Atheists, since you do not believe in GOD nor the spiritual...?

Question

...then, do you believe in conscience? Can conscience be proven or disproven anymore than the spiritual?

I'm not assuming any positions, I am truly enquiring.

Thank you.

Answer 1

great question. I honestly can't answer that.

Answer 2

Atheist here.

I do not believe in god but that doesn't mean I don't have a spiritual side. To say we can't have a spiritual side is incorrect, we are not robots. Anyone who contemplates their existence is spiritual. Anyone who ask questions and seeks answers about our origins is spiritual.

Everybody has a conscience. A conscience is the line each of us determines as to what is right or wrong, good or bad. Even a person who would do the worst things possible has a conscience. his just tells him nothing he does is wrong.

Think about this - Someone says the will not commit adultery because it's against their conscience. A year later they commit adultery. didn't their conscience allow them to do that? Obviously it was OK with their conscience. They can say they went against it but that's not logical. The conscience isn't a separate entity from us, it's our decision making process when confronted with moral issues.

Answer 3

As an agnostic or semi-atheist I can say that conscience is a learned trait. You know...the nature vs. nurture debate. Conscience isn't something you are really born with.

If you didn't have parents to teach you a basis of right and wrong then we wouldn't know what to do. We'd be 8 year olds putting our hands on stoves or pushing other children down on the playground. We would be 15 years old and having as much sex as we could because we weren't taught that casual sex has negative effects like STD's or hurting people's feelings. We wouldn't know that stealing is wrong.

That's because without nurturing and learning from parents we would all be following our "Id". And our Id is basically a greedy child who wants what he/she wants and wants it now. But we are taught that some things have negative consequences and we know how those things feel. And that is where I believe conscience comes from.

Answer 4

The conscience is trained in childhood. There is no evidence it is trained outside of the acculturation offered by parents and the community. Freud referred to it as the superego.

For example, many Christians are taught that masturbation is a grievous sin, and their conscience bothers them horribly when they do so.

Others, Christian or not, are taught that masturbation is a part of healthy sexuality, sometimes a source of humor, but nothing to be ashamed of. These people grow up without any concern about it.

This can explain the broad differences of opinion regarding abortion and capital punishment. Conscience addresses both of these, but it comes from how we were taught as children.

(AND LOUIS C.: Don't make such assertions without giving a reference. What Atheist teacher asserts that murder is OK?)

Answer 5

Well I'm not an athiests but I'd think that having a conscience cannot be proven scientifically, but just because a person is Athiest doesn't mean that they lack a moral or ethical system. Just because they do not believe in god does not mean they don't believe in themselves. I edited because I got confused for a second, Conciousness can be proved, having a conscience cannot.

Answer 6

Don't assume that because I'm an atheist I don't believe in the spiritual.

And do you mean consciousness rather than conscience? I don't know if/how it could be proven.

Answer 7

Conscience is a sense of awareness that you are doing something that may not be right. Animals have shown behavior in the wild that shows they too have a sort of conscience. An ape for example wont steal from another ape in his group, but he will steal from other animals. As we humans are a very advanced animal we also have advanced consciences which let us know that killing, stealing, rape, are all acts which hinder the development and social status of our particular group, family, society, etc.

Answer 8

First of all, what do you mean by 'spiritual'? Are you referring to the supernatural, or to spirituality? Atheists do not believe in the supernatural... but spirituality is an entirely different matter. It does not (necessarily) have anything to do with religion... it has to do with self-realization.

Cooperation and altruism are inate properties of human existence... a more sophisticated version of the social organization that you can see among pods of orcas, packs of wolves, lion prides and troops of chimpanzees. Moral consensus, moral conscience and mutual empathy are evolved survival traits. These are social constructs... the social lubrication that allows people to exist together. People come away with the misconception that they don't exist, absent religion. The religious puppet masters try to perpetuate that idea, in order to protect their conduits to wealth and power... but that is a canard. This has to do entirely with human nature.

Answer 9

Conscience, or what characteristics we give that term to is a learned item. It is learned through direct teaching and methods of reinforcement as well. No spiritual component needed.

Answer 10

Many atheist teachers are finally coming to the conclusion that humans don't have morals. They now say that there are no such thing as morals, and that it really is OK to go murder people. Doesn't make any sense, because i get bad feelings when i steal things!

Answer 11

if you mean the i think therefore I am thing i think it is self evident.And empirically provable whereas god is not.
if you mean the moral side of it then I still see it as self evident also though widely variable. ( and provable)
You can be spiritual IE one with the universe or the world without a god and search for enlightenment also