# "If you don't believe in God, why don't you steal and murder?" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 29, 2011, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384 "2011-01-29T06:29:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![groo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecd19e/32.png) [@groo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groo)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/21 "2011-01-29T15:47:13Z")
I trust people who’ve arrived at their moral behavior through introspection, observation and debate. The people who focus on a god’s vengeance pretty much betray that without the threat of eternal hellfire, they’d be complete shits. (And, if Christian, it reveals their not having quite understood the New Testament). Likewise, the “studied” Christians in my crowd tend to be tolerant and good people. (IME; YMMV, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/22 "2011-01-29T16:03:04Z")
**"If you don’t believe in God, why don’t you steal and murder?"** Cuts into my raping and torturing little animals time ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/23 "2011-01-29T16:17:23Z")
> [@](#): > > As a Theist, I have never heard anyone use that argument. You probably haven’t heard this argument precisely because you’re a theist. If you were an atheist, and happened to mention this around a lot of theists in the US, I can pretty much guarantee that some theists would trot this out. Most of them would be Christians or Muslims. Jews, not so much. Neopagans are generally pretty happy to live and let live. I don’t have much experience with people of any other faiths. But many Christians (and the few Muslims of my acquaintance) sincerely believe that only faith in God/Allah is what keeps most people moral, and anyone who isn’t a True Believer can’t be trusted to act morally. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/24 "2011-01-29T16:24:42Z")
I’ve been asked that question. If you don’t believe in God, then how do you know the difference between right and wrong? Uh, because I just do? I am ethical person without your God. I don’t need a God to know how to behave. Kind of an argument against God, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/25 "2011-01-29T16:38:07Z")
> [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](#): > > I’ve been asked that question. If you don’t believe in God, then how do you know the difference between right and wrong? This is a far more common phrasing of what’s presented in the OP that I’ve gotten more than a few times. Most atheists I think would response by telling the theist that they don’t need a god to have morality. I take a slightly different approach and attack the morality of their God. Why not? They just got done attacking mine. Richard Dawkins said it wonderfully: > [@The God Delusion](#): > > The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/26 "2011-01-29T16:44:20Z")
nvm ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/27 "2011-01-29T16:52:34Z")
I didn’t mention it in my last post, but in case it needs to be spelled out to anyone: The reason I attack their God isn’t out of revenge or to be petty, but because they’re claiming that I can’t have morality because I don’t follow God. I respond by telling them that they can’t have morality because they _do_ follow God. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/28 "2011-01-29T16:53:00Z")
> [@Ann\_Onimous](#): > > As a Theist, I have never heard anyone use that argument. Morality does not depend in religion or any religious belief system. It solely depends on the person. > > And I do not believe God forgives everything unless you are really serious about asking. I mean, someone who does ask just to “cover their ass” or to make themselves feel better and thinks God will forgive them: nuh-uh. I have had almost the same argument used against me. On numerous occasions, I’ve had people tell me that I simply could not be an atheist, because they knew me and I was a good person. Obviously, by definition atheists are bad people. It seems to me the arguments related in the OP are one step up from that. The people who make them seem to realize it’s not necessarily true that atheists would commit evil acts routinely, and they don’t understand why not. So IMO these are good questions, as they represent the questioner trying to step beyond their earlier, incorrect, understanding. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/29 "2011-01-29T17:01:35Z")
Senor Beef, did something happen to make you post that? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/30 "2011-01-29T17:50:43Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Senor Beef, did something happen to make you post that? Not anything specific recently. The other [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=594935) that mentions this got me thinking about it. In the past I have had “What? You can’t be an atheist, you’re a good person” type experiences, as well as people telling me atheists can’t be good people. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/31 "2011-01-29T18:08:53Z")
The question assumes that without god there is no morality. God fearing people are afraid of the eternal torture that god will visit upon them when they die. They face terrible consequences. If you are an atheist, you fear the legal system bringing terrible consequences . Believing in god or not is irrelevant to the legal system. Once you toss off the silly notion of god, you have to find a basis for a moral and ethical system. While all things are possible, there are still internal prices to be paid for bad actions. When you are a kid and you kill something with a bow and arrow, you feel bad. It was not fun. It was a bad thing to do. that is not about god ,it is the self defining moral compass you build through your life. Most of us learn about what we are capable of as we go through life. Madoff apparently had a weak moral compass. He did not kill people and he could justify looting billions. Many of us could not do what Madoff did. I am sure he thinks he is a religious person. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/32 "2011-01-29T18:14:00Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > You hear this line of reasoning a lot from some theists. They declare that atheists must be immoral, because without God, and the fear that he will punish you even if you aren’t caught by society, what’s stopping people from committing murder/theft/rape/etc. The OP is a bullshit strawman. You throw out a completely absurd argument that is made once in a blew moon by idiots, disprove it and say “HAH! Take that churchies!” You never actually showed who said that, now did you? It’s the same bullshit fallacy Anne Coulter uses. She just puts words into the mouths of hypothetical “liberals” rather than hypothetical “theists”. Now, I’m sure you can find some whackjob somewhere that actually said this, just as Ann could find some whackjob at some junior college who says we have to assassinate Republican Presidents. If it was your intention to have an honest argument, you would have started with an example. But you didn’t do that, do that, did you? You created a vague boogeyman and named it a “theist”. If you are going to take the position that atheism is more logical, you can’t defend it using logical fallacies and disingenousness. It’s bullshit, but it is what I have come to expect from the atheists on this board. