Do atheists believe in objective morality?

[Jane_the_Bane]

When some evidence points towards either of them being real, then I'd begin to maybe take it seriously, otherwise, I'll keep on living how I want to live, as opposed to how an outdated book tells me to.

^^ That. I don't need a book to tell me that it's a bad idea to murder my neighbour. I can pretty much figure that out myself, thank you very much.

 

[Spartan 421]

Wait, that's bad?

Crap.

 

[knowledgeIsPower]

Personal Isolation

I don't remember that part from the bible.

There is a chance you're wrong about the isolation part. I doubt there are going to be lesbians in heaven though so I'm probably better off with hell... though I'm not sure because I don't recall the bible ever mentioning lesbians.

 

[Ayersy]

^^ That. I don't need a book to tell me that it's a bad idea to murder my neighbour. I can pretty much figure that out myself, thank you very much.

People figured it out themselves before the Bible was around anyway, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to survive long enough to even write it.

I think God's idea of morality is just a rip-off of society's morality, only with some sexual repression thrown in there, for good measure, because God couldn't get laid, so he decided everyone else has to be the same way.

 

[Respectful_Atheist]

"Nothing comes from nothing"

Including God?

It is actually interesting that you say that, because the only people who believe something came from nothing is those who are religious. Evolutionists see the gradual slope to where we are now, where Christians believe that God just instantly made it this way.

God can NOT precede God. No being could possibly have been here forever. Think about what it would take for a being who has always been to get to where we are (in time) right now. Negative Infinity is not a place any being can get to... and anyone who is there must travel through infinity (which by definition never ends) to get here. Which means that God either came from something (from nothing), or does not exist.

---Christians believe that God came into existence (a being more complex than us), then created us.
---Atheists believe that we came into existence.

Just like it is more unlikely for bacteria to form randomly verses a human. It is also more unlikely that God formed verses a human.

Science is now showing the world how the following is unnecessary:

Nothing ---> God ---> Us

Instead, it could (more easily btw) be:

Chemicals ---> Explosion ---> Billions of years + Evolution = Us

One creates a gradual slope, and the other is just <boom> existence.

===============================================

Separate question more related to this thread:

How do Christians believe in Objective Morality?

In the Bible, there is a perfect example of this which are only a few verses apart. Go to where the ten commandments were brought down from Mt. Sinai. Moses brings down these great 'moral' teachings, one of which says 'thou shall not kill'. When he gets to the bottom of the mountain, he sees people worshiping a golden calf, so he smashes the tablets and demands that they kill each other. Does this mean that even Christian morality is subjective?

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Personally, I prefer:

Singularity -> Space & Time -> "dying" suns -> stardust coalescing -> liquid water in the "life belt" -> self-replicating amino acids -> evolution -> Us.

 

[NewCreature13]

^^ That. I don't need a book to tell me that it's a bad idea to murder my neighbour. I can pretty much figure that out myself, thank you very much.

what if you couldnt

 

[Exiledoomsayer]

what if you couldnt

we'd have to keep locking those people up untill we got rid of them all.
And to be fair if you lack the sense to figure out something so basic your contribution to mankind probably wasnt going to be that great anyways.

 

[Mling]

what if you couldnt

Most likely, it would be because my moral development was stunted during crucial life phases, by being taught that morality is synonymous with obedience.

Morality is one of those things where the best you could ever say about a religion is that it cleans up its own mess. I don't know of any that actually does that though.

The vast majority of humans are born with a fully capable ability to develop morality. Empathy combined with logic and foresight will tell you everything you need to know about morality, and religion is totally unnecessary in developing any of them. What it can do, though, is teach you that doing X,Y and Z is good because God wants you to--thus reducing morality to obedience and short-circuiting a person's ability for empathy.

If I feed a hungry person because he is hungry and I don't want him to suffer, I'm truly loving my neighbor. If I feed him because, when I look at him, I think of God's command to love my neighbor and so I do what I think God wants, then I've objectified this person and turned him into nothing more than a chance to prove my piety.

I that's how my moral system worked, then all it would take for me to act badly would be a belief that God wants me to--any charismatic person could convince me of that, especially if they started when I was a child.

 

[quatona]

what if you couldnt

Then I would have to figure out if a god exists, and if the bible represents this god´s word.
Which is not easy to figure out, either.

 

[Eudaimonist]

what if you couldnt

If I couldn't, I couldn't.

