# Fellow atheists: help me explain to believers that our morality is NOT faith based. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 7, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684 "2014-10-07T20:35:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/21 "2014-10-07T21:36:34Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > How does the introduction of a higher power alter this dynamic? It’s hard to imagine a greater threat of force than nine circles of hell. That gets into a flavor of religion. I was talking about a philosophical position that simply acknowledged a higher power, a Creator. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/22 "2014-10-07T21:38:27Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > A few,maybe, but most are decent people. I’m quite anti-religion but I’m still not willing to say most christians are secretly bad/evil people. However, when they talk about how without belief in God everyone will run amok they are claiming that Christians (and everyone else) are “secretly bad/evil people”. > [@Voyager](#): > > First, there isn’t an atheist morality. There are lots of moral systems constructed by atheists, but they in no way represent a unified system. True; it’s like someone talking about “theist morality” and claiming that all religious moral systems are the same. Somehow I don’t see the present Pope and the ancient Aztecs exactly being on the same page morally speaking. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/23 "2014-10-07T21:38:51Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I do object to calling it a belief system. No problem, as I didn’t mean it to have any religious connotation. Replace with “philosophy”. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/24 "2014-10-07T21:41:24Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It’s quite possible they’ll say “yes”, you know. “Fear of God is the only thing keeping everyone from running around robbing, raping and killing” is a common Christian argument. And I have heard Christians say that if God told them to murder someone then “by definition” murdering that person would be good and _not_ murdering them would be evil. > > That kind of “obedience to God” so-called morality is actually amoral, not moral IMHO. As a Christian, I find that kind of thinking demonic (not that I believe in demons). I like the “be good for goodness’ sake” bus ads I’ve seen in the DC area. When it comes to ethics, I’m probably as likely to agree with an atheist as a theist. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/25 "2014-10-07T21:41:26Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > No problem, as I didn’t mean it to have any religious connotation. Replace with “philosophy”. Or we could call it an “ethical system”. The OP did. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/26 "2014-10-07T21:41:40Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > First, there isn’t an atheist morality. That’s very true. I meant to write “atheists’ moralities,” but I see that I made an error. I blame Satan. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/27 "2014-10-07T21:42:54Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Personally, I don’t think one can have a a morality that he can expect others to agree with and live under without the threat of force if it is not based on something higher. It becomes the rule of Kings, which can simply change do to the whims of future kings. I think a foundation for morality needs to come from a higher order. I think the Declaration of Independence and its invoking of Natural Law lays out a very good basic framework. Mind you, I am not arguing for a nod to religion. I disagree very strongly with this, and in fact, think it’s a dangerous trap that many fall into when arguing public policy. “Natural Law” or “Human Nature” should NOT serve as a basis for an ethical system. If we allow that, we allow the possibility of any number of heinous consequences. For example, it may turn out to be evolutionally natural that men rape women, or when a man weds a women with children of another man, he kills them all. If we allow ourselves to be subservient to some sort of “higher natural law” we subject ourselves to these pitfalls. On the contrary, I find nothing higher than the agreement of shared values. Admittedly that can go awry too, but it’s the best we have. Fortunately, add good logic to shared values and we remove a lot of the pitfalls of moral relativism. For example, one of the fundamental shared values is that human life is “sacred” and that it can’t be bargained away. That’s based on a shared value, but also the logical proposition that we’re all equal (taking a number of axioms of the kind **Czarcasm** referred to; more on that below.) > [@RitterSport](#): > > It seems pretty clear to me that our ethics are an evolved trait built from living in small communities. I don’t have cites on hand and I don’t have time right now to search, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen studies that show that communities of chimps and bonobos show clear ethical constructs. > > What seems to be an obvious ethical good to us may not be obvious to an intelligent alien species evolved from, say, ants or lions or lizards. I’ve read enough science fiction that explores this concept to get pretty convinced. Ender’s