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Atheists, if you are simply animals where do you get your moral guidelines?

by Guest66219  |  earlier

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Don't say society, because Christians are in the majority here in America

Also why would one feel obligated to obey an imaginary law inside our heads that was created by random chemical processes?

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  1. According to Dan Dennett, arch-atheists, once God is wiped off the face of the Earth (starting in the US of course), then we are all supposed to sit around the fire and decide what is moral.

    But, any former believers CANNOT bring up any references to a higher power (what he calls a trump card).

    Paul Churchland says leaving God will bring the same discomfort as "learning something new" as a golf lesson.

    Here's my take on the matter:

    Eliminate all public funding to every philosophy department in the US.

    Eliminate "tenure" in every public university.

    Let these guys sell their wisdom on the open market. Let's get rid of their Marxist BS (aka dialectical materialism).

    Thanks for the question.

    God love you.


  2. Human rights and public policy.  Or, put more simply, "society."  Whether the majority of this particular society is religious is irrelevant.  Every society imposes rules on its member citizens to abide by in order to live peacefully with each other.  These rules are moral guidelines, many of which are enacted into laws.  Our particular society (in the U.S.) is structured to prevent laws from being passed which promote or establish a particular religion over others.  That is the beauty of our Constitution.

  3. [Atheists, if you are simply animals where do you get your moral guidelines?]

    Defiantly not the bible.

    [Also why would one feel obligated to obey an imaginary law inside our heads that was created by random chemical processes?]

    Just because we might not have been created by a god does not mean we can go around killing and stealing.

    [Why don't you follow Christian morality then?]

    Because biblical "morality" is not very moral.

  4. "that was created by random chemical processes"

    Your belief system (and everyone's) is made up of those chemical processes.  I wouldn't say they were purely random though.  Like the rest of the body, they've evolved over time.  The chemical processes which dictate general beliefs that lying/cheating/stealing are "wrong" behaviours have survived.  

    "Why don't you follow Christian morality then?"

    I would say most people generally practice the same sort of social behaviours (what I think you're referring to as 'morality').  On the whole, most people don't go around lying the majority of the time, or killing/injuring others, etc.  It's just that atheists who refrain from such behaviour aren't doing it because of fear of eternal punishment.

  5. Are you saying that 66% of the world is without morality and that the only moral system is the Christian one?  Are you unaware of the moral systems created by the Greeks hundreds of years before Jesus might have been born or the effect of other societies on the Hebrews before they wrote their law in the 700's BCE?

    Haven't you learned that most social animals have a form of morality?

    But, as is the case with all people that think that morality is only from their religion, please stick with your religion until you learn more.

  6. Oh please.....

    If you need the fear of retribution to make you behave in an ethical manner, I don't think much of your innate capacity to empathise with others, which is one of the bases of our ethical sense.  A lack of capacity to empathise is one of the markers of the sociopath.

    From an evolutionary viewpoint, as social animals, we need to behave well towards others within our group in order for the species to survive.  So it is pretty deep in our DNA, as it is for many, many other animals.  Primates (of which we are one) additionally show a particular capacity for empathy, for understanding how another feels and treating them with resulting compassion and care.  

    If YOU think the 'law' is imaginary - other, of course, than the law imposed by your religious terror of retribution - then you worry me.  As for the 'random chemical processes', this is an astoundingly reductive way of understanding the functioning of neurochemicals.  Perhaps you need to learn a bit about human neurochemistry, anthropology and much more before asking questions so revealing of utter ignorance again.

  7. Im sorry but this is a ridiculous question. all ur trying to do is be a troll. Christianity and all religions are based on trying not to hurt others... and thats human common sense on most part. u don't have to believe in a god or god(s) when ur a small child and feel bad to see ur mommy cry.. thats how we become good people.

    one feels obligated to obey it cause those chemical processes make u feel bad or good based on what u did. its not that complicated... u follow it cause it pleases u to be good. just like i love animals cause the animals i come to contact so far have shown me love too so i then now help as many animals as i possible can cause that makes me have a good happy chemical reaction.  

