If there is no God, than why do most of you obey His laws?

Question

Most of you here who are not believers would consider yourselves to be good people. Non of us are perfect, but I bet we would all consider things like murder, adultery, stealing and lying to be bad. So if you don't believe there's a God, why would you follow His Ten Commandments? If there's no eternal consequences to sin, why are you basically good?

A generation ago, 97% of the American people believed in God. Then in 1963, prayer was made illegal in schools, and the Ten Commandments were banned. Since then there has been a tremendous down turn in morality. Teenage pregnancies, abortions, and violent crimes in schools has skyrocketed. And all this has occured in our schools since 1963. If you take God away from us, and God away as the author of morality, than each person is going to decide for themselves what is morally correct.

I have one question for the non-believers. Just in case you're wrong about your beliefs, what are you going to say when you stand before a Holy God, and you need to say why?

Answer 1

This very interesting. I've just been reading about the Auca/Waodani indians in Ecuador, South America who killed the 5 missionaries Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, and Roger Youderian. These indians were not taught from an ancient book. The obviously didn't think killing was wrong, and punished in the next life, because they would kill constantly, even those in their own tribe.

The Bible actually explains why people follow the general laws of the 10 Commandments, even those people who haven't read the Bible: Because God has written His law upon our hearts. It's called a conscience. "Con" means "with," and "science" means "knowledge." This means that every time we lie, steal, commit adultery (all you have to do is lust after someone and that's considered adultery in God's eyes), dishonor our parents, etc., we are doing it **with the knowledge that it's wrong.**

There is a reason why places and people devoid of morality are called "godless." Which, by the way, doesn't mean any-old-god, it means they are lacking the One True Living God. There are thousands of religions which do horrid things, and people who say they have a "god" who are completely immoral. Who founded all the hospitals, schools, and this very country, America?

Surely not atheists. That's not "survival of the fittest."

Answer 2

Eternal consequences are not the issue. Practical living on a day to day basis is the issue.

An ethical code of conduct points to what is "good" in the long term, and what is "bad" for the long term.

Paraphrasing from a Wu-Tung Clan release:
"Somebody sold crack on the wrong street.
Somebody went bang;
and now half a dozen bodies litter the street"

As financial power is gained, the long term consequences become less significant, because the appropriate parties can be bought off. Thus, ethical conduct decreases, as financial power increases. The exception is if religious factors come into play.

Thelema: "Do what they wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law. Love under Will. "

Wicca: "And ye harm none, do as they will";

Buddhism: Sin: Anything which gets in the way of Spiritual Attainment.

Judaism: Aseret ha-Dvarîm

Answer 3

Even those who aren't religious are raised in a society that values the religion overall. We're taught by our peers to follow these social rules which are taken out of their religious context. Therefore, they are no longer the Ten Commandements of religion, but the laws and mores of mortal society. Good is defined in our social context; what is good for us is laughable or condemnable in other social contexts.

Even then, I'm in the slow process of emancipation. I realize I lie all the time and steal some of the time and I've started enjoying both. Adultery is more or less acceptible to me now, and although I remain jealous I wouldn't mind practicing it myself. Heck, I'm pretty jealous of most anything that I don't have. I would kill in self defence, the defence of innocents, or in the pursuit of a worthy goal. I don't have any problem swearing when the situation warrents, and I work on Sunday when the pay is right. Finally, I don't acknowledge God as my lord.

Actually, I don't really follow the Ten Commandments at all closely, and given the relatively common ways I break them I'd seriously doubt anyone followed even some of them all the time if they're honest with themselves.

Answer 4

Well society and the ten commandments are two very different things. Murder, stealing, lying etc are bad to me, an atheist, because they somehow cause pain, emotional and/or physical. So why would I consider them to be good. Nobody is perfect and along the way you do something "bad". I don't follow god's ten commandments, I follow my own thoughts that I don't want pain inflicted upon me one way or another. So anything that does would be put in the category of "bad". I think that goes for almost everyone. I also have a mind of my own and a book doesn't have to tell me stealing is bad.

Answer 5

Is (insert moral here) wrong because God says it is wrong, or is it inherently wrong? There is a big problem if it is the former, for those who do not see this read Plato.

People are "basically good" because there are immediate consequences for breaking the law. The Ten Commandments tell us nothing about how to be a good person, only how not to be a bad person.

Answer 6

I'm not arguing for or against the existence of a supreme being, but it has been posited that for society to have established, even in it's most rudamentary forms (i.e. clans, tribes, etc.), that some modicum of order was needed.

As an early form of 'Checks and Balances', the concept of a higher order of law was required, law that transcended even the rulers, although, the rulers have often proffered themselves up as deities (a member of the inner circle, so to speak).

In otherwords, did God create man, or man create God ? Even in the case of the later, it could very well have been the plan all along.

Children tend to seek out their parents to know them.

This was a very good question, one worth contemplating, but one which is virutually impossible to answer in entirity. I've only offered to suggest one facet or tangent of the answer.

Again, a very good question. My compliments !

Answer 7

There is a God. =)

And most of our Constitution was written by God-fearing men, and they modeled our laws after the common sense found in the Bible.

Don't kill your neighbor. Great idea!

Don't steal. Good.

Don't cheat your government. Even better!

See?

EDIT:: By the way, I respect your beliefs as an atheist -- but don't assume that most of us here are nonbelievers, too. You'd be surprised how many really do put honest faith in God. =P

Answer 8

The ten commandments are common sense which you ppl need to be told and atheists know for mutual existence. But christians don't exactly follow those commandments when they follow other verses that cammand them to go forth and conquer lands and kill the men and boys and keep the women for raping! So don't claim the commandments to be christian!

Answer 9

1. Most of these are laws of the land and as sch are criminal offences

2.These laws also come from other religions and are simply rules to maintain orfer in society.

God did not write the 10 commandments, Moses wrote them because order in his society was falling apart and he needed some rule. To ensure that they were obeted, he needed the aurhority of some higher being so he blamed god

Answer 10

The Ten Commandments is something I like to call "common sense."

Religious people need to be taught this stuff, while atheists can figure it out by themselves.