If there is no god can you kill people?

Answer 1

Yeah, but you'll be someone's b!tch in prison.

Answer 2

No, laws govern us, not God, per se, though many believe that they are under both law and God. If God were eliminated, laws would still stand.

However, let's take an interesting turn. In a dream, try and kill someone. See what your dreaming conscience does, what it feels like. If you feel guilty--which you probably will--then there is something inside you--not God nor law--that makes you feel awful for taking away someone else's right to live, love, be happy.

Now, imagine that your question is this instead: if there is no God, can I get murdered? See how that feels different when you are the object of the killing. Would you want killing to be okay if there were no God and would you volunteer to be the next victim? If no, then there's also a self-preservation gene going on that means you will always fight to survive, which means that even if law disappeared, you would create a new law (even if that is the law of your gun to protect yourself) to stop the "freedom" of killing.

So, let me ask you---if you believed there were no god, would you enjoy a world where killing was okay?

Answer 3

Let's get one thing clear. God is not against killing. Animals do it all the time. Herbivorous animals kill vegetation, and carnivorous animals kill the herbiverous ones. That is part of nature's food cycle. If we were cannibals, then we might rightfully kill each other out of our necessity to survive. All this would be according to God's plan, and will have God's approval.

The debate arises when we kill not out of necessity, but out of greed. Even revenge killing ultimately boils down to greed, because a previous grievance is being redressed. When our motive to kill is greed, or in defence of ourselves against another's greed, that is when "morals" comes into the picture.

And morals comes only to those to whom it matters. If you reject the concept of morals, then you are living by the law of the jungle. Even the phrase "law of the jungle" has a moralistic flavour to it. But remember, the law of the jungle is nature's way of survival, which we have accepted above.

Without God (or at least the concept of God), there will be no morals, no law and order. It will be "each man for himself". The strong shall FREELY oppress the weak, then the strongs will fight amongst themselves, and the word "human" will ultimately have no meaning or relevance. We will be as much "wild animals" as all the rest of them.

And judging by the way things have been these past 50 odd years, we are surely moving in that direction.

R-O-A-R !!!!

Answer 4

No, life is the most fundamental right of all humans, the right from which all others stem. No matter what your beliefs, taking the life of another human is wrong.

If you believe in god, then you should believe that god would not allow us to take the life because since no human can adequately judge why a person should die without having divine knowledge of every factor of the circumstances. Also, as humans we can not even begin to comprehend the life after death and we would not know where we would be sending our victim.

If you believe in law and government as your sole protector, then you must believe that taking the life of another is wrong because if people were allowed to take life without consequence, then it would lead to the inevitable corruption and desecration of our judicial system because it would lessen the power of the court by letting people die without being judged by the law.

By philosophy, ethics and morals, it is impossible to cover in adequate depth why murder is wrong because their are so many different sects of philosophy. But if you follow deontological ethics, then you must believe that life is the most important value and that under no circumstances may it be used as a means and it is both justified and required as an ends to itself. Because the majority of philosophy fall under this category, I will merely cover the few values that may be attributed to murder.

Retributive Justice - No deed can be taken as an equal to murder and even if that is what is being retributed, it is not in any humans power to do so as it is not an equivalent action.

Preventative Justice - As humans, it is not within our authority to dole out death in order to prevent a crime that may or may not happen

Natural Selection/Nietzsche - Flawed in essence merely because we are not animals and must look past primitive thinking and apeal to the greater good (even if none exists :P)

Lastly I will simply close in that murder can be just in no circumstance. Once you kill someone, you can not take that back and as mere humans we have not attained the knowledge, wisdom or mental strength to judge whether or not someone should die because life is an inalienable right, something that is indisputably good and in the favor of humankind.

Answer 5

As a human with free will you can do anything you want.
But you must also accept the consequences.
Man has created laws for society. These laws are designed to control the actions of each person in a society. Laws are created mainly to protect people and also punish offenders.
So, kill as many people as you want. But when you are sitting on death row waiting to be executed don't be surprised.

Answer 6

do you mean: how can atheists figure out what morality means?

If so, I think atheistic morality is based on two truths:

1. We all depend on each other
2. We all depend on the world around us

Everything else flows from that. The answer to the question in that case would be that you can in desperate life-or-death circumstances but you should try every other way to solve your problem first.

It wasn't an atheist who decided to invade Iraq and kill more people in three years than the (also non-atheist) dictator did in 30.

Answer 7

You could do whatever you want. You could do it even if there was a God. People do it all the time regardless. The real question is, why would you want to kill people?

Answer 8

NO!

Kill people and you kill yourself.

The killer has an intense, narrow focus
based on a sub-self relative to early psychological neglect, feels abandoned, shamed, and scared.

The Killer's' sub-self is developmentally young, emotional, reactive, and vulnerable to harming due to low nurturance and domination by a false self.

With or without God the killer will have to face the agony of criticism, disapproval, dislike, and scorn as well as social rejection.

Answer 9

You can kill people whether or not there is a God. It's just frowned upon and also against the laws of man so it'll just get you into trouble.

Answer 10

I don't believe in god, but I think strongly that you shouldn't kill people.

Why?

Because even though there's no divine father watching you and waiting to dole out rewards and punishments, right and wrong are still right and wrong, and humans are built to want their species to survive and prosper. It is wrong to hurt other people, this is taught to us not by god but by the people around us.

I believe that when you do something harmful, then you have made the world around you that much worse. You have taught another person that the world has that much more evil in it, and that person is more likely to do something bad in return, which can have a negative impact on the world you live in. If you do something nice for another person or demonstrate virtue, they will feel good and seek to follow your example by doing something good in return for someone else, thus making the world a nicer place to live in. This does not have to do with spirituality, but human psychology.

I don't believe in Heaven or Hell, but it can be used as an analogy: Your actions create Heaven or Hell on earth. If you abuse your wife and children and are mean to the people at work, the world you live in will be a dark and negative place where people are against you, yell at you, disagree with you, dislike you, you feel bad about yourself and you have few friends. If you choose some morals and virtues for yourself and follow them, you'll feel good about yourself, people who know you will respect you, and people who meet you will walk away feeling good about you, themselves, and the world.

As for killing people-- that certainly makes the world a worse place, and besides, it violates a very good rule of thumb- "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." I would be very upset if someone killed me; I value my life. So I think it's wrong to kill others. Can we justify killing others in some situations? Maybe, maybe not. I think you can certainly get through life with no regrets if you never kill anyone. This has nothing to do with god or the afterlife, but with YOU and the life you have to live in this world.

Answer 11

Whether or not there is a God has nothing to do with being able to kill people. They still die either way.