Atheism, and how it relates to amorality.

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You are confusing God with people. People are stupid. They screwed it all up.

Either way, God allowed that for a reason. I think it's because He wants us to find Him. Kinda like how I wish my husband would chase after me a bit.

Anyway, I see a lot of people debating on morality, and my question is, when was the concept introduced? It's just easier for me to believe a divine being came up with the concept long before people. I personally don't think people would have EVER considered it if there wasn't, at least, a concept of God. Are any of you parents? Imagine how your kids would behave without your authority/supervision. If you wanna tell me they'd grow up and learn these things without your presence, then what's the point of you being there? I guess it all goes back to the chicken egg thing, and it almost seems pointless to debate, but either way, it's human nature to steal, kill, cheat, lie, and basically sin. Why else would we attempt to go against our natural grain? Again, remember, people screw it all up, and that's why you get a lot of stupid things like Spanish Inquisition done in God's name...morality gone wrong type thing.

I guess it's kinda like you telling your child, "You need to drink more milk because you need calcium," at lunch. Well then later that day, right before bed, knowing you have a rule about eating sugar after a certain hour, the child grabs a piece of chocolate in the pantry and eats it. You ask the child why, and the child says, "But you told me I needed more milk, and chocolate has milk in it." That's what happens with God's rules. Just because your child doesn't follow all your rules doesn't mean you don't make them. Just because your child does follow some rules doesn't mean the child was going to do it anyway as if you making rules meant nothing.

BTW, any rationally thinking person will say slavery is wrong 100% of the time, maybe in this day and age where slavery is wrong. Egyptians believed in slavery back in the day. It was normal back then. So unless you don't consider the makers of the pyramids, language, etc. a rationally thinking people, then the statement is false.

God's perception of morality does not change. Man's perception does.

The Bible is a book about God and Man. Just because men did something in the Bible doesn't mean it was God's Will. God gave us free will, and with that free will, we did some messed up things.

Your logic with Jesus's words are taking Jesus out of context. Don't be embarrassed by it. Many great religions do it all the time. At least you don't claim to be speaking on God's behalf like they do.

I'm just trying to use logic and reason.

A mother's perspective is what this discussion really needed, so I thank you. Mostly it's a bunch of boychicks who still live with their parents.

Actually, I am technically a nature-worshipper (Wiccan) and my rituals usually include 7 deities.

I am part of a teaching Circle in which there is a 3 year course ... the first year is mainly about ethics (and defining an ethical system). Maybe part of the confusion is conflating ethics with morals, two terms often interchanged but with crucially different meanings?

When do the Ten Commandments mention not to rape? Summarizing it, the only 'moral' things they really tell you are not to steal, lie and kill, and I think most people that have never even heard of or read the Ten Commandments aren't killing, lying and stealing from each other at record rates so I'd say that they're pretty useless in this age. But overall some guy came up with a BS story to explain how an all mighty omnipotent being zapped the Ten Commandments on stone tablets atop a mountain and told him to go get it (of course on a mountain where no one could see him), to keep 'order' in among his people.

Actually they were carved onto the tablets.

I'm aware.

I don't think there is much of a confusion between the 2, I mean, I know some people make the distinction, however, to me it seems as if the meanings are the same, and that the terms are often used interchangeably even on an academic level, a level where precision would seem to matter the most.

The closest thing would be "You shall not commit adultery".

There is no OBJECTIVE set of morals, but there is an EVOLVED set of morals that the majority of the human race share - simply because people that kill and lie and steal are rejected from society and don't survive to breed. Yes, human nature is to be selfish to a certain extent, but it is also basically social, meaning that compassion and altruism is practised by the majority of people towards at least the people they are closest to (family members and friends). When somebody acts immorally, other people stop acting morally towards them - this reciprocal altruism has been shown by computer models to be the most stable evolutionary system, and it is this that we have ended up with.

In the ancient world, humans lived in small groups and it was evolutionarily beneficial to treat other members of the group altruistically, but members of other groups in a more immoral fashion, as they were direct competitors for resources. In our current globalised society, our small group has become the whole of humanity (at least for those of us more educated and more travelled - fundamentalists still have small group mentality) and we benefit by treating everyone in a generally moral way.

What this means is that there is no overall objectiveness to morality - to someone/something outside of humanity, there is no distinction between 'good' and 'bad' behaviour - the universe doesnt care if all of humanity massacres itself and this is not 'wrong' per se. However, within humanity these things do matter, and as we are all human, following a set of rules that generally benefit all of us is going to minimise suffering - even if we cannot state that these rules are right or wrong. Yes, individuals can profit by acting amorally and exploiting the altruism of others, but overall they will reduce their survival and reproduction advantages and will never dominate the population.

In the end, setting moral rules, whether religious or secular is almost pointless as most people just follow their own internal morality anyway. Some will be influenced by law, and so it is worth having laws against acts we almost all consider immoral (such as murder, theft etc). Personally I think a good moral code is simply 'reduce suffering'. If everyone set out to follow that then everyone would benefit, but other people will have different ideas. What constitutes reducing suffering is also debatable and even if you decide to take this principle as your moral guideline, your personal circumstances will cause you to deviate from it at some (probably many) occasions, as choices are influenced just as strongly by emotion and experience as by an internal or intellectual moral system.

What does that have to do with rape at all?

It's another form of sexual misconduct. It's a form of stealing, the stealing of carnal knowledge from a girl or woman, the "stealing" of her body by an intruding male. If you can think of a reason why rape should not be on that list, I'd like to hear it.

well, adultery is the only thing mentioned in the ten commandments, vaguely, the issues about sexuality are stated in Leviticus in a more explicit way, outside the ten commandments, including rape, although rape was not viewed as we view it now, it had more to do with the "purity" and that sex should be inside marriage only. Rape was considered an act outside marriage, with the responsability of the sin aimed to the man only and not to the woman for being forced to it, I believe that in the biblical times it couldn't be said that a man raped his own wife.