  8. A number of basic "rules of thumb" about not harming others and being good to one's immediate circle of friends and relatives are hard-wired into our brains, via millions of years of evolution.

    That's why ALL humans, regardless of race, nationality, or creed, have the same basic concepts of what counts as "moral behavior".  If your way was right, we'd expect every other society, other than the one who worships your particular Invisible Sky Daddy, to be complete bedlam.

  9. "Oh so it was Christians?....so women should be inferior to men, homosexuals are outcasts, slavery is a good thing, etc?"

    bible does not teach that women are inferior to men.. it says they are equals (treat one another as you would be treated)... however when it comes to church... they are spiritually inferior due to the first act of sin in history was carried out by a woman...

    slavery is an excellent thing... you are a slave right now and you dont even know it... however allows you to eat... sleep well at night... get health checkups etc...

    you automatically associate slavery with negative connotations...

    however im not too familliar with why God dislikes homosexuals... but thats his issue.. that i dont understand as yet... but im sure i will.. once studying it further...


  10. I have an innate inner moral compas, a rationally thought out and consistent set of moral values based on firmly considered principles and am a basically decent person who lives up to these values.

    By contrast those majority Christians you speak of tell us here that the only thing that keep them from raping anything in a skirt, stealing, murdering and commiting grossly indecent acts is fear of h**l.That, my friend, is not a moral compass - its a moral cop out.

  11. Not everyone needs a pastor to tell them robbing the 7/11 is wrong.

    The cultures of the world all have codes of conduct, even the ancient ones, and many of these codes predate the writing of the various books of the Bible and almost all predate each cultures first exposure to the Bible. Where did the Greek Philosophers gain their insights? Did Socrates have no morals? Was Pythagoras lost? Confucius? Buddha? The American tribes? Eskimos?

    Much of what is contained in the Old Testament is simply the conduct codes of the ancient Middle East. Some of these codes are commonly found in cultures all over the world, such as the prohibition against murder, but many are unique to the region and were never adopted by anyone else, like the prohibitions against eating pork or working on Saturday. Many are tribal rules, such as the requirement for a man to marry and have children with his brother's widow in order to ensure the survival of the tribe. Much of the New Testament is a reinterpretation of the older Biblical laws from the perspective of a culture that had been exposed to Greek and Roman thought for several centuries.

    We have access to thousands of years of religion, history, philosophy, ethics and sociology from all over the world. We can see what worked well, and what didn't work so well, and we acknowledge that many things should never be allowed to happen again, such as genocides, witch burnings and Inquisitions. We do not believe that any group or culture has had all of the answers, and we refuse to be tied to laws that should be abandoned and rules that do not work. Claiming to have all of the answers is a dangerous game, and claiming to be the "One True Path" has led to some of the most horrific abuses and tragedies in human history.

    "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930  

    *drink*

  12. Morality is objective, and exists seperate from society.  Society may deem something moral or immoral, but society can be wrong.  (example: a society that stones a woman to death for being raped.)

    The concept of morality is actually quite complex but to super-simplify it, good and evil are easily defined by the protection and destruction of life, respectively.  It of course gets involved, which is why it took the christians two rather large tomes to lay it out (and they still got it wrong).

    You feel obligated to be moral because we aren't "just animals".  We are rational thinking creatures who do not have instincts and rather must rely on reason.  Doing this is voluntary, you can abandon reason, but you don't have animal instincts to back it up.  Christians teach that humans are born evil and have to be "saved"  Atheists don't cotton to that nonsense, we don't need the threat of eternal damnation to be good.

    We don't follow christian morality because it's flawed and at times even evil.

  13. It benefits us to be altruistic towards one another.

    Other animals show altruism throughout the animal kingdom.  It is not exclusive just to humans.

    Why do Gorillas share food with one another?

    Same thing with us.

    It actually benefits our species and our genes to be altruistic to one another.

  14. Ancient societies had moral guidelines for the same reason I, an atheist, do. It makes life easier, nicer and more fun for everyone.

    I don't follow Christian moral codes because they are simply out-dated.

