# How do Athiests Stack Up? (Morally)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2008, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774 "2008-09-29T23:49:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/121 "2008-10-06T17:44:12Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > **Aji** , unless you consider number and quality of life as a good, then any system of morality you judge by is entirely self-contained; that is, it is entirely arbitrary rules set by and followed by a community. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s hardly fair to call non-particpants in that community immoral. I am a moral relativist, and I will defend relativism in a few forms (historically, I have on this board), but I would never agree that it is unfair to judge someone else by your own standards. What purpose would you give the standards, if not for judging? > [@](#): > > It is silly to condemn as immoral people who are not following your rules for morality. That’s like saying someone is playing a bad game of Canasta when they’re actually playing Bridge. Hmm. I disagree that this analogy is appropriate. Canasta and bridge are not normative rules. What _a good play_ is in any game is a matter left to people analyzing the game after the fact with additional goals in mind (“I should win,” usually). Criticizing canasta play on the basis of bridge strategy is indeed foolish but I do not think it is similar enough to making moral judgments to fit the analogy. That said I am not a fan of agent’s relativism (which you seem to be espousing here, but I am not 100% certain) so it is probably very likely that we disagree here. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/122 "2008-10-06T17:52:37Z")
I’ll number each of your answers to avoid messing up coding. BTW, thanks for proving most of my points in ways I could have never dreamt of. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > 1. Because they didn’t kill people because of atheism. They killed because they belonged to groups that demanded killing. Atheism doesn’t demand or command or condemn anything at all; it can’t motivate anyone to do anything. Religion on the other hand; religion demands all sorts of things, and condemns all sorts of things. Not at all the same. > > 2. No, that’s the attitude that the religious have. The attitude that anything, anything whatsoever is better than not believing. That it’s better to kill for Kali than live peacefully without faith. > > 3. Nonsense; millions do, directly or indirectly. Not just the ones that pick up guns; the ones that lie about condoms, the ones that looked the other way and dragged their feet on AIDS, hoping to kill as many gays as possible; the ones that terrorize their own children or drive them to suicide for being gay; the ones that cheat and defraud in business because God says that anything is justified for profit; the ones that despoil the environment because the Rapture is coming; the ones that supported the war against Iraq because of Biblical prophecy. and on, and on, and on. > > 4. Of course; the word of the religious is worthless, their principles nonexistent. Of course they will go against their stated beliefs, as long as they can ram their religion down someone’s throat, or profit in some fashion, or hurt some “sinners”. That’s what happens when your “morality” is based on a self indulgent delusion. > > 5. And why isn’t “society works better” and “people are happier” a good enough way to define “good” ? And how does that make it worse than religion, or even **as bad as** religion, which doesn’t care if it’s good for society and is actively hostile to happiness ? > > 6. Because it DOES create evil. And because it’s insane, and can’t do anything but harm save by luck. And because the religious DO behave worse. > > 7. That’s not what the religious tend to say. It’s the **religious** who claim that people need gods to keep them in line, not the atheists. > > 8. Yes; Christian values like hating unbelievers and outsiders, disdain for human life, a hatred of pleasure, a lack of concern for the future, an admiration of death and suffering, utter ruthlessness, the admiration of willful ignorance and stupidity, and so on. One of the major reasons that America is so unethical and irrational is because it is so heavily corrupted by Christianity. It’s been a powerful force all right - an evil one. > > 9. As for the positive values you no doubt meant to hand credit to Christianity for ( religion is big on stealing credit for things ); to paraphrase a line said about Freud, where Christianity is correct or good, it’s not original; and where original, it’s either wrong and evil. It didn’t invent morality, or mercy, or laws against murder, or any of the things it likes to claim credit for. It’s parasitic at best. > > 10)Since the believers keep trying to base their arguments on the myths being right, yes it does have an impact. 1. If John, who grew in a nominally Christian house and never really thinks much about God, goes and kills the guy who’s sleeping with his wife he didn’t do it because of religion, he did it in spite of it. If simply having religious feelings make everything you do religioin’s fault, then you’ve won the debate by virtue of making unfair rules. Atheism may not demand anything, by atheistic groups do, unless, again, you want th eunfair debate that groups are not atheistic and therefore it become an impossible debate. Closing your eyes doesn’t make things go away. 2. Since i’m a Catholic I’ll answer for my guys and then you would be wrong, we Catholics do not belive that as part of the “rules”, individual catholics may belive incorrectly. 3. Again wrong. Catholic charities and hospitals take care of thousands of AIDS patients, gay or not. Wrong in the terrorising, unless you advocate that parents should not teach anything to children. Wrong on the buisiness thing too. Wrong on the Rapture. Wrong on the war in Iraq. You’ve cherry-picked things you don’t like from several groups and lumped them into “religion” as a whole. For me, as a Catholic, wrong on all counts. 