I'm an atheist, and I believe in morality. I believe in a pragmatic morality constructed from rational analysis of social norms, and an ideal morality that is logically constructed from necessary axioms.
Objective Morality and Atheism
- Thread starter Norsefire
- Start date
Check the social norms of any society. Check the notions of right and wrong. Check the legal systems and their basis. When they say a country is based on Judeo-Christian values, there is a reason why its so defined.
None of which has anything to do with atheism. Your adoption of social norms and other beliefs from theistic societies with religious values of right and wrong is not something your atheism is involved in.
Moral rules also do not follow from the existence of God, only from the religious traditions of man, which aren't any better than atheistic or secular moral traditions such as secular humanism or Democracy. Can anyone explain how morality requires a supernatural dictator, instead of human judgment to determine?
Atheist "traditions" have nothing to do with democracy. Check out any self defined atheist society.
Morality is not objective, but neither is it arbitrary. It follows from compassion and analysis about what is best for society and individual happiness.
Morality has very little to do with individual or social happiness. Much of it involves suppressing the natural instincts or disciplining them for collective benefits of a defined majority of the population. Or at least, the powerful elite, though the latter systems tend to be more short lasting.
People that take their moral rules from religion have no place trying to define it. For the religious, morality is dictated from a higher authority, which they may not question.
Sam,
This is nonsense, but certainly an idea actively and violently promoted by Islamic bigotry and intolerance. Atheism does not promote a moral code; it is simply a disbelief in gods. Atheists as thinking people on the other hand whilst disbelieving in gods may well follow a moral code or may not. Some may well follow moral standards higher than any theist. What you cannot do is classify ALL atheists the same way. Your statement is false and dishonest.
That is an incredibly limited and narrow view. Morality is a code of conduct determined, by society, philosophy, religion, or individual conscience. Religions do NOT have a monopoly on what is moral or not. It is their arrogant closed mindedness that makes them thin this way.
Only if viewed from someone who is narrow minded, bigoted, and cannot see anything beyond their own religious indoctrination.
The only thing we have that has true value is life. Morality when viewed in its purest form simply says anything that promotes life is good and anything that detracts from life is bad. Whether gods exist or not is irrelevant to this truth.
Nonsense, death is bad, life is good. These are objective facts.
That flexibility is a requirement of living, which happens in spite of religion's inflexibility. Yet we complain when people decide to embody the rigid requirements of religion and call them fundamentalists. To live morally means being flexible, which means using your own judgment, not following rules from a book.
I assume you are talking about communism again, which is based on certain political principles, not atheism.
I assume you are talking about communism again, which is based on certain political principles, not atheism.
Yeah, right, because when the political principles are anything from a dictatorship to a democracy, being a Muslim leader is irrelevant to their practice of the politics.
Regardless, history is proof that the flexibility which is a requirement of living, is not possible with atheists at the helm. They lack the basic requirements that convey that flexibility.
Of course they don't have anything to do with atheism. Neither do they have anything to do with theism.
So an atheist in a Judeo-Christian society has similar moral values to an atheist from a Muslim society, a communist society or a Hindu society?
You have proven no such thing. Atheists do not presume to follow a strict moral code.
sam,
The existence or non-existence of a God is irrelevant to current moral values.
And where such values were determined in ancient times to be relevant to the societies of those times based on reason. Adding "and God commands these things" doesn't detract from the underlying human created moral codes that for most peope are commons sense.
The existence or non-existence of a God is irrelevant to current moral values.
Not necessarily. What's your point? Do you think that I speak for all atheists?
Because now atheists no longer believe that moral beliefs supercede biological urges in civilised society?
Counterexample:
Speaking for myself, I do believe that moral reasoning supercedes biological urges.
There is no common factor, they do not conform to any basic assumptions beside the non-existence of a God or other supernatural forces.