If I was indoctrinated by some religion to think that certain unjust killings aren't really murder, and no atheist or theist came along to encourage me to question my faith, then I would murder in full confidence of the righteousness of my cause. I would slay other men, dash their children against the rocks, and "generously" keep their women for myself, just as the good book says.

No other book would help me leave my moral darkness. Even if I had encountered another book that expanded the range of unjust killings to its proper scope, if I couldn't see for myself that murder was wrong, I would simply reject the book. Or I would blow with the wind and accept the new book mindlessly, and thus be just as open to the message of the next book, and the next book, etc, never having moral knowledge, but just acting like a parrot.

It all comes down to personal thought and insight. To know that murder is wrong requires using one's own brain. There is no substitute. Fortunately, there's no need to reinvent the moral wheel, and I don't think it takes a genius to realize that murder is wrong.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[BrianOnEarth]

I don't believe in right and wrong in an absolute sense.
I believe in consequences of actions. Our rules and behaviours are all about consequences.

What consequences do we seek? I think everyone is pretty much the same (with some 6 sigma wackos in the mix) and we seek according to our emotional inheritance and our ability to empathize. Like other animals we are motivated to survive and raise children, especially our own children.

Unfortunately, the very same ability that allows us to empathize and imagine also enables us to fantasize in self-indulgent ways.

The profound virtue of rejecting the god idea is that it focusses our love on other people, for there is nothing else to love.
The dark side of theism is that it focusses on love of a god at the expense of other people.

Loving a god is easy. It's a total cop-out compared with loving other people and loving life itself.

 

[knowledgeIsPower]

what if you couldnt

There are many moral choices that you yourself make every day that the bible doesn't cover. I don't think you can survive in society without being able to make your own moral choices.

For example if you get your sense of morality from the bible how do you make a choice about copyright infringement? To the best of my knowledge I don't recall the bible mentioning copyright infringement. So you need to make your own mind up about the morality of it without the help of the bible.

 

[allhart]

"Nothing comes from nothing"

Including God?

It is actually interesting that you say that, because the only people who believe something came from nothing is those who are religious. Evolutionists see the gradual slope to where we are now, where Christians believe that God just instantly made it this way.

God can NOT precede God. No being could possibly have been here forever. Think about what it would take for a being who has always been to get to where we are (in time) right now. Negative Infinity is not a place any being can get to... and anyone who is there must travel through infinity (which by definition never ends) to get here. Which means that God either came from something (from nothing), or does not exist.

---Christians believe that God came into existence (a being more complex than us), then created us.
---Atheists believe that we came into existence.

Just like it is more unlikely for bacteria to form randomly verses a human. It is also more unlikely that God formed verses a human.

Science is now showing the world how the following is unnecessary:

Nothing ---> God ---> Us

Instead, it could (more easily btw) be:

Chemicals ---> Explosion ---> Billions of years + Evolution = Us

One creates a gradual slope, and the other is just <boom> existence.

===============================================

Separate question more related to this thread:

How do Christians believe in Objective Morality?

In the Bible, there is a perfect example of this which are only a few verses apart. Go to where the ten commandments were brought down from Mt. Sinai. Moses brings down these great 'moral' teachings, one of which says 'thou shall not kill'. When he gets to the bottom of the mountain, he sees people worshiping a golden calf, so he smashes the tablets and demands that they kill each other. Does this mean that even Christian morality is subjective?

Chemical soup bowl of lets say medicine . can the right amount of temperature be sustained or to lets say brought to a boil then to a nuke warm? Takes thought? the right amount of this an that blah blah blah happen a billion/trillion times? Oh an the magically fell into a pool of water? Did it have the right salt content too? In a Lab with the best minds we can't reduplicate random complexity! Then to say life just came into existence.....bacteria! Takes more faith than I've got!

 

[Verv]

At least try to be consistent. It is a contradiction to say God is all loving and moral AND has the power to intervene OR knew what he was creating. That is just incoherent and if you believe that then your cognitive faculties are on holiday.

You merely have a different definition of what moral is.

Christendom believes that the rewards and punishments of life come after death; when an unjust things occur on this world, when there is an 'immoral' thing, it will be dealt with at the end.

That is the coherent response Believers have been making to this argument for thousands of years.

