Where do atheist get their moral standards?

Question

I'd like to hear from an atheist, how you decide what is right and wrong.

Answer 1

I have a moral conscience like everyone else-where it come from I don't honestly know.

Answer 2

Atheists learn right from wrong from both their parents and other people, learning from rational experience the Golden Rule, which predated the Bible by thousands of years.

Figuring out what's right or wrong isn't rocket science. "Treat others the way you want to be treated" is simple enough, isn't it? In order to maintain a functioning social group there have to be limits on individual freedom or the society will devolve into a chaos where everybody loses (think of Iraq, or any other country suffering from religious conflict).

Over thousands of years of evolution, normal people are able to internalize these ethics to the point where they feel bad or guilty when they know they've done something wrong. The sociopaths who have no guilt feelings are usually caught and put away where they're unable to reproduce and pass their anti-social genes to the next generation. This is a perfect example of Darwinian natural selection at work!

This kind of guilt is the healthy, useful kind - unlike arbitrary religious taboos which only serve to empower the priests and shamans. I must admit that the founder of Christianity (which should really be called Paulism) showed sheer genius in labeling normal human feelings that no one can avoid having as "sinful" and therefore needing the Church to avoid eternal damnation. An evil genius, but genius nonetheless. It's been wildly successful for the Church, and only cost the rest of us centuries of oppression, hatred, killing, and retarded social and scientific progress.

Answer 3

It's nature vs. nurture. I think it's wrong to be racist, because I grew up in a mixed neighborhood. I think if a woman needs an abortion, she is entitled to a safe place to have it, because I'm a woman. I don't steal, cheat, do drugs, kill, or lie, because my mom taught me not to. (She's agnostic. I'm atheist. My sis is a christian, as are her hubby and my boyfriend.) I make my choices based on what I see around me, and lessons I've learned in the past. It's wrong to kill children. It's wrong for kids to have access to guns and take them to school. I think the death penalty is a good thing. I believe in evolution, because I can see and feel the evidence. I follow my heart in certain things, and it always lets me know when I'm wrong. I used to be an alcoholic - I quit on my own because I knew I had a problem. No AA or God involved. Morality is subjective - what I consider moral and right is not always what someone else would think. But I try to be a good person, based on my experiences. I have never needed the bible to tell me how to live, or how to be a decent human being.

Answer 4

Morals do not come from religion.

Do you REALLY believe there were no morals before Moses came down from the mountain with a rock that said "don't kill"? You really think people were killing indiscriminately without feeling anything the day before Moses came down the mount?

There is research out there that suggests that moral behavior is in our genes. Our brains are wired with morals to survive in a collective society - without morals, a society breaks down. Classic moral behavior have been observed in chimpanzees. Morals are a fabric of humanity. Morals spawn religion. Not the other way around.

What's amazing is how completely arrogant the concept is that only religious people have a lock on morals. How immoral is that?

Answer 5

At first I thought this was strictly a religous question but then I looked up the definition.

Morality - Personal morality defines and distinguishes among right and wrong intentions, motivations or actions, as these have been learned, engendered, or otherwise developed within each individual.

This draws me to the conclution that hopefully it's something your parents rub off onto you. Not a religous teaching.

Answer 6

Ask yourself this: if you don't murder me because God says it's wrong, and I don't murder you because I don't want to hurt you, who's more moral? If you do right by me because Jesus tells you to and I do right by you because I think you're a nice guy, haven't harmed me, and I like you, who's more loving? If you don't cross a street because someone told you red lights are evil and I don't cross because I realize red lights are rules we set up in society to try to live safely and harmoniously with each other, who's doing right? And how many people who claim to believe God watches their every move still do things considered blatantly "sinful" on a daily basis while attending church on Sunday talking about those immoral atheists who cannot possibly have any morals without God telling them what to do? In answer to your question, no, I'm not perfect. I try to live by the golden rule in general. And before you say it, that rule is not exclusive to any religion or belief system. It was not "invented" in the Old Testament. I don't follow it out of fear of punishment in the afterlife or expectation of reward in Heaven. I have extremely giving days, and sometimes petty days. I bleed like you, love like you, laugh like you. (Shylock, anyone?) I find most people actually do develop their own morals in life, and then interpret what the Bible or other religious text says to back up their convictions. People used to use the Bible to back up slavery not so very long ago. Unfortunately, the Bible does say it's okay in places.

You may want to read Sam Harris' excellent (and short!) "Letter To A Christian Nation"

Answer 7

All standards of truth are in the Holy Books of the Messenger of God for each time.
Moral standards in a previous Dispensation have been altered in the following one.
Many non-believers think that they have accepted or designed for themselves some moral standards, but such things cannot be true and cannot be applied.
For example, some of them may say that they love all mankind, but they cannot realize how that love should be, and in reality they have no strength and divine support to practice it.
No men can show such love as Boddhisattva Ananda, Saint Peter, Imam Ali, Quratul Ayn, Abdul-Baha...

Answer 8

Does this imply that you as a believer, get YOUR moral standards from your religion ONLY? Does that mean that if you ever gave up your church you'd become a serial killer? Wow!

Anyway, to give you an answer, I get my moral standards from law, my intelligence, and my scale of values, which tells me that causing people unnecessary harm is wrong. And I didn't have to go to church to know that...

Answer 9

We get our morals from the fact that we know what pain feels like. We also acknowledge that others feel pain. An act is immoral if it is intended to cause pain to others. An act is moral if it is intended to lessen the amount of pain in the world.

"My creed is this:
Happiness is the only good.
The place to be happy is here.
The time to be happy is now.
The way to be happy is to help make others so."[Robert G. Ingersoll, Motto on the title page of Vol. xii, Works]

Answer 10

the same place you do, parents, relatives, teachers, society.Most people have a pretty goodset of moral standards in place before they can read simply because they have been taught from birth what is considered right and wrong.

Answer 11

Right and Wrong, Morals and Values are taught in school, or are you not educated?

I know what it takes to be a good person. We learn this through trial and error. Alot of times we learn best through experience. But we know that we are responsible for our own actions.....as we can't ask for forgiveness and Salvation be granted to us, we don't have a GOD to do that, neither do you. If so.......prove that anyone of your "sins" have been forgiven... can't do it can you.