small question to atheists?

Question

I read this statement in an article
"One who sees only random forces behind why we humans find ourselves here can have no reason to believe in objective categories of good and evil. "

What this implies is that morality and ethics are subject to the whim of people and the society they live in. And that basically there is no such thing as something being always bad or always good.


I was just wondering if you as an atheist hold this to be true. Why or why not

Answer 1

I am not an atheist and I know that this is true no matter what religion you are a part of. Ethics are not a concrete although some like to try and make it that way.

Answer 2

True. There is no good and evil. The only reason why you believe your morality is "objective" is because its founded in religion with a large following, and thus, appears objective to you cause its mainstream convention.

But if by objective, you mean based on some real source, then your quite mistaken. Unfortunately, the religion is false.

Put that aside for a moment. Consider that Christian morality only works if all follow it, but obviously this cant happen and thus, ultimately, your made to be the roadkill of more predatory religions like Islam, or made to contradict your religion.

Why not have the courage and self determining willpower to craft your own well thought out moral code or beliefs.

Answer 3

You didn't reference the whole article, so it's possible that I would interpret it differently if I saw it in context. However, it sounds like yet another creationist who is misrepresenting Evolution. Yes, there are "random forces" that affect outcomes. But these random forces are filtered by natural selection. If a random change results in a good change, the change is preserved, and passed on. If a random change results in a bad (evil) change, it is not passed on. Useful changes accumulate. This has happened over several billion years.

This means that there doesn't have to be an ultimate purpose endowed by a creator. But it also doesn't mean that there is no such thing as good and evil. Evolution is after all a process that tries to preserve good and remove evil.

Answer 4

Morality and ethics are far too important to be left to religious people.
Just look at the "Holy Land" with all the jews, christians and muslims knocking seven kinds of s h i t out of each other. Are we really expected to believe that these people have some special claim to be more moral and ethical than everybody else..
Even the story that the christians have of the Good Samaritan shows that non religious people can behave in a better way.

Answer 5

It depends really. Personally I subscribe to the notion that there is a relativist morality going. Meaning, murder, for example, is not always bad if, say for instance, is self defense. Stealing is not always bad if it us taking nuclear weapons from a dictator that has pledged to kill all humanity. The list can go on. Nevertheless, there are Atheists like Ayn Rand that do have an objective morality.

Even if you subscribe to an objectivity notion of morality, you still live in a relativist world of morality because not everybody will subscribe to your version of morality. Nevertheless, to function as a society we need to make laws that are potentially objective to the nation and society though give relativist leniency (like the murder in self defense), and they can evolve as society find them fit.

Answer 6

True, because of what you pointed out. Now lets explore 'morality & ethics' and compare with naturaly good

though I would take issue with this statement "subject to the whim of people"

Answer 7

It's fair enough. Good and evil are subjective and results of society. Formation of society and family structures proved to be practical and evolutionary advantages, as even Jane Goodall documents extensively in her studies of non-human primates.

A variety of animals live together in packs and even hut together because it improves the chances of any food being caught at all. As much of a dog-eat-dog world it may be, there are clearly advantages to forming cooperative bonds, which then evolved to become social structures and families.

Humans are simply the most evolved species on the planet, so our social structures have ballooned out to become complex organisations of human interaction, where those who deliberately break the rules established by society, they are punished by the rest and their actions are subjectively "bad" to the majority of people.

Answer 8

It's true. There is no objective basis for morality. Ethics are derived from causality and must be examined on a case by case basis.

Answer 9

I'm not an atheist but I see no reason why someone couldn't come up with their own definition of right and wrong without spiritual help. I did.

Answer 10

are they not subject to the whim of the individual? we have had individuals like ted bundy and geoffery dahmer whose whims certainly differed from most people's, but when you get right down to it, morality is NOT the same for everybody