Does atheism free a person from following a religion's arbitrary ethical rules?

Question

If we take God out of the equation, how do we determine appropriate ethical rules? Why act morally?

With God absent, must we accept that Peter Stringer is correct when he posits that the parents of severely disabled newborn infants should be able to decide, together with their physician, whether their infant should live or die.

If not, what argument can we use to support the idea that an infant born with spida bifuda has an inherently greater right to life than a school of dolphins?

If we remove God from the equation, must we agree that a government may pass a law that permits non-voluntary euthanasia for elderly who have permanently lost the ability to understand or support themselves as long as it is the will of the people? If not, can we abandon those elderly?

In short, having excised God, may atheists freely set their own ethical boundaries? If not, why? On what grounding principles should an aethiest base his or her ethical framework?

JerseyRic,

You got good answers; I liked the Jefferson Bible.

Jibba Jabba,

An internal sense of morality is good. The criminal justice system essentialy adopts this view: "If you can't tell right from wrong at the time of the crime, you are insane."

But how do we express externally this internal moral compass? Love your neighbor as you love yourself?

Btrix,

Emotion and conscience are a start. But how does a society apply these internal traits to specific factual situations? Do we take a poll? Majority rule?

Using those criteria, if asked to condemn an innocent person (or torture a child in Dostoevsky’s version) to save humanity what is the ethical answer? We struggle with this issue when we question whether torture is ever justified.

Captain Atheism,

Love wolf-pack morality. Man in boat points to third guy and says to neighbor. "I vote we eat him," a social contract at work.

ThePeter,

You are the person with whom I most want to have a cup of coffee.

Grundoon,

Do your figures derive from Dale Clark’s 1925 study or the 1999 and 2000 England and Wales prison population studies? If Dale Clark’s study, don’t most Atheists who have studied the issue agree as to the doubtful validity and scientific basis of his conclusions? If you use the 1999 and 2000 studies, how can you fairly ignore the fact that 28.8% and 31.9% respectively fell into the “no religion” category (albeit not identifying themselves as “atheist”)? What about the 1999 Texas Criminal Justice Study where 51.7% of inmates fall into the “unknown” or “other” religious category?

Do you seriously contend that a person’s philosophical position on the existence of God parallels a person’s ethical behavior? Personally, I feel that atheism does not equate to criminal or unethical behavior any more than a professed belief in God necessarily precludes criminal or unethical behavior.

Notice how I do not point out that no atheists are found in prisons … I mean foxholes.

Answer 1

I suppose without God, we are free to have a serious debate on Ethics. You can't win that argument by quoting the Bible or referring to some other religious authority.

I think you sometimes overlook suffering when you speak of 'right to life'. One certainly has a right to life but one also has the right not to suffer. I think the door must be left open for doctors and relatives to end a person's life, but it is a decision that must be based entirely on compassion towards the suffering person. I'm not suggesting euthanasia should be compulsory, but there are clear cases where ending a person's life is the compassionate thing to do.

I think you're overstating God's importance in ethics. It still comes down to people trying to co-exist with others. I base my opinion on how we should treat the elderly on how I want to be treated when the day comes, or how I want my relatives to be treated.

Answer 2

your question is a great one that is complex in nature. How does one regulate morality? Is it only God that keeps people from doing what you say? I think not. Look to the old USSR. They had no Religion and most Religious folks where locked away and yet the did not do the things you ask about. Ones conscious is what makes you do what you do. A belief in God does not make one a better person.
For the parts about who should be able to decide who lives and who does not once a society starts down that road at what point do you draw the line? Age 70 age 85 One leg longer than the other, I want a child with blue eyes not black? The question you state is but the tip of a huge ice burg that could sink us all.

Answer 3

It is a stronger reason to act morally for the sake of morality rather than for the fear of punishment, or want of a reward. For all your above examples, each person, atheist or not, will have their own principles of what is moral in each situation independent of God. Whether God is in the equation or not, an Atheist parent may decide to love and care for a disabled child and be happier for it. And on the other side a Christian may resent the burden a disabled child will place on them, a choice they may feel forced on them by their religion. Morals do not need religion to exist. An atheist, I think, can have a stronger sense of morality because they are being moral while understanding why it is important to be moral (to be a positive contributing member of society, to "keep the peace" while living in a community, etc) rather than for the reward/punishment aspect of it.

