Where do atheists get their morality ?

Answering the question, " Where do atheists get their morals from ? ".

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• atheism
• atheist

[gamerweave1991]

morality has nothing to do with a social contract. if you only avoid hurting others as respect for the golden rule then you truly don't understand the meaning of morals and a soul. i personally feel guilt when i put someone else through pain or wrong them. it has nothing to do with getting caught and though i obey the golden rule, i get these morals from an underlying emotion that drives me to do good, or more importantly, to avoid doing bad. this separates us from the rest of the animals.

[chronicbudha]

@gamerweave1991 why do you assume theres no guilt ? I feel guilt over doing something wrong because I understand how it impacts others and I have empathy. If I harm another I empathize with their state and feel remorse. This also keeps me from making bad choices in the future. I don't need a sky daddy looking over me to feel these things.

[l3lip]

@chronicbudha

Professor Grayling said that the "golden rule" shouldn't be a standard of morality because... well, people have differing views on what they would like done to them.

e.g. a sadist might want to hurt you and he has no problem of you hurting him.

How would you respond to that?

[chronicbudha]

@l3lip Thats precisely WHY we have different cultures and social norms within different cultures. No system is perfect, not even the social contract, but until someone can come up with a better way it's all we really have. Until then, it's more or less majority rule.

[chronicbudha]

@l3lip Thats precisely WHY we have different cultures and social norms within different cultures. No system is perfect, not even the social contract, but until someone can come up with a better way it's all we really have. Until then, it's more or less majority rule.

[TheStoicPoet]

i agree with this for the most part, and i never agree with anything.. ever

[DancingMedicineMan]

you just shot yourself in the foot you rateard. You say your an atheist? Then why the fuck did you just quote the main sentence in the whole of the bible " Do unto otheres...etc" THAT is where Morality derives from - The Golden Rule handed down by God to moses.

[ThomasTrue]

I am no Buddhist but I recognise that Buddhism has one of the highest moral codes ever created - without any creator god(s). It is my belief that our early ancestors learnt that when they hurt someone, it hurt them too. Like all of us, they felt bad, felt remorse for their actions. So they taught their offspring to be good and kind to others and this was handed down generations, and then got mixed up with religions, whose leaders were all too ready to claim that morality came from them.

[ConnorXV]

@ gigglyduck which becomes *

[ConnorXV]

@ gigglyduck ( nice name) anyway. Its basically what he's saying, if you want to live among humans with the best experience the 'social contract' must be fulfilled, killers do not fulfil that, they are shunned etc, conscience comes in all the time but people who go a step further use empathy and their experience to improve others' experience why h becomes cyclical. Agree?

[gigglyduck]

Morals are to do with your conscience... not a social contract ¬_¬

:)