Atheist Morality

Who says atheists can't be moral? The religious, usually.
Don't let them define your morality!

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• atheism
• atheist
• morality
• theist
• morals

[MartinJWillett]

@vsbladz From exactly the same place that the men who invented gods got their morality from, except without the lying, wish-fulfilling story-telling phase.

[TheSkookumchuk]

I am a Canadian teenager who's becoming closer to atheism year by year (it seems), and I think the idea that without religion we have no morals is stupid.

The Bible is 'true' because it is the word of God (God is 'true' because it says so in the Bible...nice circular reasoning eh?)...in the Bible it says you should kill your neighbour if you see him working on a Sunday. How come we don't do that? Because as our society has progressed, we've realized this is IMMORAL, against 'God's word'.

[swilson3d]

Did you guys hear about the atheist NASA scientist caught molesting boys and shooting heroin?

Neither did I.

[Planettelex99]

This is a wonderful video. Kudos to you.

[Gnomefro]

@Chriscjs What's laughable though, is that Christians have the audacity to go the "everything is permitted" route. You realize that the core doctrine of Christianity is that actions don't matter at all as long as you're right with Jesus right? Vicarious redemption? If Christianity is true, you'll meet Hitler at the pearly gates, because he had accepted Jesus as his personal savior.

The reality is that I(and you) don't permit everything, therefore not everything is permitted.

[Gnomefro]

@Chriscjs "And in the very end, when the sun eventually destroys all life on earth, nothing will matter anyway. "

Morality has a purpose. That purpose is to regulate the society that we live in today in productive ways that benefit the people of the society. You may have heard the phrase "By the people, for the people.. etc", that applies for morality as well. In short, morality exists for us *now*. I couldn't care less about what happens when the sun explodes.

[Gnomefro]

@Chriscjs I'd prefer euthanasia over a vast range of states of living as a cripple/vegetable, but it obviously has to be worked out in advance. I actually consider it a moral obligation for society to offer this service to people to let them die quickly with dignity instead of sitting drooling in a wheelchair for 20 years.

[Ameretat010]

@Chriscjs: We actually do see quite a lot of it in social animals, be it conscious or instinctive behavior. Humanity got this far because we learned to work together. Groups in which "anything goes" were out-competed by groups who's members helped one another - which means the former were either annihilated or assimilated by the latter. But biology works far slower than culture - the reason for the lack of empathy in humans living in large groups. I can elaborate on that if you want.

[Chriscjs]

@Ameretat010 Is this why we see so much "one-for-all" in nature and the instinctive behaviors of living things? The basic reality you must face is this, if there is no God and no immorality. Then absolutely anything goes...even cannibalism, euthanasia, infanticide. And in the very end, when the sun eventually destroys all life on earth, nothing will matter anyway. Jeffery Dahmer and Mother Theresa will all be the same. So your sense of morality is is absolutely meaningless.

[Ameretat010]

@Chriscjs: Nonsense. Not only the traits of individuals are selected for in nature, but also those of groups or even entire civilizations. It follows quite logically that individuals showing a high degree of solidarity towards each other (=what we describe as "moral" behavior) will form more successful groups and civilizations. "One-for-all-all-for-one"-grou­ps will always out-compete "dog-eats-dog"-groups for very obvious reasons. That is why moral behavior in humans was selected for.