I don't think most people would equate rape with theft. It's a different crime.

How about the term 'stealing the innocence'?

The theft of innocence is the theft of an intangible, invisible thing. But this is worse than having anything tangible or visible taken from you. So often people underestimate the importance of the invisible and the intangible.

Many times in the OT, Yahweh commands his followers, when destroying an enemy city and slaughting ALL inhabitants (including the babies in preggo women's bellies), to keep all virgins alive and marry them. Marriage, of course, involved sex and child production. If that's not rape, I dunno what is.


But it is not reasonable for me to buttsex people because I enjoy it. The only reasonable answer is to buttsex people who would like to be buttsex'd.

Ergo, the statement that “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them” is more moral than “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”


That is inaccurate, but I lack the knowledge at present to show this, sadly. What I can say is two things:

Religion is tailored to the culture that believes in it. Buddhism in Tibet is much different than Buddhism in Japan, much like Christianity in Eastern Europe is much different than Christianity in America. Cultures interpret religions in different ways. In fact, it could easily be argued that religions are, in many ways, nothing more than cultural expression.

Morality increases as a society has more concern for freedom, self-actualization, individualism and societal progress as we understand it today. These are things that we take for granted, and had to be gained through centuries of thinking by great people (who were more often than not opposed by the state-religion). These are things that literal interpretations of many religions indeed advocate against.


No one can ever tell you that, because atheism is too broad of a term, and includes no criteria except that one rejects the claim that at least one god exists.


I disagree. I follow a subjective set of moral conventions that I have acquired from my family, my society, and my culture – modified by my own rational thinking as I came of age to do so, as well as my desire to generally do the most good and the least harm in life, which includes making the life experience better for everyone. In general this involves condemning actions of harm, and advocating for actions that benefit people.

Why do I desire this? One thing that's misunderstood or neglected about the world view of many people who reject the claim of afterlife and gods is that this life is infinitely valuable, seeing as it's the only experience we know that we have. Recognizing the fact that this singular experience is shared with other people in the same way, should one desire that this experience be as positive as possible, altruism and memes of generosity and other positive notions come as a natural consequence - after one resolves the notion of soliphism for themselves.

The “meaning” required is simply the desire for this only experience we have to be as positive as possible. Life's much better when the people you are around are positive toward you, and the desire to reciprocate comes only from the knowledge that you aren't alone in this world (although it can seem that way sometimes). Of course, it's worth pointing out that what constitutes “positive” is different from culture to culture.


I would say that very few world views “require” amorality. What requires amorality is a world view that explicitly states amorality as one of its tenets. Atheism has no tenets, and never says a single thing about morality, only gods.

Taken to an individual scale, it is probably true that, theoretically atheists are more likely to be amoral given by many theist world views mandating moral realism or divine comand, however that's not the case in reality. This is evident by the fact that atheists do not commit crimes at a rate higher than religious people. From another angle, having a religion does not make you less likely to commit crimes.

Therefore, my conclusion is that morals have a secular origin, and my view, although ridiculously difficult to conclusively “prove” (and many people are trying ), is indeed supported by actual data.


Strangely enough I would agree with you in many ways (I already addressed meaninglessness, which seems to me to be more or less a view you are imposing upon my world view). My discrepancy comes in when I recognize that moral realism\absolutism, in my opinion, fails reconcile the many different views in the world. From the point of view of the people who voluntarily live under Sha'ria law (The majority of Saudi Arabians, for example), it is moral to stone to death a woman who has committed adultery.

I believe this is immoral because I have been raised to think it is immoral, and my critical thinking skills confirm this for reasons obvious to those of us in the Western world.

The thing is, I would believe this is moral if I were raised to think this were moral and failed to critically think about it.

Even worse, if I also happened to believe that God dictated Sha'ria law, my critical thinking skills would be halted, and my morality would be forced to stay in the Stone Age.

Am I saying that morals are nothing but beliefs? Of course I am. To go tangential a bit, from my perspective it is exactly as accurate to say atheists have no basis for morality as it is to say atheists have no basis for beliefs - which is utter nonsense (which is what the atheism==amorality claim seems to me, nothing but bilge).


You make a good point here. The failing here was mine, as I failed to clarify it to “any rationally thinking person in the modern Western world”. The fact that you come so close to attributing advancement in our morality to the proper secular sources is interesting. If it weren't for the foundations of logic made in the Classical Age, and the realizations of great thinkers since the Renaissance, we would still be stuck in Dark Age morality – which few rationally thinking people in the modern Western world could say was just.

In fact, had realizations of immorality not come from the minds of humans (secular source), we would still be enslaving people. A mild tangent, never once does the Bible say “All men are created equal”, and it wouldn't – in fact it implies the opposite.


Again, I failed to clarify. The logical fallacy is inherent in the statements:
1.Morality comes from God.
2.God or Morality doesn't change.
3.Slavery was okay for the people in the OT (ex. because they didn't know better), but it is not okay today.

If one recognizes that God or morality can change, then there is no logical fallacy. From my perspective slavery is wrong, but from theirs it was justified (by God nonetheless).

Otherwise -- If they didn't know better then wouldn't it be God's job to tell them it wasn't moral, as he is the moral lawgiver? If you interject free will as a possible answer, then wouldn't God be interfering with our free will by giving us ANY direction at all?


Ok... well... mostly all I think that must be done to address your ideas is just show how you seem inconsistent or questionable.[/quote]
I'm always open to criticism and correction. Thank you.