Answer 4

it is always improper to assume how a person should be, how he should think, how he is motivated or how we expected him to act given a particular situation (because he is a theist, an atheist or an agnostic)

but does atheism free a person from following a religion's arbitrary ethical rules?

to a degree yes, for we cannot deny that some atheists might have embraced atheism just so they can be free from conforming with the generally accepted concepts of right and good within their society.

and yes some atheist, even though they did become convinced that there is no God through their own geniune search for answers--and although all of them are basically morally sound people, the years of being convinced that there is no God, a few of them might have started to ask themselves why the need to conform? so yet a small percentage might go the way of wanton living.

i am not saying that man do not have the instinct to tell right from wrong, or distinguish between what is good and what is evil. for we all have that within us.

some might argue that we got that through learning, through observation, through our parents, through the society we live in, and through our norms and mores.

but whatever way we obtained it, inherently or learned... we cannot deny we have that inside us... so even if our minds tell us that legally it is right to have an abortion (lest partial birth abortion) our inner self will shout out to say that it is wrong.

(but as i said earlier, it is incorrect to generalize)

Answer 5

We each face decisions day to day where we decide what would be the best action. Everyone makes different choices.

Can you honestly say that you do not kill people solely because god commands you not to? Or do you abstain from it because you value human life?

Despite god's laws and human laws, people still choose to do things that most of us consider unethical.

Under Christian religion, confessing your sins and asking for Christ's forgiveness absolves your sin. It's a way to forgive yourself and let go of the things that you've done. It gives a person a hypothetical "clean slate". Sometimes in life, people don't get a clean slate and knowing that is simply too difficult to live with.

It is a mother's love (or lack thereof) that determines whether or not to give birth to a child with extreme disabilities. Is it kinder to do what "god" tells you to do and give birth to a child that you neither want nor will be able to care for, simply because it's the right thing to do? Is it kinder to let that child suffer and die shortly after birth and to endanger the mother's life?

It sounds like you want to implement god into our government. We are already shifting towards a theocracy when this country was supposedly founded on the right to choose whichever religion (or abstain completely) we would like. This is a democracy.

Worry about the plank in your own eye before you criticize the sliver in ours.

Answer 6

There is plenty of room for atheist ethics... it actually makes life quite simple when God is not taken into account. My list of unethical actions is as follows:

- Fraud: Deceiving others to gain advantages over them
- Theft: Taking the rightful property of others that they have earned through their own labor
- Slavery: Taking away the freedom of others.
- Murder: Taking someone's life for reasons other than self defense

You can make "what ifs" all you want, but I can do that to...

- "What if a religious leader decreed that people who did not believe in God must die?" Wait... this has happened
- "What if a religious society decided to kill those of different faiths?" Oh wait, this has happened.
- "What if a religious society decided to kill babies born with birth defects because they considered it proof of demonic origin?" Oh wait... this has happened

Shall I continue?

Answer 7

the things you call ethics and/or morality are really just rules imposed on an individual by a society so that the society can function, most of the examples you post are not implied by a lack of belief in god because morality/ethics are not necessarily derived from a belief in god

Answer 8

Ethics are based on human emotion and consience. Religon has nothing to do with it.

Most Atheists still feel the pangs of religon even though they don't believe in god, heaven or hell. My husband for example went to Christian school for 10 years, and knows more about the bible than anyone I have ever met. He is also a sworn atheist.

Answer 9

Here`s a fun fact for you

75% of America is Christian
75% of the prison population in America is Christian

10% of America is Atheist
0.2% of the prison population in America is Atheist

Which group is having trouble with an ethical framework?

Answer 10

It is sad to think that "god" is the only reason Christians are moral, but if this is the atheist's "heaven, then why screw it up?

While I try to free myself from religious stigma, I often find myself being horrified by "faith based" legislation.