:
It should be noted that we atheists don’t accept that your religious ethics are actually derived from God. Rather, your God is made by man, and His code of ethics given to us was created by us.
Empathy for people who are suffering and a basic sense of fair play. A recognition that everyone in society benefits when people respect each other and treat each other fairly.
A understanding that what many define as religious morality came from people observing what worked in society and wanted to codify and give it some sort of legitimacy. That since I believe in no afterlife, I must work hard to make this life as fair and righteous as I can.
Most atheists were religious once. We are well aware of religious training.
After we reject the concept of god that does not necessarily mean we reject all the teachings of the church. We live in communities and it is necessary to find a way to live in some degree peace and organization. Because we do not accept a sky pilot , does not mean we don’t have a desire to live properly.
If anything, being an atheist has made me live a more charitable life as I cannot walk by someone in need and assume they will receive any sort of divine intervention. There is only me.
Have you actually read the (pair of) ten commandments? I break a handful of them every couple of weeks. The commandments are a terrible set of moral guidelines.
I know why; the Christian morals are generally based on the Commandments, which are completely arbitrary and almost half of them evil. No sane man would agree with them, so anyone who isn’t a christian won’t believe them. Etc.
Can I pose a counter-question to you and other theists?
I gather you practice charity because your religion teaches you too. If you can imagine a hypothetical situation where some genie convinces you that your religion is, after all, false, would you then become an “immoral” person, or stop practicing charity?
“No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee…”
John Donne
“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”
John Lennon
It works pretty much the same as yours does with one caveat…I don’t believe my actions are ever justified by some higher being or power. As you say, I’m not trying to be provocative, but some of the most heinous acts that humans have perpetrated on ourselves have been in the name of religion, one way or another. I’m basically a person who believes in personal accountability, without any sort of excuses, including some justification based on a belief that God or the gods want or favor some action.
Other than that, atheists are humans raised in a human society just the same as theists…and most of the core beliefs and interactions of what’s acceptable come from society, not strictly from religion. In the US we have many religions…pretty much every religion on earth is represented somewhere in the US. Yet our core principals (good and bad) come more from society than from any one religion.