For atheists: If their is no overall purpose, just we live and we die, then what is the reason for morality?

Question

Just want your honest answers.

What ever ya'll want to say, I'm not questioning the morality of an atheist and I'm certianly not saying that religious people have higher morals. I'm just asking what the philosophical answer is.

Answer 1

survival of the species? Pick up a book on evolution, it may help you better understand. You could try something along the lines of evolutionary psychology..good luck

Answer 2

No an Atheist, but: it helps society progress and enriches the lives of others as well as our own.

Being an Atheist with morals is more noble than being religiously motivated to behave for rewards in the afterlife. It's like only being good in December to get presents from Santa!

Answer 3

The reason for morality is to allow people to live near each other in relative peace.

Morality is a set of things we consider good and bad. Each has our own list and it gets modified and applied differently in different situations. When two people interact, they have to first agree on a moral basis, neither of which likely exact to their own. In a society, this is accommodated by the establishment of laws. Laws set a common default moral basis. This is a short cut for people having to agree on one each time they meet.

Two things support this contention. First, hermits don't need any morals. Their actions don't affect anybody. Secondly, if the world were totally destroyed, and all people on it killed, it wouldn't really affect the universe much. Therefore, morals are purely a personal thing. We establish them for ourselves based on our experiences and use them when dealing with other people.

Depending on the relationship you have with another person, the common morality you agree on with them is different. A spouse's morality and your own has to match up a lot more closely and differences have to be worked out a lot more explicitly than, say, a used car salesman buy a car from.

Creating rules for ourselves is part of our human nature. Pur any three people in a room, and they'll establish roles for each other and create rules. This helps establish group bonding and keeps the group together and functional. Generally, morals that evolve over time are a lot stronger than those spoon fed to people. Very rigid moral structures tend to be very brittle. This is because a fixed set of rules rarely applies directly to any specific situation. Moral rules should be heuristics or guidelines. They should guide your actions and be modified as you learn about your environment and other people.

Answer 4

It is a weak sense of morality you have if you are only moral for the rewards you expect to recieve in the end.

An atheist realizes that there is no higher power to own up to, but he/she has to own up to his/her fellow man. Morality is neccessary to keep the peace when living in a community. It is a stronger sense of morality because it still exists even though the rewards are taken away.

Answer 5

Morality is a system of virtues used specifically to achieve a better life with happiness and flourishing as the highest values.
your life is yours to do with what you want as long as you respect others to do the same. We employ police to make sure of that..
Faith and the supernatural morality only serves to destroy a working moral system. Reason and logic can only create a moral system for real human beings. Faith can only create a fantasy moral system for a fantasy reality. Thus rendering the reason based on impotent.

Answer 6

Whenever I see a question like this, I am appalled to be reminded that there are people out there who are so out of touch with their basic humanity, and reality, that they would not have any idea how to conduct themselves in society, absent the code of an imaginary supernatural being, based on the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of an ignorant bunch of Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat herders.

Cooperation, altruism and love are innate properties of human existence... a more sophisticated version of the social organization that you can see among pods of dolphins or 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.

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"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." ~ Steven Weinberg
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Interestingly, Christians make up about 75% of the US population and 75% of the US prison population. Atheists make up about 10% of the US population... but they only make up 0.2% of the US prison population. That means that an atheist is 50 TIMES LESS likely to be incarcerated than a Christian. I can think of two possibilities that might reasonably account for this disparity:

1. Atheists of a higher ethical and moral caliber than Christians, and thus do not do the same kinds of nasty things that land so many Christians in jail; or,

2. Atheists are, overall, a lot smarter than Christians, and thus less likely to get caught in the course of their transgressions.

Take your pick. (Personally, I think its a little bit of both.)

Answer 7

As a Humanist, I don't act morally because I fear hell or desire the comforts of heaven. I do so because reason tells me that the world works much better when people cooperate and try to live in harmony. We're all in this together, and selfishness only leads to chaos, which can only result in unhappiness. I enjoy the benefits of civilization, so I support that civilization by doing my part to make it run smoothly.

Answer 8

So selfish.

What about providing a better life for your children? Seeing them grow up and knowing that they will have a better life than you did? The only way that can be achieved is if morality and reciprocity is important. People recognize this. And besides, siblings get along better if they know how to share, and it makes parents' lives easier.

Answer 9

What a stupid question. We have to live in this society and societies have rules so people can exist and live out their lives peacefully. Are you really suggesting that the only reason you don't go on a raping and killing spree is because a 2000 year old book tells you not to? Now THAT is frightening.

Answer 10

Morality is the result of the will to survive as individuals & as a species.

All animals follow a code of conduct, or "morals."

How is that humans are the only animals who routinely kill for sport and commit suicide if human animals have a higher code of conduct?

Answer 11

Survival. We need to be moral to get along with each other. We learn the Golden Rule because it makes sense, not because there's some mystic being out there handing out rewards and punishments. Religion is immoral. Spirituality is divine.