Game explored it in the first (and maybe second?) book. > > For example, an intelligent species evolved from lions may see no issue with a new pride male coming in and killing the children of the male he has defeated in combat. We would consider this pretty unethical. A species evolved from praying mantises may consider it disgusting in the extreme not to kill your mate after mating. > > Our own ethical sense seems so natural to us that it sure looks like it’s in-built. You didn’t specifically conflate the two, but be very careful to distinguish between the “moral sense”, which is a consequence of biological evolution, and “ethics”, which is what we **decide** is right and wrong. There are a number of things we might “feel” is ethical, but on careful analysis, find is wrong and antithetical to the core values we choose to honor. For example, we might feel emotionally justified to kill our lover’s lover, but on reflection realize that isn’t what civilized people should do. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > **Skald** is right, though-that’s a topic for twenty other threads that have already been done. > I would have to say that if there is any “faith” built into my ethics system, it is faith that I am not unique-that others fear, hate, love, etc. pretty much the same way I do, that they feel pain pretty much the same way I do, that they hunger pretty much the same way I do, that they have a point of view that they believe is correct the same way I believe my point of view is correct, and that, for the most part, that hokey “paying it forward” thing actually works in the long run. Good point. If you call accepting axioms “faith”, then we do have articles of faith: 1. there exists an objective reality 2. other people exist and experience joy and suffering much as I do The list goes on, but it’s a list that’s unlikely to be doubted by any but a philosopher (academically) or a solipsist (the antithesis of a philosopher, IMHO). ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/28 "2014-10-07T21:43:47Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Cuba? Do you think that the fact that Castro is an atheist somehow implies that atheists must defend Cuban law? Ayn Rand was an atheist also - how do you think she and Castro would have gotten along? I brought up Cuba because I thought it is a pretty pure tempt to provide for the populace and not have them suffer. > [@Voyager](#): > > Oddly societies with dominant and universal religious beliefs - and strong state/church ties - needed just as much violent enforcing of morality as secular ones. Maybe more because there were more rules. I’m not talking about religious beliefs. I’m leaving religion out of it altogether. The position that there is a higher power (undefined beyond that) is a philosophical one (how did we get here?), not a religious one. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/29 "2014-10-07T21:44:16Z")
I am a theist myself, and while my beliefs inform my ethics to some extent, I also strongly believe that if there is a universal truth or an objective morality, then it seems reasonable to me that there ought to be more to substantiate these claims than divine inspiration. As such, if there is a creator, then we ought to be able to make some reasonable judgments about him from his creation. And if there isn’t, then all we have to go off of is creation. In either case, this seems to me to imply that the ethics of both the theist and the atheist ought to have significant overlap, particularly in major details. The reason I think we can make reasonable judgments about the creator from his art I would justify partially from a simple analogy. If I’m looking at a painting, I’m unsure about it, and the artist is there to explain it to me, that’s great. But what if I’m looking at a particular painting and I have a reasonable and justifiable interpretation of the painting, then talk to the artist and he tells me something that is very different and doesn’t even really match what he put on canvas at all. Ultimately, all most observers really have to go on is the painting, or they can believe me when I tell them what the artist says. But more, I’d argue that a painter who cannot express his intentions clearly in his work of art, when he is trying to clearly express them… well, that makes him a crappy artist. Now, all of that isn’t to say that a particular work of art can’t have multiple interpretations, but one of the aspects I find remarkable, is how the major aspects of morality through different cultures are remarkably similar. Maybe God created us that way, maybe it’s an artifact of evolution. Does it really matter? And beyond that, the Bible itself says test everything, hold onto the good. To me, this means that the truth isn’t just the truth because it is, but because it bears itself out. In this way, I see that as my beliefs informed my morals, it was like a seed, not too unlike how when as a child I was informed by the morals and beliefs of my parents and peers. If that seed is close to the global truth, maybe it will climb to a higher peak, and if it is far away, I may just drift farther. But ultimately, we all more or less follow that same process, iterating on our beliefs and experiences. So, the only real difference I can see between theist and atheist morality is where that seed comes from and, even for those who do have faith, unless they’re a convert and basically forsake everything they once knew and start redefining their lives in the new context of their faith, or lack thereof, most people’s initial ideas of morality and ethics come from their parents and peers more than anything. