To all the atheists and agnostics from someone trying to learn.?

Question

If there is no God, how do you deferentiate between good and evil? How do you determine what laws are going to be based on only human existence as the highest order of accountability?

Answer 1

If you found out tomorrow that there really is no god, would you forget what's right and what's wrong? Do you really expect nonbelievers to rampage through the streets? (And have you noticed that they actually tend not to do that?)

Finally: What's wrong with being accountable to each other? Don't tell me you've never had to explain yourself to your parents! :)

Answer 2

i presumed approximately attempting to organise an earthly Society on campus whilst i grew to become right into a pupil, thinking it may be exciting to hold debates with the Christian Union that already existed and perchance with the Jewish and Muslim communities too. i desperate it wasn't incredibly definitely worth the subject- the CU have contributors keeping considerable positions in quite lots each society different than the different religious communities, the LGBT help group and the rock track society, and in addition they have greater enter than they'd desire to on which new societies get authorized. they does no longer even approve a Pirate Society that grew to become into quite human beings in pirate costumes ingesting rum, via fact it would inspire human beings to rape and pillage. I easily think of they'd have made my existence hell if i'd long undergone with establishing an earthly/atheist/freethinker group. whether, you would be doing this someplace much less insular than a college campus (i'm hoping) so which you are able to be ok. do no longer permit my tale positioned you off!

Answer 3

I think if you look at the history of religion you'll see that deferring to an imaginary "higher order of accountability" has caused untold suffering.

Not only has it justified killing in the name of said imaginary being but it has also led to such extremes as Islamic Shariah law. Remember the Taliban? They had a "higher order of accountability" didn't they?

How about common sense and a feeling for community as a basis for our laws? Wouldn't that make more sense?

Answer 4

Morals and ethics are based on empathy. If we feel for someone else, we empathize with them and therefore "feel their pain" (in the words of Bill Clinton).

It is a matter of degrees as well. We would have a higher compunction against hurting (or doing "bad" physically or emotionally) to someone close to us than to someone far away. (That is to say, you will risk your life to save your own child, but most people would have second thoughts about doing the same to save their neighbor's and probably wouldn't ever consider risking their own lives to save a Bangladeshi child thousands of miles away).

Religion is absolutely no guarantee of empathy for fellow human beings; in fact, in many cases it has proved just the opposite. The Holocaust is an excellent example: an entire nation of Christians (steeped in centuries of anti-semitism stoked by both the Catholic and Protestant churches) were able to become morally and ethically unglued because they had convinced themselves that Jews were subhuman. The native Americans were thought equally subhuman by (Catholic) Spanish conquistadors and later by Christian settlers. The result in both of these cases is that the loss of empathy made it easy for them to slaughter these subhuman vermin.

Now, I am not saying the same thing can't and hasn't happened in non-religious contexts (namely 20th Century communist regimes), but the fact remains that religion cannot be seen as a guarantor of morality. No, not at all.

Answer 5

Why not?

I believe rather, in my own conscientious to differentiate good and evil.

Laws are created based on conscientious too. Hence in History, if you read it carefully, there are good laws and bad laws, all based on the rulers' discretion.... and no, I don't think those rulers make a phone call to God before he make the laws.

Answer 6

Society determines whats right and wrong. And its fairly easy to know what that is. If it hurts someone else, its wrong. That doesn't take a god, it only takes brains to figure out.

Put it this way....

If you hurt someone else, then that person may hurt you or someone you care about in return. If you don't want that to happen, then you don't hurt other people.

Answer 7

humans are fully capable of telling right from wrong without gods/god telling them what to do. some of the most law abiding countries in the world have a high proportion of atheist.

Answer 8

Simple. John Nash.

Do what is best for yourself, and your group.

Doing what is best for yourself, has the obvious potential for harming others.

However, by including doing what is best for the group, helps ensure a successful and stable society.

It didn't take god, jesus or the bible to figure that out... only logic.

Answer 9

You really think that you need a sky faerie to know what is good? Come on, all cultures have about the same sense of morals because they really are that obvious.

Answer 10

Common sense. You don't need "God" to know right from wrong. You just need a brain. If you're hurting others, or yourself, then that's wrong. You don't need a book or a preacher to tell you that.