    For example I believe we should be free with our bodies and sexualities, not repressed as Christians (and most monotheists) would have us.

    I actually believe that mono-theism (the belief in a single all powerful deity) is a deep and serious flaw for any society/individual to make as it causes one to believe that they are 'right' and every/anyone else is 'wrong' (the belief that there is 'one' god inevitably leads to the belief that there is only 'one' correct way to live). This, somewhat intuitively , leads to the untold repression of anyone unlucky enough to get on the wrong side of them.

    Which isn't very nice for anyone.  

  15. You ever study any other animals? especially other herd/pact mammal animals?

    They have morals and rules they follow as well. Buffalo herds will come back to rescue the wounded from the predators. There is always the alpha male, which is the strongest and best hunter, and he is the only one which gets to reproduce with all of the females. You attack a female with babies and she will destroy you, just like a  human mother can lift cars if her baby is underneath. Apes cry and mourn deaths of their loved ones and use the mirror to clean themselves.

    There is no fundamental difference between other animals and humans, especially, like i said, pact/herd mammals. We just have more complicated brains.

  16. Why do lions within a pride not kill each other (except males challenging for supremacy which has been observed in humans as well), or other social animals seem to behave according to a common law?  

    It is the product of evolution.  Those who live within social boundaries in a group are more likely to survive and reproduce.  Most humans live within the confines of social norms regardless of religion with only minor variations.  

  17. Man, as a social animal, created morals in order to get along with other men and therefore survive and prosper.

    Religion merely borrowed these morals.

    My conscience guides me in a way that helps me interact with my fellow humans without creating unnecessary problems for myself or others.  

  18. From the same place every other social animal on the planet gets it... Do you think spiders have morals? What about snakes? No

    Now look at social animals.. dolphins, whales, wolves, humans.. Morality is nothing more than a by-product of evolution. You can't be a social animal if you kill every other one of your species you encounter.  http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/a...

  19. I don't live in America, and, yes, I do get my moral guidelines from society. I don't see how the fact that the majority in America are Christians is relevant anyhow. I build my morals on my genes, what I feel instinctively is right, what makes the most sense and, yes, on the society around me. I do not oblige to an "imaginary law"; I oblige to the law, and to what I feel is right. Some things, such as "do unto others as you would have done to you", are simply a matter of common sense, and a survival mechanism. I ask you, if God creates the morals, then why do different people have different moral values?

  20. We are not animals, we CAME from animals. we used to be, but now we are more intelligent. we all came from babies did we not? do we act like babies? NO! just because you CAME from something does not mean that you are still like that.

    also, morality is a human charecteristic caused by imagination. we have the capability to imagine what our victims are feeling (putting yourself in the other's shoes), and so we feel that we are causing them pain (usually subconciously, we do not literaly imagine it every time). other animals cannot do that, and so morality is born (or a concious you migh call it). as to why we follow it, it is an evolutionary trait that allows our societies to develop better without internal struggle. and I do go by the ten commandments (well the more moral ones. how is saying goddamit a bad thing? it is expressing my feelings at the moment).  


  21. It is society, because even in places where christianity is NOT in the majority, they have morals.  Infact, christian morality is hardly one to be counted as great or epic.  Slaughtering innocent people because of a difference in BELIEF?

    And American morals are not related to christian morals.  We have freedom of religion, freedom of expression and speech, and we cannot use creed or religion as a basis of hiring employees.  These all call against "christian morality"

  22. I am not an atheist, but neither am I a close-minded "superior" christian asshat. Christians are not the only purveyors of morality, sport.

    If you don't know the difference between right and wrong without being told by your god what to do, then you are a tragically flawed creation. And, since christians believe themselves to be created in the image of their god, that makes their god a tragically flawed creation as well. if your grip on your personal moral code is that tenuous, perhaps we should put you somewhere that you can't do any harm while we try to teach you how to survive in a society with others. Rubbing f***s on your face like that is not acceptable behavior, btw.

    Plus, who are YOU to imply that the animals are lesser beings? HELLO... we ARE animals. While we're at it... you also need to stay away from my pets.

