I was just wondering where those who believe in nothing get their morals. I mean obviously those who believe God try to live their lives as the Bible says, but athiets has no Bible or no code to follow. According to them just another man made all the laws. What makes another mortal man have the ability to tell everyone else how live. If I were an athiets their would probably nothing I wouldn’t do because their would be no reason for me to do good. As a matter of fact I would probably question what “good” was.
This has been done before.
Speaking as an atheist, I get my morals the same place the guys who wrote the Bible got theirs.
I don’t think most truly religious people lead moral lives because God is going to pound them if they don’t. Do you?
People invented “morals.”
Someone will be along soon to point you to other threads where this was covered in more depth.
You said people created morals, but who are they to tell you as an athiest how to live.
Thanks, Cher. I’m religious, but my religious beliefs don’t give me my ethics, which works out to the same thing. I get my ethics by the Walt Whitman method: review everything you’ve been taught, discard everything that’s an insult to your soul, and start again.
It is the prerogative of sentient beings to decide what our ethics shall be, and we would be in a poor way indeed if they had to come from ancient texts and self-serving power structures.
I create my own system of ethics, Synikal, and I am uniquely suited to tell myself how to live. Problem is, I never listen.
Well, okay.
Who are they? They are the people I share the planet with. There are advantages and drawbacks to living in a society. In order to enjoy the advantages, I have to make some sacrifices of absolute freedom to do whatever I wish. The advantages far outweigh these sacrifices. Fortunately, I was born into a democratic society in which I have some say over what I am “told to do.” So both and atheist and a Christian (for example) might believe it is wrong to kill. But the atheist holds to that believe because he/she can see that living in a world where people generally refrain from killing each other at will is a good thing.
I think a lot of atheists accept the general tenets of Christian/Jewish/Islamic morality: Treat other people with respect, be charitable toward those less fortunate than yourself, etc.
However, we are also free to reject moral concepts that seem to have no reasonable purpose, such as treated women as inferiors or forbidding extramarital or homosexual sex between consenting adults.
That’s like saying “Men created speed limits. Who the hell are THEY to tell me how fast to drive?” Do you go against everything that isn’t mandated by God? God never told anyone not to pick their nose in public, but you still don’t do it, right? WHY?? Because it’s socially unacceptable. Society dictates morals. Just because someone doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t make them a heathen. There are MANY people who do not believe in God, but still have high moral standards.
I attribute it to social law and the need to conform. For example, most people won’t really feel bad about stealing something until it’s brought to light by the people in their community. 20-20 hindsight tends to come once somebody becomes a pariah in the eyes of the community. Also, you don’t usually feel nearly as stupid for screwing up when nobody sees it.
Sorry for all the typos. It’s been a long week.
You should question what “good” is. In fact everyone should question what both good and evil are. I’m an atheist and I’ve got a moral code. I attempt to do what is right and good in my moral code.
Marc
Synikal, how about sticking around for once and actually addressing the points made by those who’ve responded to your thread? You started a pretty good thread in GD awhile ago — http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=27168 — but we’ve yet to hear anything back from you beyond your OP, and I suspect that if we continue to see rational and well stated explanations of “atheist morality” you’ll go fishing in another thread or another board for responses that are less threatening or more easily debated.
If you do plan to respond, you should first research this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=24291
Or better yet, do a search on “atheist” + “morality” and you’ll see that this subject’s been pretty well discussed on SDMB, with absolutely 0 conversions either way.
Synikal, Can you tell me where Jim Bakker got his morals? How 'bout Jimmy Swaggert? The source of morals is never the issue. The way a person puts their morality system into practice is the only test.
What a question, indeed. I, myself, am an atheist. I don’t have “morals” exactly, I just use some common sense. Just because I don’t associate myself with a “god”, I know that some things are right and some things are wrong. I don’t really feel that it is a question of morality, so much as just having some common sense to not do the wrong thing.
sigh…okay, the problem of Divine Command Theory, in a nutshell:
Let’s use murder as an example. God said “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. Now, is murder wrong simply because God said it was wrong? Or is there something about murder itself that makes it wrong, and God was just passing along the information?
To think of it another way, if God had remained silent on the subject, would murder still be wrong?
It’s pretty clear to me (perhaps not to some) that things or actions are not right and wrong merely because God says they’re right or wrong, but that there’s something about them that makes them right or wrong. That being the case, one should be able to determine what is right and wrong independent of God.
To go along with Max Torque’s post…
Murder was immoral long before Christianity or Judaism came along. Why do we need religion in order to give us common sense?
My morals come from a sense of betterment. If something will make me a better person, I’ll do that. If something will detract from my quality as a person, I probably won’t do that.
It’s really quite simple. All God did was complicate matters 
orestes, I usually don’t use the word “morals”, but rather the word “ethics”, which may clarify matters; it has less of a connotation of hidebound divinely-imposed arbitrary rules. I’ve not heard anyone say that homosexuality is unethical, for example.
Humans can be good or bad. Sometimes if we try to do good, we only bring about misfortune on ourselves and others. Similarly, attempts to harm someone do not always succeed. The important thing is your attitude: have good intention.
We can never reason out all of the consequences of our actions, and so I reckon morality should be a case of listening to your heart. If you are unsure follow Christ’s great principal to do unto others as thine would be done to (which incidentally was being taught by Confucious some 400 years earlier). This has never failed me.
I think it has already been established that a good moral code is is necessary for civilisation to flourish. All that Christianity and other religions have done is to convey this code to people in simple terms, making them frightened to do wrong, and righteous when they do good.
Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Their tastes may be different. (George Bernard Shaw)
Atheism has nothing to do with morality, and neither does Christianity. I’m an atheist, but that doesn’t mean that I have no morals. I have a set of personal values that I follow. Atheism simply means that I don’t believe in any god. Christians have their own sets of personal values that they follow, and I would guess that theirs are probably similar to mine. I think that I have an advantage, though, because I don’t have to worry about sinning.
Go get a copy of Jack London’s “The Sea Wolf.” All of your questions are posed and answered in that one simple little book.