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/30 "2014-10-07T21:45:15Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I brought up Cuba because I thought it is a pretty pure tempt to provide for the populace and not have them suffer. > > I’m not talking about religious beliefs. I’m leaving religion out of it altogether. The position that there is a higher power (undefined beyond that) is a philosophical one (how did we get here?), not a religious one. I think your point was well made in both cases. particularly since you said at the end of your response you were not pro religion per se ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/31 "2014-10-07T21:45:43Z")
Looking at the OP’s ethical system, I’m seeing a slight resemblance to Asimov’s 3 Laws Of Robotics. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/32 "2014-10-07T21:45:51Z")
Atheism is simply orthogonal to morality. Some atheists have moral opinions\* based on faith; others do not, but have constructed their opinions based on some type of internally logical structure that is not dependant of faith. Not all atheists have even remotely the same morality. The only thing they share in common is a lack of belief in god or gods. This being the case, an appeal to “fellow atheists” is somewhat incoherent. If the issue is whether it is _possible_ for an atheist to have a set of moral opinions not based on faith, I’d say it was. However, I suspect most people’s moral opinions or beliefs - atheist and non-atheist alike - are more or less established, in practice, by the company they keep, as opposed to built logically from the ground up, or based directly on faith in a god; the “faith”, as it were, is in the correctness of the social consensus (albeit one society, such as ours, can have several competing ones: conservative and liberal, and all shades and flavours therof; libertarian; etc.). Herodotus stated the thesis in this way, more than two millenia ago: > [@](#): > > (3.38) I will give this one proof among many from which it may be inferred that all men hold this belief about their customs. When Darius was king, he summoned the Greeks who were with him and asked them for what price they would eat their fathers’ dead bodies. They answered that they wouldn’t do it for any amount of money. Then Darius summoned those Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them (the Greeks being present and understanding through interpreters what was said) what would make them willing to burn their fathers at death. The Indians cried aloud, that he should not speak of so horrible an act. So firmly rooted are these beliefs; and it is, I think, rightly said in Pindar’s poem that custom is king of all. \*“Opinions” used here instead of “beliefs”, as that word somewhat begs the question … ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/33 "2014-10-07T21:47:50Z")
I’m not sure if faith-based is necessarily the right term, but ultimately everyone’s morals, ethics, belief systems, etc. rest upon unprovable value judgments. That’s what axioms are, after all. How open one is to changing one’s axioms strikes me as a difference of degree, not of kind. Atheists can be unwilling to change their minds in the face of argument, and theists can experience doubts, revelations, or conversion. Ultimately, though, everyone believes that their value judgments are right at the time they hold them, but no one can prove it. Is that faith? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/34 "2014-10-07T21:49:20Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > I disagree very strongly with this, and in fact, think it’s a dangerous trap that many fall into when arguing public policy. “Natural Law” or “Human Nature” should NOT serve as a basis for an ethical system. If we allow that, we allow the possibility of any number of heinous consequences. For example, it may turn out to be evolutionally natural that men rape women, or when a man weds a women with children of another man, he kills them all. If we allow ourselves to be subservient to some sort of “higher natural law” we subject ourselves to these pitfalls. > > On the contrary, I find nothing higher than the agreement of shared values. Admittedly that can go awry too, but it’s the best we have. Fortunately, add good logic to shared values and we remove a lot of the pitfalls of moral relativism. For example, one of the fundamental shared values is that human life is “sacred” and that it can’t be bargained away. That’s based on a shared value, but also the logical proposition that we’re all equal (taking a number of axioms of the kind **Czarcasm** referred to; more on that below.) I think you have a bias against anything that can even be misinterpreted as religious. A natural law philosophy is merely a starting point. One that can and should respect life and also benefit from logic. I’d go as far as to say that a respect for life as sacred fits better under a natural law framework than it does without it. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/35 "2014-10-07T21:50:54Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I suspect most people’s moral opinions or beliefs - atheist and non-atheist alike - are more or less established, in practice, by the company they keep, as opposed to built logically from the ground up, or based directly on faith in a god; yes, but, some people in the south before 1861 were abolitionists. some people to day drive hybrid cars (not as important as eh slavery issue but an example still). people are influenced by friends, family culture, for sure, but they still have their own conscience. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/36 "2014-10-07T21:56:13Z")
