Are athiests amoral just because they dont believe in god ?

Question

for everyone who keeps telling me i spelled amoral wrong, look it up its spelled both ways .

Answer 1

Is everyone else amoral because they do?

Answer 2

Athiests in some ways have more reason to be moral than Christians, for two reasons.

Firstly, because they do not believe in an afterlife, they have an incentive to live life right while they are on earth.

Secondly, because they can't fall back on "God told me to" or "it's in the Bible" they must take responsibility for their own actions.

There are immoral and amoral athiests--there are immoral and amoral Christians. That's just the way it is. All I'm saying is that an Athiest has more reason to be moral--not necessarily that they are.

Answer 3

Major world religions such as Christianity and Islam are inherently amoral - They do not judge behaviour according to whether it is moral, but according to whether it is 'sinful', i.e. whether or not it is consistent with the orders of the religion's deity. Atheism, by contrast, allows for true morality, since the atheist worldview allows actions to be judged good or bad according to conscience, which is the true definition of morality.

In the theistic worldview, anything goes as long as it is imagined to be the wishes of the deity... and virtually any atrocity can and has been justified in this way. This is how all oppressive regimes succeed, whether it be Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia or Iraq under Saddam - The most hideous crimes can be justified on the basis of "just following orders".

Furthermore, anyone imagining that they can make moral pronouncements from a religious basis is faced with an insurmountable problem: In tying their pronouncements to religious claims, their pronouncements are invalid until they can provide logically satisfactory evidence that the claims are true, and this they will never be able to do, so therefore any moral viewpoints based on religion should be dismissed as irrelevant.
This is an insurmountable problem for theists.

Answer 4

Morals have nothing to do with believing in God or any religion.

Morals are simply the values we place on actions that might help or harm others.

I doubt if there are any humans who are totally amoral, that is without any morals. Even the most evil murderers have a code of what they consider good and just. Unfortunately that code is in conflict with others.

The important question is what sort of morals a person has and whether they are rigid rules or whether the person acting on those morals thinks that life is more complex than what can be adequately covered by any set of rules.

I'm of the opinion that no set of rules of behavior are adequate, especially no set of absolute, inflexible, rigid religious rules supposedly delivered by God. Absolute rules are always eventually found to be nonsense. And the humans who created their God are eventually exposed.

So on at least one very important issue, religion, athiests are MORE moral than true believers. They prefer truth over stories. I don't mean to imply that they are more moral than believers on other issues, such as abortion.

On issues like abortion, it appears that the morals of those who support unlimited abortions are the same as those who support capital punishment. In both cases it is the morals of convenience, where the extra burden and cost to society is being avoided by pretending that justice or rights are really the issue. The pretense of justice and rights are a dishonest sham.

Answer 5

If athiests chose not to believe in God than the question would be how would they know what is right and wrong without the standard of God. No one could really define what is immoral or moral without some kind of standard to measure morality. God is the highest standard that all people need to follow all over the world. There are some of his morals that cut through all space and time to every culture and every generation and we all follow because they are in our laws and homes.(Like killing, stealing, lying, cheating - we all know that all those are wrong.) But then there are some morals that you can only learn from having a relationship with God himself through his son Jesus. You eliminate God from the equation of morality than you can't answer your question of whether or not an athiest is moral or immoral. Also if you eliminate God than how do you develop a standard that all men/women can agree upon without causing chaos?

Answer 6

What does God have to do with morals?

Some of the most amoral bigots I ever met claim that they believe in God.

While some of the most ethical I ever met say that they don't.

Morals and ethics exist with or without any belief system.

Answer 7

Amoral by definition means without morals. Someone can have morals and yet not believe in God.

Answer 8

How many times is the question going to be asked, seriously.

I've met plenty of amoral Christians. What about it? A belief in something doesn't make someone moral and a disbelief in that thing doesn't make someone amoral. Their actions make them what they are.

Answer 9

No. Some people are amoral because they depend entirely on themselves to perform their own "miracles". That includes some who profess to believe in God. These people are CONTROL freaks, usually selfish and determined to have everything their own way at any cost.

Answer 10

First, I think you mean immoral. Second, No they are not immoral. Immoral has nothing to do with religion or even god (If one exists). I was brought up among christians, catholics and other religions and there were good and bad inidividuals in all of them. I also know many individuals from many religions, some are good people and many are bad and even hard criminals. So the simple belief in God or any religion does not make your moral and the lack of belief does not make you immoral.

Answer 11

That's an interesting question. You're asking if God is the basis of morality. I think a person can have a moral compass that is based on his/her culture without believing in god. But, isn't the culture based on belief in god? There is a difference in ethics and morality.