4. Man…religion is wrong even if it is right. 5. It isn’t because it would only be your own personal opinion. If Pete the atheist decides that raping his neghbours is good for him, then no atheist can tell him “that’s wrong”, only “I don’t like it”; unless you like ramming your (un)beliefs down people’s throats. 6. Define evil in a way different from “not to Der Thris’s liking”, if you can’t, then we’re discussing 4-sided triangles. 7. Well, an atheist that needs gods is a mental case. “Good” and “Evil” are realities, one may choose to ignore them, but taht doesn’t make them go away. Knives cut, even if a don’t believ it. 8. Wrong in all the phrases starting with “hating” or “hatred”. The rule is “hate the sin love the sinner”. Against, what is the “evil” you talk about? A chemical? A formula? A law of nature like gravitation? or your personal opinion? 9. I didn’t say Christianity invented them. I said that “western” atheists learnt their “values” from it. 10. What I said id that the Jesus’s being God or not in itself is immaterial to the discussion. Of course the believes are. Please, do remember that I give my answers as a Catholic, not as “generic religious”. If you believe that such category of people exist, then you win, by virtue of unfair debating (i.e. like trying to debare how many side a square has a you chose 4). ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/123 "2008-10-06T17:58:39Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > **Aji** , unless you consider number and quality of life as a good, then any system of morality you judge by is entirely self-contained; that is, it is entirely arbitrary rules set by and followed by a community. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s hardly fair to call non-particpants in that community immoral. > > Those things you dismiss as a convenience are the rules that pretty much all religions, and atheists, share - don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t lie, don’t rape. (These may all be permitted under certain circumstances, but you don’t run around doing it randomly in your community). They are all considered part of morality. To most atheists, they are considered the lion’s share of morality, along with the further refinements of kindness, consideration, not causing pain, etc. > > To various religions, there are additional rules that those communities believe are mandated by their god and must be followed, but that do not actually contribute to the quality of life or the number of people who can survive. Most often, these seem to be in connection with sex, but they can have to do with diet or ritual observance, or flags, or any number of other things. These rituals, these rules for living are detailed in books of received wisdom, such as the bible, the koran, etc. which are divinely inspired. Because of this, not the leaders, I include Communism and Fascism in with Judaism, Christianity and Islam: each has had its book or books of received wisdom, each has had its prophets to which it returned in times of confusion and stress, each has had its rules for living that told its practioners how to better live their lives, each to a varying degree has sought to convert others to its beliefs or to eliminate the non-believers. > > But these rules are not actually universal rules, and you should be aware of that. They are in fact arbitrary, and are not even enforced uniformly. The same part of the bible that condemns homosexuality also condemns blending cotton and linen, but you don’t hear much about that from the pulpit, do you? That same part tells us that pigs are unclean, but most Christians eat pork. > > It is silly to condemn as immoral people who are not following your rules for morality. That’s like saying someone is playing a bad game of Canasta when they’re actually playing Bridge. Judge us on the rules we agree on (I listed them above, in my second paragraph); I think you’ll find we stack up about even there. People are people. Just about everyone is corruptible if desperate enough (or the price is high enough), and some have considerably lower standards that way than others. The more you do it, the easier it gets, I suspect. For most, I’m guessing whether or not they believe in a god doesn’t enter into it until later, when their conscience _really_ gets a chance to catch up. But I don’t know, because I’m not religious. I just have principles, and so far, they’re working pretty well. THey cost me several thousand dollars this month alone, and I am pretty desperate financially. Oy, I haven’t used the word immoral. I said that atheistic morality is a matter of personal opinion. The “pork” thing was “ammended” by Jesus. Most rules are not about sex. In Catholicism it boils down to two rules: Sex when married, and sex open to fertility. For Christians, the fact that the rules are universal it is because (I’m paraphrasing from the Bible) “God put the rules into our hearts”. “Good” atheists can go to Heaven. Bad Christians definitely go to hell. