How does an atheist or an agnostic, a non believer, know that murder and rape is wrong?

Question

If I said common sense, would that offend anyone? Obviously this is some sort of discussion that is ongoing 100s if not 1000s of years.

Answer 1

Pretty much anyone who respects life will agree that murder is wrong. And rape is also wrong. The connection: Free will. Personal choice. These are what humans value above all else.

Rape and murder are 2 of the most violent ways that we can assert our will over someone. Because of the violent nature of rape and murder, it is easy to perceive the wrong. (There is no ongoing discussion.) The consequence (i.e. result) of murder is blinding.

Answer 2

Nope. Common sense is exactly what I was going to say. Just because someone doesn't believe in God (or whoever) doesn't make them a bad person with no morality at all. Most people (even atheists) want to be good-hearted, and kind to others. By the way, if murder is so wrong, why is it so often committed in the name of religion? And I'm not just talking about Islam. Think Ireland...

Answer 3

Common sense is part of it, self control another but those are only developed when one learns what society considers acceptable and what it considers deviant. Family, too reinforces that and we learn to live within the society around us.

Does that keep us all in line? No, there are some who knowingly choose to go outside the accepted norms. However, society has a system for dealing with that too and that helps develop the common sense and self control the average person has in those situations.

Answer 4

Empathy; this is why self knowledge is so important. If you can identify what makes you uncomfortable and not impose it on ohers, that's usually enough. Someone could object "what if a person has something mentally or emotionally wrong with them that prevents this?" But those sorts of problems would make a person unable to follow any religious rules either. And that's the bigger point here; we still have to make our own sense out of external religious or ethical rules, so we are always left with doing what is right in our eyes.

Answer 5

I know that it is wrong to murder, rape, and do various other things because it is. There isn't much of a way to explain it, but...common sense does work. But really, causing someone else pain is wrong, and I don't really know how to say how I know this. I just do.

Answer 6

Atheism doesn't say anything about anything, just that there are no supernatural beings controlling us. It's like being left-handed. It doesn't say anything about morals.

Morals are within all of us. I don't murder, rape, etc, because it's mean to the victim. I empathize with people and I don't wish to cause them harm. If murder was legal I would still not do it. I don't need a god to tell me it's wrong. I don't need to be threatened with eternal damnation to behave.

I am a moral person, and I am an Atheist.

Answer 7

Hmmm...let's see....there's common sense. Then there's the rules of society, which we probably learned from our parents. There's empathy. There's fear that if we do it, then it will be ok for others to do to us...but I guess that falls under common sense, huh? And for some of us, there's just a general respect for life. Where does it come from? I don't know, but I have it, and it didn't come from god.

Answer 8

i'm getting the psychology of why they have self assurance yet no longer the rational so no. i do no longer go searching and notice the writer. I see nature purely. they might cite the butterfly, kittens, newborn toddlers, sunsets, and rainbows yet they supply the impact of being to forget the butterfly dying interior the spider information superhighway, toddlers who're born with terrible beginning defects or illnesses, the thoroughly organic factors we've for how those issues artwork. they might desire to hotel to introducing a sparkling fictional character with out evidence for issues like beginning defects, affliction, "evil" mutually as technological awareness provides logical factors supported by ability of evidence. they only argument they have in any respect that i might desire to at one time sort of see is the beginning of the universe. the actual answer nonetheless is in basic terms we don't understand. A naturalistic clarification is extra probable to me in basic terms as a naturalistic clarification replaced our theory demons brought about epilepsy, Zeus threw lightening, sin brought about ailment, etc.... i examine out the very foundation of the predator/prey gadget the international is predicated upon and good judgment precludes the form of god maximum all human beings is peddling at any cost.

Answer 9

To understand what you are asking we must first accept that we make decisions on whether or not an act is good or evil by basing it on what we "perceive" as good and evil; or put another way, - on what we see as giving us pleasure and/or allowing us to avoid displeasure.

We have all succumbed to the temptations of the worldly, --- not because we are 'evil', but simply because it is in our nature to pursue that which 'pleases' and flee from that which 'displeases'. Hitler,... Stalin,... Pol Pot,... Caligula,... Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold: I doubt that any of these individuals considered their actions anything but "good" (and the actions of those who opposed them as "evil").

Man has developed 'expectations' from those within a family, clan, tribe, etc... These expectations help insure the group's survival by maintaining its strength in numbers; a typical "herd" mentality. Over time, these expectations became more defined as groups merged with one another; today we recognize these expectations by labels such as "tradition", "custom",...and "LAW" (it is not a coincidence that common laws stem from holy writs, such as The Bible and the Koran, for it is within these writs that some of the first written "moral expectations" are found).

So you see, it is the implementation of LAWS (reward and punishment) which have had a 'conditioning' effect on man, --- allowing most of us the choice to avoid the possibility of displeasure (punishment) by curbing those pleasure-seeking instincts which have been deemed illegal (read "illegal" as "evil").

In his book HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN, Nietzsche writes:
"... No cruel man is SO cruel as he whom he has misused believes; the idea of pain is not the same thing as the suffering of it. The same applies to the unjust judge, to the journalist who misleads public opinion with petty untruths. Cause and effect are in all these cases surrounded by quite different groups of thoughts and sensations; while one involuntarily presupposes that doer and sufferer think and feel the same and, in accordance with this presupposition, assesses the guilt of the one by the pain of the other." --- I agree with this...

Answer 10

It's wrong because it hurts another human being...I treat others as I would want them to treat me...you don't need god to understand that...it is common sense.