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/33 "2011-01-29T18:19:20Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > The OP is a bullshit strawman. You throw out a completely absurd argument that is made once in a blew moon by idiots, disprove it and say “HAH! Take that churchies!” You never actually showed who said that, now did you? I quoted someone who said that in post 19. Besides that, it’s something people on the dumb spectrum of theists say. This board generally lacks people from the really dumb end of the spectrum. There’s barely anyone on this board who supports creationism, and yet if I talked about my personal encounter with a creationist who mocked me for thinking “man came from monkies”, would you also accuse me of creating strawmen? I have indeed had the encounters I’ve described in real life. Many of the other people in this thread have to. You really don’t think, amongst the crowd who believe the earth is 6000 years old, who hate atheists more than they hate gays and muslims, that they would never fail to understand how one can have morality seperate from god? > [@](#): > > It’s bullshit, but it is what I have come to expect from the atheists on this board. Aha. Can’t debate them on the substance, so why not stretch anything to try to attack them? You don’t have to evaluate the points atheists have to make if you can just convince yourself they’re all up to no good. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/34 "2011-01-29T18:23:43Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Never heard it once from theists. I’ve heard it a million times. I’ve seen it on this board. ETA, I forgot you don’t live in the US. I’ve lived on both sides of the pond (three years in England), and the religionism in the US is far more aggressive than it is in Europe, where theists tend to be a lot more subdued. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/35 "2011-01-29T18:29:53Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > The OP is a bullshit strawman. You throw out a completely absurd argument that is made once in a blew moon by idiots, disprove it and say “HAH! Take that churchies!” You never actually showed who said that, now did you? > > It’s the same bullshit fallacy Anne Coulter uses. She just puts words into the mouths of hypothetical “liberals” rather than hypothetical “theists”. Now, I’m sure you can find some whackjob somewhere that actually said this, just as Ann could find some whackjob at some junior college who says we have to assassinate Republican Presidents. If it was your intention to have an honest argument, you would have started with an example. But you didn’t do that, do that, did you? You created a vague boogeyman and named it a “theist”. > > If you are going to take the position that atheism is more logical, you can’t defend it using logical fallacies and disingenousness. It’s bullshit, but it is what I have come to expect from the atheists on this board. The meme that you can’t be moral without God is common as dirt, actually. It’s one of the most common objections to atheism, and the reason that surveys show that theists so commonly mistrust atheists. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/36 "2011-01-29T18:50:58Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I quoted someone who said that in post 19. Well, to be fair, i don’t think that **El Kabong** was making that argument himself. He was presenting it as a hypothetical example of something that _some_ theists _might_ say. I agree with you that there are some theists who question the possibility of morality without God, but i’m not sure that the quote by **El Kabong** is an actual example of this. As for the more general issue of where our morality comes from, i quite like the philosopher Charles Taylor’s way of saying it. He describes a moral source as “a something the love of which empowers us to do and be good” _Sources of the Self_, p. 93). Obviously, what that “something” is varies, depending upon what a persons belief system or worldview is. ---
**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:** [January 29, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/37 "2011-01-29T19:08:17Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > The OP is a bullshit strawman. You throw out a completely absurd argument that is made once in a blew moon by idiots, disprove it and say “HAH! Take that churchies!” You never actually showed who said that, now did you? Google the phrase “Can an atheist be moral?” ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/38 "2011-01-29T19:22:47Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Google the phrase “Can an atheist be moral?” I did. Not a single goddamn link on the first page puts forth the argument that the OP is refuting. That’s my fucking point. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/39 "2011-01-29T19:32:30Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I’ve heard it a million times. I’ve seen it on this board. > > ETA, I forgot you don’t live in the US. I’ve lived on both sides of the pond (three years in England), and the religionism in the US is far more aggressive than it is in Europe, where theists tend to be a lot more subdued. I have to say that I’ve never heard it either. And I am pretty open about being an atheist. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I’ve never really experienced the anti-atheist sentiment I hear about on the SDMB a lot. A little in the mainstream culture, sure (like when George Bush I said that atheists couldn’t be real Americans), but never personally aimed at me. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384/40 "2011-01-29T19:42:39Z")
> [@tellsitlikeitis54](#): > > I like your post and agree whole heartedly. I think some atheists think more highly of themselves sometimes and most of the conversations I have personally had with some about their beliefs and their beliefs are so contridicting to the life they are really living it is sad that they think the way they do. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Could you explain this? How is it posible to live a life in contradiction to an absence of belief in gods (unless they are practicing religion). Atheism itself is not a belief so how can any lifestyle “contradict” it? Shush, you. Did you miss this part? > [@tellsitlikeitis54](#): > > I am truely sorry if this offends anyone that is not my intention here. The poster is trying to not be offensive. What better way than by being so incoherent that the reader can’t nail any meaning down to be offended by? 😛 Actually, **tellsitlikeitis54** I apologize for being so snarky in our very first interaction. Welcome to the Dope. I hope you like it here. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-believe-in-god-why-dont-you-steal-and-murder/569384.md?page=3)