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/124 "2008-10-06T18:42:20Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > It’s nice to see how atheists try to deflect criticism by simply escaping the question or its consequences. > > If you talk about murders commited by atheist governments they say, “_No, they are not atheist, they are reiligious because of the leader figure_”. So, basically, whenever two or more atheists get together, form a group with rules, and then start killing people, it doesn’t count. This is a remarkable distortion. I work with three people who lived under Soviet rule and all three agreed, when I asked (independently), that Stalin/Lenin were treated similar to religious figures. This, I agree, does not mean they weren’t atheists. I am prepared to accept them as examples of what can happen from any messianic persona, which is not a result of religious affiliation, but does certainly have the marks of religious belief. To the extent that religion fosters the desire to follow a messianic figure, I think this is a mark against religion; to the extent that atheism may discourage the desire to follow messianic figures, this is a boon; but, it is a mark of being human to feel a pull towards messianic figures. > [@](#): > > There are no reliable statistics, none; and atheists don’t accept that life is more complicated than religious/ not-religious. 😕 A standard criticism against religion that atheists level is the remarkable variation in religious belief, so this comment is pretty much out of whack with reality. > [@](#): > > The caricature of religious people waking up every day ready to commit atrocities in the name of their god(s) is only that, a caricature. (Some religious people do it, of course, a femtoscopic minority). I agree, it is hyperbolized. > [@](#): > > All the bad things a person that claims to be religious “count” the same even if they were knowingly done against their own stated beliefs. Hmm. I guess I disagree that a person ever acts against their beliefs. It’s just part of how I understand “to believe.” Perhaps you have some other kind of believing in mind. To the extent that religion fosters illogical or empirically unfounded thought, which is to say, to the extent that religion makes it acceptable to believe the damndest things, it is fair to suggest a correlation between wild acts and their religious beliefs. > [@](#): > > “Public” atheism is relatively new in western society. Figuring out how religious a guy who died 1000 years ago was is difficult at best. I agree. Additionally, religious beliefs have been historically quite varied. I’ve read–but do not know how good the information was, I must qualify–that the ancient greeks did not believe in their pantheon the way a modern Christian believes in God, as real entities. But this approaches splitting hairs we do not have. > [@](#): > > **prleone** said that this was his only chance to do good. What is that \*\*good \*\* he’s talking about? I guess he means " things I like", for good and evil are not real entities for an atheist to believe in. What does moral realism have to do with religiosity? Perhaps all religious people are moral realists but not all moral realists are religious. > [@](#): > > Atheist like to hide in _“societies work better if you don’t kill”_, it doesn’t mean it’s good, it is convenient. An atheist eating an apple or raping a baby or giving to charity is engaging in morally neutral activities he may find pleasurable or not and that the society where he lives may find acceptable or not. I have no idea what this means. > [@](#): > > SDMB atheists don’t even engage in the idea that religion may be unable to repress innate evil/crap in our heads rather than creating it. What? Do you mean, “… don’t even consider the idea that religion might repress… rather than create” those ideas? If so, I think you are wrong, but I don’t keep a personal listing of every religious thread here, and since the pay-to-play switch happened I have not kept up with the dope. > [@](#): > > The idea that atheists form their consciences in a vacuum is wrong. Thankfully, no one has expressed this. > [@](#): > > In western societies, at least, Christianity has been such apowerful force that even those who actively oppose it may be using categories like good or evil that are - ultimately- Christian. In a very weak and un-Christian sense, I guess. I agree that Christianity has had a huge impact on western cultures. ---
**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 6, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/125 "2008-10-06T19:18:16Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Oy, I haven’t used the word immoral. I said that atheistic morality is a matter of personal opinion. You’re not getting it. Religious morality is just as much a matter of personal opinion, since if you don’t like the morality of sect X, you go to sect Y. Plus, all you have to do is to be convinced God told you to do something, and it becomes moral. .Atheists can arrive at principles for living through ethical reasoning. The difference is that we don’t claim that our personal conclusions are the law of the universe the way the religious do. > [@](#): > > The “pork” thing was “ammended” by Jesus. Paul, actually. Have a cite for Jesus specifically rejecting dietary laws? Paul did it, of course, to help in recruiting. > [@](#): > > Most rules are not about sex. In Catholicism it boils down to two rules: Sex when married, and sex open to fertility. > For Christians, the fact that the rules are universal it is because (I’m paraphrasing from the Bible) “God put the rules into our hearts”. Catholics believe that. Lots of other religions don’t. If that rule was put into our hearts, the sale of birth control pills would be nil. Views on homosexuality, for example, vary widely across sects. Can you prove that one of these positions is what god wants? Both sides have plenty of Biblical arguments. I’d guess that very few atheists are against SSM, since I’ve yet to see a reasonable secular argument, backed up by data, showing it is bad in any way. “Good” atheists can go to Heaven. Bad Christians definitely go to hell. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/126 "2008-10-06T19:23:56Z")
Atheists are more moral because they never use God to justify their immorality. ---