When Christians attribute all this perfection (a human version that is) to God and then say God is accountable and that God can intervene and is omnipotent and and and, they are being illogical. They are ignoring the reality of human nature. They are ignoring nature in general. And if you say that evil is mental illness then I am inclined to call these folks mentally ill: if one goes through life holding incoherent beliefs and ignoring reality then what should that be called?

Actually, you are wrong; God's perfection is very unhuman. For instance, in a world where war is necessary Christ is a pacifist; in a world full of humans with natural inclination towards sex God advocates chastity.

You do not understand what you are bashing. This, I think, makes you evil by your own definition.

That's all very righteous of you and I'm sure you feel better for having publicly praised your emotional icon but you are being very arrogant here by presuming that because you don't understand how life came to be by natural mechanisms that no one can understand it.
You are also being bigoted by implying that one has to believe in a super-being in order to enjoy the wonder of life.
And you are trying to use referent power by name-dropping Einstein and associating him with your personal God. For a start, scientists don't give a wet slap about Einstein's, Newton's, Feynman's or Misses Jones philosophical opinions down at the fish shop. Unlike religion, science is not about famous peoples' opinions. Secondly, the way you talk about your God does not match how Einstein referred to God. So don't put words into his mouth.
Now you have got me in a mood!

This did not strike me as scientific or persuasive.

 

[knowledgeIsPower]

Chemical soup bowl of lets say medicine . can the right amount of temperature be sustained or to lets say brought to a boil then to a nuke warm? Takes thought? the right amount of this an that blah blah blah happen a billion/trillion times? Oh an the magically fell into a pool of water? Did it have the right salt content too? In a Lab with the best minds we can't reduplicate random complexity!

You haven't read this I take it?

DailyTech - Study: Protected by Ice, RNA Could Generate, Evolve Into Life

They managed to get stuff to happen in a lab. A very interesting take on the matter. That is just one, there are many more just look for them.

 

[knowledgeIsPower]

You merely have a different definition of what moral is.

Christendom believes that the rewards and punishments of life come after death; when an unjust things occur on this world, when there is an 'immoral' thing, it will be dealt with at the end.

Is it moral to deal with something at the end when you have the power to deal with it now and instead choose not to? Especially if by dealing with it now you could alleviate suffering in the future?

I don't think so.

 

[Mling]

Chemical soup bowl of lets say medicine . can the right amount of temperature be sustained or to lets say brought to a boil then to a nuke warm? Takes thought? the right amount of this an that blah blah blah happen a billion/trillion times? Oh an the magically fell into a pool of water? Did it have the right salt content too? In a Lab with the best minds we can't reduplicate random complexity! Then to say life just came into existence.....bacteria! Takes more faith than I've got!

allhart, I'm a little concerned for you. Everything I've seen you write in the past few weeks looks like a word-salad. Have you seen a doctor lately?

 

[allhart]

You haven't read this I take it?

DailyTech - Study: Protected by Ice, RNA Could Generate, Evolve Into Life

They managed to get stuff to happen in a lab. A very interesting take on the matter. That is just one, there are many more just look for them.

The complexity of science which is after the fact and we can't see that even as thoughtful as we are there has to be thought behind it all! To be able to put all the random stuff together....needless to say where anything comes from in the first place. To which we take for grant it or assume any how. I go to build a house or even to say a solar panel. I first have to have space. Second The time to build it. Third the material to which to build it. Four the energy to build it! Energy is a good one.... we have to have food for energy? Do you know what one gallon of gas is per man hour?......time saved? Let say compared to a chain saw and axe or hand saw? (500hrs to 1)

Makes us primitive! Take gas out of the world and society will pretty much be none existent!

 

[knowledgeIsPower]

The complexity of science which is after the fact and we can't see that even as thoughtful as we are there has to be thought behind it all! To be able to put all the random stuff together....needless to say where anything comes from in the first place. To which we take for grant it or assume any how. I go to build a house or even to say a solar panel. I first have to have space. Second The time to build it. Third the material to which to build it. Four the energy to build it! Energy is a good one.... we have to have food for energy? Do you know what one gallon of gas is per man hour?......time saved? Let say compared to a chain saw and axe or hand saw? (500hrs to 1)

I'm confused because I don't see a point to this post.

You said we hadn't done this sort of stuff in labs. I was just showing you that we have. I really don't understand why you responded with ... whatever that is.

In fact I'm pretty sure that first sentence isn't actually proper English... I'm battling to discern some meaning from it.

What does man-hours in petrol have to do with experiments going on in labs?