On Morals
By darklady ~
One argument I have often heard Christians make against atheism is that without god there can be no moral absolutes.
This type of statement presupposes a number of assumptions: one, that the bible is the word of god (obviously debatable); two, that the morals of the followers of god are ‘correct’ and ‘good’ (highly debatable); and three, that people without god conceive and do evil at a greater rate than people that have some kind of belief in god. I am sure there are others as well.
I find myself getting quite angry with the proposition that without god one will have no morals. It is often noted on this site how evil the god of the bible is, the complete disregard shown in the bible for life, for women and for the state of humanity. Less often do we discuss how people can be and are in general ‘good’ (as opposed to evil) without the god of the bible making them so.
So without god, what is to stop people from being immoral?
From the point of view of one atheist, one that has no belief in any god of any sort whatsoever, the question about where morals come from is quite easy to answer. If god did not write the bible, then some person or persons unknown for the most part wrote the bible. The good, the bad and the ugly parts of it. The questionable (at best) morals as laid out in the bible sprung from the minds of men (and I expect very little of it sprung from the minds of women, but that is another subject).
It follows than that through the recent history of humankind, the question of how to behaviour in society has been thought about, worked out, refined, reworked and then refined again and again. We still have not got it right.
I find much of the bible, and other religious teaching downright obnoxious, and will not based my life or my morals on them. I prefer to have my morals come from intelligent enquiry and sensible debate to coming from dogma and the writings of people that lived in an very unscientific and narrow minded world.
This type of statement presupposes a number of assumptions: one, that the bible is the word of god (obviously debatable); two, that the morals of the followers of god are ‘correct’ and ‘good’ (highly debatable); and three, that people without god conceive and do evil at a greater rate than people that have some kind of belief in god. I am sure there are others as well.
I find myself getting quite angry with the proposition that without god one will have no morals. It is often noted on this site how evil the god of the bible is, the complete disregard shown in the bible for life, for women and for the state of humanity. Less often do we discuss how people can be and are in general ‘good’ (as opposed to evil) without the god of the bible making them so.
So without god, what is to stop people from being immoral?
From the point of view of one atheist, one that has no belief in any god of any sort whatsoever, the question about where morals come from is quite easy to answer. If god did not write the bible, then some person or persons unknown for the most part wrote the bible. The good, the bad and the ugly parts of it. The questionable (at best) morals as laid out in the bible sprung from the minds of men (and I expect very little of it sprung from the minds of women, but that is another subject).
It follows than that through the recent history of humankind, the question of how to behaviour in society has been thought about, worked out, refined, reworked and then refined again and again. We still have not got it right.
I find much of the bible, and other religious teaching downright obnoxious, and will not based my life or my morals on them. I prefer to have my morals come from intelligent enquiry and sensible debate to coming from dogma and the writings of people that lived in an very unscientific and narrow minded world.