| richardhutnik said: Good morals calls upon more than just the personal opinion of someone as to right and wrong. So, the question is where an atheist gets morals and ethics from, besides themselves? People who get off morally justify their own morals being off by their own rationalization. I see it now with my father, who I had personally confronted with his use of language where he is going to kill people who don't do what he says... but he doesn't mean it. I call him on it by saying he is either a psychopath (if he does it) or a liar (if he doesn't). It doesn't resonate and he got worse with it. His moral system justifies it because he apparently does things around the house, so he can talk like it. His moral system doesn't have him see what he is doing is wrong in its own right. So, answer me this, besides one's own set of reasoning, where do atheists get their morals from? Atheism is not a belief system, it is a lack of a belief in something. Because it is a lack of belief, it doesn't lend to people being able to figure a positive on how to live. It also doesn't lay out the shoulds in life, or give a moral imperative. |
Religion shouldn't be required for morality. I personally find the idea that some Christians seem to promote, that the only thing keeping somebody from rape and murder is the threat of hell, exceptionally disturbing.
Morality should, and for the most part does, arise from society. Society deems rape bad so people don't rape. In South Africa societal norms are warped and have actually pressured young men into comitting rape. A quarter of men in South Africa apparently admit to having raped somebody. This is despite the fact that South Africa is quite a religious (mostly Christian) country.
If morality really did rely on religion then the prison population of the irrelegious would be larger than the percentage of that of the general population. This is strikingly not the case if you compare the figures in the following two links.
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm
http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html
The fact that it is so much less is due to the fact that the atheist community is generally amongst the wealthy and well educated.
My personal belief is that morality lies at the door of society at large and at the hands of the parents raising their children.
Also even if the belief in God did somehow improve society it still wouldn't mean God exists.
