If there is no God, what is the root of morality? Where does right end and wrong begin?

Answer 1

Morality is based on joy and sorrow. Pain and pleasure. Nothing to do with god. Another sort of morality is based on aesthetics.

Notice that joy and pleasure are not the same. Pleasure is passive acceptance of stimulus. Joy is the active creation of it. Pleasure can have it's downside. Joy does not.

So a morality based on pleasure or pain does not mean that you go killing, and get hooked on drugs, because they have side effects. You get the idea.

Answer 2

Do you presume that there would be no social order without your brand of god? Look at all of the cultures of the world, past and present, all have had some form of social order. Most societies have social rules, even higher primates have social order. We are not so unlike monkey societies.
If your god is the source of morality, then we might expect that the ultra-religious would be the most moral. That is not the case. Otherwise Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson would not be advocating the violation of the Ten Commandments by killing elected national leaders and stealing the oil wealth of counties.
The root of morality is in the survival of the species. Those with no innate sense of morality don't survive as well, do not breed as prolifically and their offspring do not survive as long.
As far as right and wrong, it is a continuum based upon relationships. There is no absolute right and wrong. For some, abortion is absolutely wrong but murdering abortionists is absolutely right. War is bad unless it means tremendous profits for Haliburton, then it is OK to start one. The reason there is no plan for getting out of the war is that Haliburton is still making millions. The war would end next week if the government demanded that purveyors earn a maximum of 5% profit. Ritht and wrong would change over night.

Answer 3

Its been suggested that people are born with a "moral grammar" wired into our neural circuits by "evolution." Both atheists and people belonging to a wide range of faiths make the same moral judgments. Many rules are in fact the same or very similar in every society — do as you would be done by; care for children and the weak; don’t kill; avoid adultery and incest; don’t cheat, steal or lie. If there is no God where right ends and wrong begins would be dependant on the individual. Then it gets down to where as a culture do we let individuals express this right and wrong as it would differ from person to person.

Answer 4

Technically, with no God, morality is left up to each individual. Really, though, that's exactly the same as with a God - morality is always left to the individual. You can decide that stealing is Good whether or not you believe in God, it's just a matter of how much justification you have to go through before it makes sense (look at all the televangelists indicted for tax fraud and embezzlement - surely they thought, at the time, that they were doing "the Lord's work").

Atheists who live in society and are not in prison do what is acceptable in society. That "Golden Rule" idea is still around because it is extremely effective at getting everybody to behave decently, not because it's part of any one religion.

Answer 5

There are no true wrongs and rights. Just different actions that we like or don't like. When majority likes something, its considered right. When majority dislikes something, its wrong. I don't necessarily agree with this, but I try to be respectful of this because it has so many advantages so I follow laws for the most part and try not to harm anyone.

An example: Its considered wrong to put down someones religion and denounce their god even when you aren't talking to a specific person. But if I said that worshiping Thor or Hercules was silly, I am not wrong or hurtful because that is now excepted where I'm sure that at one time, I would have been blasphemous.

Answer 6

Man is the root of morality! There was morality way before people invented the concept of a God.

Answer 7

We are a tribal species, whatever is good for the group is "moral". Don't forget, humans were around for THOUSANDS of years before the idea of the xian god. Native Americans, other primitive cultures, had no xian god, yet had a morality. And many people "with" god are immoral.

Answer 8

hmmm...people WHO don't believe god is always tough the dranwims(father of evolution) are right,if so,let us think a second.

just read the website below and you will think about it>
www.harunyahya.com

my answer:it always have a god if not we only just an object like other thing,example:earth,tree and all the universe.they said and i think and that what i got!.
other thing if you only an a object it's mean you can't think,eat or even don't suppose to have feeling!we are a live,can breath.even you can see the earth are breathing.it's mean there are live too,in their own way!.it just like funny stuff but it's not,even you was angry and make a tree as your victim you can see the tree will change without you realize it or you can see it and then will want understand them.

Answer 9

It's a universal contract logically chosen by Natural Selection.

BTW: If God invented morality and He is perfect then one day He could say "rape is good", "murder is good", "stealing is good", etc. and we'd have to agree.

To be moral just to suck-up to a God to get on His good side and be rewarded with a Heaven is disgusting.

Answer 10

Just because we don't know doesn't mean GOD did it. We don't have the answers right now, and when we tried to call god and ask him, he didn't pick up the phone. So we are looking elsewhere.