**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 6, 2008, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/127 "2008-10-06T19:45:09Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > If John, who grew in a nominally Christian house and never really thinks much about God, goes and kills the guy who’s sleeping with his wife he didn’t do it because of religion, he did it in spite of it. If simply having religious feelings make everything you do religioin’s fault, then you’ve won the debate by virtue of making unfair rules. Atheism may not demand anything, by atheistic groups do, unless, again, you want th eunfair debate that groups are not atheistic and therefore it become an impossible debate. Closing your eyes doesn’t make things go away. Once again, **atheism doesn’t demand anything** ; religion does. Religion tells you what to do, who to follow, what to hate; atheist doesn’t say anything but “there is no God”. As for your “atheist group”, if atheist was all that they were, they wouldn’t do anything good or bad. Atheism is just disbelief in God(s), there isn’t anything **there** to motivate anyone. The Communists did bad things because they were Communists, not atheists; while the religious do bad things because of the nature of religion. That’s why you need to keep harping on Communism ( or pretend Nazism was atheist ), while I can go on and on about evils committed by a wide variety of religions. Blaming atheism for the evils of Communism is like blaming males for the Spanish Inquisition because they were all male; it had nothing to do with what they did. The Communists were just a group hostile to all other beliefs, and one of those beliefs happened to be atheism. If disbelief in fairies had been part of the core beliefs of the religion of Communism, they would have killed people for that instead. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > 1. Again wrong. Catholic charities and hospitals take care of thousands of AIDS patients, gay or not. Wrong in the terrorising, unless you advocate that parents should not teach anything to children. Wrong on the buisiness thing too. Wrong on the Rapture. Wrong on the war in Iraq. You’ve cherry-picked things you don’t like from several groups and lumped them into “religion” as a whole. For me, as a Catholic, wrong on all counts. The different varieties of religion are all part of the same disorder, like different kinds of cancer are all cancer. And caring for the victims of a disease ( while still considering them vermin, and probably only in order to preach at them ) that the Catholics have helped and are helping spread doesn’t absolve them. And yes, it’s wrong to teach children they are evil for being gay; it’s wrong to disown them, beat them and drive them to suicide over it. And no, I’m not wrong on business, or the Rapture, or the war in Iraq ( I note that you didn’t even try to argue against me on those; just asserted I was “wrong” ). > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Man…religion is wrong even if it is right. Since when is it ever right ? Religion is less often right than a random guess. Religion is an example of the old line that it’s better to have no plan than a bad plan, because with no plan you might get lucky. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > It isn’t because it would only be your own personal opinion. If Pete the atheist decides that raping his neghbours is good for him, then no atheist can tell him “that’s wrong”, only “I don’t like it”; unless you like ramming your (un)beliefs down people’s throats. My moral beliefs have nothing to do with my atheism, for one, and are not “un beliefs”, rammed or not. And like it or not we can collectively decide on what’s good, and like it or not there are plenty of things ( like laws against murder ) that are quite obviously good for all of us. And you failed to say a word about how religion can do better, or even equal community self interest as a moral standard. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Define evil in a way different from “not to Der Thris’s liking”, if you can’t, then we’re discussing 4-sided triangles. In other words, your “defense” of religion is to define things like the torture and murder of heretics, the oppression of women and gays, and other such religious evils as not actually wrong, but merely being “not to Der Trihs’s liking”. Thanks for demonstrating the evil of the religious viewpoint again. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Wrong in all the phrases starting with “hating” or “hatred”. No, that’s exactly what Christianity is like and what it promotes. Just because you don’t like it when someone points out how unpleasant your religion is doesn’t make it true. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > The rule is “hate the sin love the sinner”. That’s not the “rule”; that’s the weasel phrase, the attempt to deny that they do hate the people they rant against. They don’t mean a word of it, and have often demonstrated so. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Against, what is the “evil” you talk about? A chemical? A formula? A law of nature like gravitation? or your personal opinion? :rolleyes: Ah, yes, the religious retreat into solipsism. “You can’t prove that \ is wrong mathematically, so it’s OK for us to kill people over it !” > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > I didn’t say Christianity invented them. I said that “western” atheists learnt their “values” from it. No, in spite of it. Western moral and social progress has largely consisted of throwing off Christianity’s teachings, like treating women as subhuman. > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Please, do remember that I give my answers as a Catholic, not as “generic religious”. Religion is ALL garbage. It’s all crazy. The distinctions you make such a big deal out of are trivial; religion is dangerous because of the nature of religion, not because of it’s specific teachings. Given it’s insane, reality denying nature, it can do evil while teaching good just as easily as doing evil from teaching evil. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/128 "2008-10-06T19:45:39Z")
> [@sciurophobic](#): > > Atheists are more moral because they never use God to justify their immorality. But we may use other things. Our situation, peer pressure, our own lack of willpower or ability. Blaming something or someone other than ourselves for our failures, or citing things outside of ourselves to back up that which we’ve already decided on, is hardly something solely done by the religious. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/129 "2008-10-06T20:09:35Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > It’s nice to see how atheists try to deflect criticism by simply escaping the question or its consequences. Why is that nice? It doesn’t sound particularly nice to me. > [@](#): > > If you talk about murders commited by atheist governments they say, “_No, they are not atheist, they are reiligious because of the leader figure_”. So, basically, whenever two or more atheists get together, form a group with rules, and then start killing people, it doesn’t count. This isn’t an argument i’ve personally used, but I think there is a point to be made about atheism actually providing the purpose and motivation behind bad deeds. On the other hand, a point may be made that while atheism is not the motivation for badness, it could be that being atheist makes someone prone to finding those motivations - or that the lack of religiosity predisposes one to commit bad acts. It’s an argument that can be argued from both sides, really. > [@](#): > > There are no reliable statistics, none; and atheists don’t accept that life is more complicated than religious/ not-religious. It is ironic that you castigate atheists for not accepting complications whilst lumping us all together in one group with a unified position. I’m an atheist, I accept that life is more complicated than that, and furthermore I accept that not all religious people (and not all Catholics) may agree with your statement here. > [@](#): > > The caricature of religious people waking up every day ready to commit atrocities in the name of their god(s) is only that, a caricature. (Some religious people do it, of course, a femtoscopic minority). I agree with this one. I’d point out to you if this is based on Der Trihs’ posts that he is very much an atheist with radical views. > [@](#): > > All the bad things a person that claims to be religious “count” the same even if they were knowingly done against their own stated beliefs. Why should they not? The same standard can be applied to atheists, too. > [@](#): > > “Public” atheism is relatively new in western society. Figuring out how religious a guy who died 1000 years ago was is difficult at best. Quite a few religions are based on how religious a guy who died thousands of years ago. It can certainly be difficult, but I presume you as a Christian you accept several people of long ago were demonstratably religious; we can’t know if they were secretly atheists, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even guess. > [@](#): > > **prleone** said that this was his only chance to do good. What is that \*\*good \*\* he’s talking about? I guess he means " things I like", for good and evil are not real entities for an atheist to believe in. Atheist like to hide in _“societies work better if you don’t kill”_, it doesn’t mean it’s good, it is convenient. An atheist eating an apple or raping a baby or giving to charity is engaging in morally neutral activities he may find pleasurable or not and that the society where he lives may find acceptable or not To the contrary, I as an atheists believe that many things are good which are not convenient. It would be highly convenient for me were I to believe that it is acceptable and good for me to steal if I could get away with it, but I do not. It would be convenient for me to believe that responding to a provocation with insults or violence is acceptable or good, but I do not. I like having money, and yet stealing isn’t good. I would argue that it is much the same for religious people. After all, many religious people tend to be quite happy, overall, with their religion. I have not met many religious people who believe that while there are good things about that religion, overall it has bad results for them; quite the opposite. I would argue that a religious person could also work their belief system so that what they define as good and what they define as bad are those things that they personally like or do not like. This is a charge that can be directed equally at both of us. > [@](#): > > SDMB atheists don’t even engage in the idea that religion may be unable to repress innate evil/crap in our heads rather than creating it. While I welcome your narrowing down of your insults to just SDMB atheists, i’d point out that I engage in that idea, and more accept it as quite possible and probable. > [@](#): > > Religious people don’t \*\*need \*\* god(s) to tell them what’s good, at least not in the meaning it is usually intended here. A doctor tells me I have cancer, I don’t need him to tell me I feel sick nor did he give me the cancer, he explains and clarifies, that’s what God does. The idea that atheists form their consciences in a vacuum is wrong. In western societies, at least, Christianity has been such apowerful force that even those who actively oppose it may be using categories like good or evil that are - ultimately- Christian. I agree. I think that having grown up in a strongly-Christian-based society, my values have certainly been affected by religion. And yet there are aspects which are not the same. Moreover, we can see that the religious don’t form their belief in a vacuum, either - the U.S. has proportionally more Christians than India, for example. Even within seperate sects, we might discover a higher proportion of Catholics in Ireland than we do in the southern U.S. Just as atheists have their sensibilites affected by what goes on around them, so do the religious. And, of course, a couple of thousands of years ago Christianity was based on and significantly affected by Judaism, and those religions in turn by more primitive proto-religions. In a sense, all of us, religious and atheist alike, may be basing our ideas on morality on some ancient tribe that considered mammoths sacred over other animals. I’d like to think that we’ve all pretty much grown and changed in our ideas since then, though, and that we are not purely the results of our environment. > [@](#): > > Jesus may have beed a deluded Galilean carpenter with an equally delude posse of fishermen, but that does not have any impact on the discussion.0. True. ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/130 "2008-10-06T21:22:18Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > It’s nice to see how atheists try to deflect criticism by simply escaping the question or its consequences. > > If you talk about murders commited by atheist governments they say, “_No, they are not atheist, they are reiligious because of the leader figure_”. So, basically, whenever two or more atheists get together, form a group with rules, and then start killing people, it doesn’t count. > > There are no reliable statistics, none; and atheists don’t accept that life is more complicated than religious/ not-religious. > > The caricature of religious people waking up every day ready to commit atrocities in the name of their god(s) is only that, a caricature. (Some religious people do it, of course, a femtoscopic minority). > > All the bad things a person that claims to be religious “count” the same even if they were knowingly done against their own stated beliefs. What if it isn’t against their stated beliefs? What if they say “I killed for God.”? [Like this guy, for example?](http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/09/05/6677266-ap.html) Most religious people who do evil don’t do it because of their religion. But some do. When was the last time you heard someone say “I killed for the absence of a god.”? > [@](#): > > “Public” atheism is relatively new in western society. Figuring out how religious a guy who died 1000 years ago was is difficult at best. > > **prleone** said that this was his only chance to do good. What is that \*\*good \*\* he’s talking about? I guess he means " things I like", for good and evil are not real entities for an atheist to believe in. Atheist like to hide in _“societies work better if you don’t kill”_, it doesn’t mean it’s good, it is convenient. An atheist eating an apple or raping a baby or giving to charity is engaging in morally neutral activities he may find pleasurable or not and that the society where he lives may find acceptable or not > Since **prleone** ’s taking Hitler’s words as true(c.f. he’s Mein Kampf reference), he didn’t kill Jews (and christians, gypsies, gays, etc.) because he was evil, he did it because he was helping Germany and Germans. > > SDMB atheists don’t even engage in the idea that religion may be unable to repress innate evil/crap in our heads rather than creating it. > > Religious people don’t \*\*need \*\* god(s) to tell them what’s good, at least not in the meaning it is usually intended here. A doctor tells me I have cancer, I don’t need him to tell me I feel sick nor did he give me the cancer, he explains and clarifies, that’s what God does. The idea that atheists form their consciences in a vacuum is wrong. In western societies, at least, Christianity has been such apowerful force that even those who actively oppose it may be using categories like good or evil that are - ultimately- Christian. > > Jesus may have beed a deluded Galilean carpenter with an equally delude posse of fishermen, but that does not have any impact on the discussion. I agree, theists get their morality from the same place that atheists do. That is, from their parents and society. So, I’ll ask you the same question you asked Der Trihs, > [@](#): > > Define evil in a way different from “not to Der Thris’s liking”, if you can’t, then we’re discussing 4-sided triangles. But with Der Trihs replaced by God. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/131 "2008-10-07T06:24:25Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > **prleone** said that this was his only chance to do good. What is that \*\*good \*\* he’s talking about? I guess he means " things I like", for good and evil are not real entities for an atheist to believe in. Atheist like to hide in _“societies work better if you don’t kill”_, it doesn’t mean it’s good, it is convenient. An atheist eating an apple or raping a baby or giving to charity is engaging in morally neutral activities he may find pleasurable or not and that the society where he lives may find acceptable or not > Since **prleone** ’s taking Hitler’s words as true(c.f. he’s Mein Kampf reference), he didn’t kill Jews (and christians, gypsies, gays, etc.) because he was evil, he did it because he was helping Germany and Germans. First, it is not atheism, but [theism which makes morality arbitrary.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_command_theory#Criticisms_of_divine_command_theory) Second, the crude subjectivism you are attributing to atheism (‘Good’ = ‘what I like’) is a complete strawman and hasn’t been seriously defended by anyone reputable for at least half a century (probably longer). Try attacking [a genuine contender for a secular moral theory.](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism-contemporary/) BTW, do you agree with the moral principle [“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ”?](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=56&chapter=6&version=31) If not, then you are using a non-religious standard to decide which parts of religious morality you will accept and which parts you will reject–just like the atheist is doing. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/132 "2008-10-07T11:05:59Z")