  23. If a person doesn't already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won't discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.

    We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn't make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.

  24. Moral guidelines are certainly not an absolute function of religion. If it were, we would be worse than animals. Civility is present in us in varying degrees and along with it our own individual and personal moral guidelines. People pay homage to imaginary laws all over the world; try visiting Africa and see the way some of the tribes live. What makes you or me any different from an African slaughtering a dog to a tree?

    Not an atheist.

  25. I am a humanist and consequently recognize that moral values are naturally wired in each of us and further formed through experience.

    The philosophies that comprise humanism rely upon ethics that defend reason and freedom while rejecting dogma and the supernatural views of reality.  By rejecting belief without reason and endorsing humanist ethics the commonality of the human condition can be seen and solutions to social and cultural problems can start to be achieved.


  26. Read this:

    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altrui...

    Group benefit

    The idea that group selection might explain the evolution of altruism was first broached by Darwin himself. In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin discussed the origin of altruistic and self-sacrificial behaviour among humans. Such behaviour is obviously disadvantageous at the individual level, as Darwin realized: “he who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature” (p.163). Darwin then argued that self-sarcrificial behaviour, though disadvantageous for the individual ‘savage’, might be beneficial at the group level: “a tribe including many members who...were always ready to give aid to each other and sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection” (p.166). Darwin's suggestion is that the altruistic behaviour in question may have evolved by a process of between-group selection.

  27. Christians may be the majority in the US but they are not in other parts of the world where high morals are in play. Society dictates morality whether you want to hear it or not.

    Edit: What Christian morality would that be? Burning Witches, stoning non-believers, keeping slaves, eating children in times of famine?  What morality are you following?

  28. Ever hear of "the golden rule" we are all one and we know what hurts us hurts you! Just common sense. If I do not appreciate getting a door slammed in my face or smoke blown in my face etc. I instinctively realize that these things will bother "others" so, being the nice person I am, I treat them according to how I, as a fellow human, would expect to be treated.

    To the MORON who gave me a thumbs down. I defy you to dispute the logic of what I said. I defy you! >.....You simply can not do it because I am RIGHT! And that goes for any of you MORONS who think you have to be a Christian to be a good person. Which anyone knows from looking around THAT is so......not true. The worst people on earth are usually RELIGIOUS types.

  29. We evolved from a set of primates that lived in packs or tribes. Social behavior is instinctive to us. As for how I act, I was taught by my very irreligious parents that there was one ethical rule found in pretty much every system of ethics (including the Bible) that makes life very easy.

    Treat everyone as you would have them treat you.

    Simple, hm? And no God required.

    Many atheists do follow the basic rules of Christian morality. We just don't follow the religion.  

  30. Why can't I say society? So what if most americans are christian? Either way, it is usually bad to kill someone and eat their heart, yes? So are you saying that if you didn't believe in god you would kill, steal, rape, and whatever else you wanted? If so, thats pretty sad you need a book to keep you in line. If it was legal for me to shoot someone, I don't think I could do it. Call me a p***y or whatever, but thats just not me. And how can you argue we are not animals. We fit the bill for all the characteristics of a mammal. If you look at us, then look at an ape, there is an obvious similarity there. Why do we have wisdom teeth and appendix if god designed us so perfectly?

  31. "Don't say society, because Christians are in the majority here in America"

    So?

    "Also why would one feel obligated to obey an imaginary law inside our heads that was created by random chemical processes? "

    That's why I'm not a believer in gods.

    To directly answer the question, I have a moral sense. I believe that it comes from evolution, like everything else of that sort. It may be mistaken, just as many of our evolutionary endowments are (for example, our various cognitive biases). I hope that some day we as a species start to make a concerted effort to evaluation moralities and get a better grip on which moral stances are genuinely moral and which are not.

    As for your "why would one feel obligated..." question, it's too loaded (with nonsense: "imaginary", "random") to merit an honest answer.

    Finally, we ARE simply animals. If you're denying that, you're off to a very delusional start here, kid. It's a fact, as plain as day.
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