My simplistic answer - My morals are not guided by a subjective reward/punishment system handed down from a 2000 year old text. The belief (or lack thereof) in a deity or an afterlife does not shape my actions today. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/37 "2014-10-07T22:03:45Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > yes, but, some people in the south before 1861 were abolitionists. some people to day drive hybrid cars (not as important as eh slavery issue but an example still). people are influenced by friends, family culture, for sure, but they still have their own conscience. Absolutely. Most episodes of concience are caused by problems or contradictions within a social group’s ‘customs’, though, not from creating a new ethical system from the ground up. Take abolitionism for example. Both Southern slave-owners and abolitionists pointed to the Bible for justification - the slave-owners, to bits of the OT that indicated that the ancient Israelites practiced slavery, and the Abolitionists to those parts of both the OT and NT that opposed slavery. Other sources of inspiration were the US notions of consitutional liberty - it is a bit of cognitive dissonance to announce that “all men are created equal” while at the same time being slave-owners (as of course many of the fathers of confederation were). So there was really no need for abolitionists to venture outside their own cultural beliefs - all they needed already existed within them. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/38 "2014-10-07T22:04:16Z")
I have a way that I’d like the world to be, and so I follow ethical rules that contribute toward the creation of the world that I would prefer. For example, I like owning things. I like that other people can own things as well. And I realize that ownership is a matter of community consensus. I own the things I own because most people around me agree that I own them. So if I want to continue owning things, it behooves me to act to reinforce the legitimacy of ownership. And so I have an ethical rule against stealing. Like that, but for everything. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/39 "2014-10-07T22:09:50Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I brought up Cuba because I thought it is a pretty pure tempt to provide for the populace and not have them suffer. I’m even more confused now. If Cuba provided so well for its people not many of them would want to leave. Not starving is hardly the ultimate of desires. > [@](#): > > I’m not talking about religious beliefs. I’m leaving religion out of it altogether. The position that there is a higher power (undefined beyond that) is a philosophical one (how did we get here?), not a religious one. These religious societies also believed in a higher power. I’ll grant you that the deism of Jefferson and Madison was a lot more intellectually sophisticated than the religion of the masses. But you can see from the Christian nation hooey that it didn’t even really catch on in the US. Anyhow the chain from higher power to natural rights is a bit more tenuous than the chain that LHoD described. That one takes no belief at all. And neither of these will keep the masses in line for those who think this is an important goal of moral systems. I don’t know if you believe that or not. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684/40 "2014-10-07T22:11:14Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Absolutely. Most episodes of concience are caused by problems or contradictions within a social group’s ‘customs’, though, not from creating a new ethical system from the ground up. > > Take abolitionism for example. Both Southern slave-owners and abolitionists pointed to the Bible for justification - the slave-owners, to bits of the OT that indicated that the ancient Israelites practiced slavery, and the Abolitionists to those parts of both the OT and NT that opposed slavery. Other sources of inspiration were the US notions of consitutional liberty - it is a bit of cognitive dissonance to announce that “all men are created equal” while at the same time being slave-owners (as of course many of the fathers of confederation were). > > So there was really no need for abolitionists to venture outside their own cultural beliefs - all they needed already existed within them. I’m tired, didn’t get much sleep last night… my question is then, for most people who are “part of the herd”, how much of a real conscience do they have or are they mainly bound by environment? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fellow-atheists-help-me-explain-to-believers-that-our-morality-is-not-faith-based/700684.md?page=3)