Morals are what hold a society together,not religions. There were moral people before any religion was established. Common sense dictated that( like other animals )learning that they could do more with others than alone. Hence they found by helping others they helped them selves. There is no Religion that can prove a God started it, or even approved of it. It is all a matter of some human having an idea that worked for the betterment of all Then politics entered and they started claiming their God was greater than the other. People adhered to laws that they felt was for their benifit and in some cases were held in fear as they were taught or were punished for nor following certain rules,like the Burning at the stake if you didn’t believe certain things, or were tried as Witches etc. . All religions expect their believers to follow their rules which are all of human origin. Some people are also taugh not to disbelieve another teachings. Religions can help a person or harm them depending on what they accept as the truth(And want it to be). Monavis ---
**Author:** ![Gbro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Gbro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gbro)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/133 "2008-10-07T16:14:00Z")
Believer still here > [@monavis](#): > > Morals are what hold a society together,not religions. There were moral people before any religion was established. Common sense dictated that( like other animals )learning that they could do more with others than alone. Hence they found by helping others they helped them selves. I think the key word here is “Dictate”, Dictators held their society’s together. Not common sense. Of course that is JMHO emphasis on the H > [@](#): > > There is no Religion that can prove a God started it, or even approved of it. It is all a matter of some human having an idea that worked for the betterment of all Then politics entered and they started claiming their God was greater than the other. Believing in the Bible tells me that God set the standard for behavior. If everything was running so smoothly, why establish the “Law” > [@](#): > > Religions can help a person or harm them depending on what they accept as the truth(And want it to be). That is a very true statement. Take me for example. While I always thought of myself as a Christian, their wasn’t much Christian about how I lived my life. I was so full of hate. I hated Homosexuals so much that I dared not engage in posting in a forum such as this for the repulsive feeling of communicating with a Homosexual. I am not hateful anymore towards anyone. I do not accept the sin, but I do not hate the person. I pray for them now. I started a new Bible study last night. Our study will be on the book of Daniel. We started the new study by talking about non-believers. That is where the Idea about studying Daniel came from. If one doesn’t have faith, take a look at this young ladies story. I am going to purchase her book.[http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=9](http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=9) > [@](#): > > Monavis ---
**Author:** ![Gbro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Gbro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gbro)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/134 "2008-10-07T16:21:05Z")
The corrected Link. [http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?s=9116465](http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?s=9116465) I also mistakenly put my comment in Monavis quote box, Sorry, That is a very true statement. Take me for example. While I always thought of myself as a Christian, their wasn’t much Christian about how I lived my life. I was so full of hate. I hated Homosexuals so much that I dared not engage in posting in a forum such as this for the repulsive feeling of communicating with a Homosexual. I am not hateful anymore towards anyone. I do not accept the sin, but I do not hate the person. I pray for them now. I started a new Bible study last night. Our study will be on the book of Daniel. We started the new study by talking about non-believers. That is where the Idea about studying Daniel came from. If one doesn’t have faith, take a look at this young ladies story. I am going to purchase her book ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/135 "2008-10-07T18:25:13Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > First, it is not atheism, but [theism which makes morality arbitrary.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_command_theory#Criticisms_of_divine_command_theory) Second, the crude subjectivism you are attributing to atheism (‘Good’ = ‘what I like’) is a complete strawman and hasn’t been seriously defended by anyone reputable for at least half a century (probably longer). Try attacking [a genuine contender for a secular moral theory.](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism-contemporary/) > > BTW, do you agree with the moral principle [“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ”?](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=56&chapter=6&version=31) If not, then you are using a non-religious standard to decide which parts of religious morality you will accept and which parts you will reject–just like the atheist is doing. Why is it a strawman? Isn’t it true? Who/What decides objetive standards? Der thirs (I’m not saying he speaks for all atheists) says atheism doesn’t make you do anyhting This whole “_societies know what is better for them without god_” may be true, but does not make it good. If you mean that I agree with the wholly out of context quote, the answer is no. Do I believe in it as part of its whole context? Yes. **Sophistry** : Explain, please, what the \*\*objective \*\*difference between \*\*good \*\*and \*\*evil \*\*is. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/136 "2008-10-07T18:53:15Z")
If what \*\*Der Thris \*\*says is true, i.e. that atheism doesn’t tell you to do anything, then by virtue of that definition atheists CANNOT do bad things due to their being atheists; they do it because they are Red Sox fans, or communists or whatever. Whether that definition is true or that it lends itself to any debate about morality is another thing. (It also means they cannot do anything good because they are atheists, though) I never said that religion makes societies better nor it was my intention to prove it (I \*\*do \*\*believe it but it’s never been part of my argument). My main points towards (or against) atheism -in western societies- are: 1)It tries to deflect any criticism by saying “I didn’t do it, they were not really athiestic or atheistically motivated”. I can say the same thing about polar bears, they don’t make me do anything. Any atheist doing bad things is “excommunicated” (metaphorically speaking), but we religious guys are not granted the same benefit. 2)Modern atheistic standards of behaviour did not arise from the vacuum or from “all societies” or “ancient societies”. They arose in Christian(y) countries in which several moral and ethical ideas were part of the environment. Unless you need a degree in ancient history or anthropology, most atheists "feel " things are right, they don’t read 100 philosophy books to behave well, they took them form their life experience in socities full of christian values. (Whether christianity invented those standards, or christains follow them is immaterial for this discussion). Please, show me the atheist “rulebook”. 1. This is a consequence of #2, good and evil become societal standards of behaviour, not objective truths, and therefore, changeable. * * * **Der** \*\* Thirs\*\*, I will not continue answering your comments. As per my comments, you win the debate “_can atheists do bad things because they are atheists_?”; I, at least, cannot win that debate. ## I would love to hear, again as per my comments above, if atheists can do good because they are atheists. I accepted defeat, grant me this morsel. * * * ---
**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, 2008, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/137 "2008-10-07T18:55:22Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Why is it a strawman? Isn’t it true? Who/What decides objetive standards? Der thirs (I’m not saying he speaks for all atheists) says atheism doesn’t make you do anyhting > This whole “_societies know what is better for them without god_” may be true, but does not make it good. > > If you mean that I agree with the wholly out of context quote, the answer is no. Do I believe in it as part of its whole context? Yes. > > **Sophistry** : Explain, please, what the \*\*objective \*\*difference between \*\*good \*\*and \*\*evil \*\*is. Who/what decides objective standards for religious morality? You’ve got dozens of competing religions, many of which change significantly over time. The “objective” morality of each of these comes from the people who wrote their holy books, and the various groups of churchmen who decided on the laws. Abortion is evil to Catholics, but no big deal to Jews. Which objective morality is correct? Atheists at least feel they must offer an ethical justification for any morals, since we can’t fall back on the “God said so” reason. In fact, I’d say all our morality comes from a combination of genetics (with the expected variation) environment and fear of punishment. We can argue about how objective even a truly god-given morality is, but that’s kind of pointless until any god comes down to actually give us one. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/138 "2008-10-07T18:57:58Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > **Sophistry** : Explain, please, what the \*\*objective \*\*difference between \*\*good \*\*and \*\*evil \*\*is. Well, an atheist can’t give you a completely airtight explanation, but a theist can’t give you a truthful one. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/139 "2008-10-07T19:00:11Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > **Sophistry** : Explain, please, what the \*\*objective \*\*difference between \*\*good \*\*and \*\*evil \*\*is. “Good” is pretty much the opposite of most of the things the God of the bible says or does. _“Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die.”_ 2 Sam 12:14 NRSV _“Go, put the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead to the sword, including the women and the little ones.”_ Judg 21:10 NRSV _“And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings;”_ Gen 7:21 NRSV _Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open._ Hosea 13:16 NRSV And that list is just a very tiny sampling of the evils perpetrated by Jesus’ dad. ---
**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774/140 "2008-10-07T19:01:05Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > 1)It tries to deflect any criticism by saying “I didn’t do it, they were not really athiestic or atheistically motivated”. I can say the same thing about polar bears, they don’t make me do anything. Any atheist doing bad things is “excommunicated” (metaphorically speaking), but we religious guys are not granted the same benefit. You’re missing the point again. Atheists don’t need to be ‘excommunicated’ as such. They (we if you must) are not doing anything in the name of atheism. Untold numbers of people have been murdered in the name of religion, in the name of some political idea, in the name of whatever you like. But how often do you hear of people being murdered in the name of atheism? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-athiests-stack-up-morally/465774.md?page=8)