Where do Atheists get their morals?

Question

Some people say that their parents or the ones before impose morals they learnt from religion... is that true?

Guys, I am asking a question, not attaching a dogma, answer the question, or not, it's that simple.

Answer 1

I suppose they get them the same place everyone else does, from their parents and society. The Church does have some influence, at least the dominant ones do within the society, but it is not the dispenser of morality.

Answer 2

Religion or not, people get their morals from the way they are raised. People are not born immoral or hateful. Children are taught to hate the same as they are taught to love and live with morals intact.
I am NOT an atheist, but I have seen that religion or not, does not guarantee a moral person is raised. It comes from common decency.
I quote jesej as a fantastic answer.

" from philosophy, education, family , belief systems, personal experience, culture like the rest of the world!"

Answer 3

Atheists in the west generally form the morals from three sources. Many here in R&S are "rule" or "principle" driven. Right action stems from conformance to rule following behavior. The problems that they face are the source, or sources, of the rules. This project has been going on for some three hundred years, now, without any agreement on what the rule list is supposed to be, nor from where the rules are to be derived.

Others are clearly consequentialists. That is, the right derives from the consequences of one's actions. One uses some sort of measure of what is to count as good consequences --greatest good for the greatest number is an example. The problems faced this way are all to do with what is to count as the measure: cost-benefit analysis, increase in happiness, following pleasure while avoiding pain have all been floated as the right choice. Often, some sort of contractual arrangement is made, the so-called win-win scenario. Of course, the question of what morality morality the parties to the contract bring to the table is begged. Too often the parties resort to power to enforce their wills.

There is also a sprinkling of relativists. All morality is purely choice: one does what one feels is best at the time. What's right for you might not be right for me. The problems faced here are too numerous to list except to say that issues are always reduced to issues of power whether physical, judicial, or spiritual.

HTH

Charles

Answer 4

I think that if you look at the work of Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), Zeno (333 BC - 264 BC) or Lao Tzu (probably 4th century BC) ,you will realise that ethics and hence 'morals' existed outside the religious laws passed down through the Abrahamic religions.

Consequently it is quite possible for someone who has no belief in god, God or Gods to come up with a framework of 'virtuous' behaviour to the greater good of society.

So I believe that we are all equipped with a 'moral compass'. And while I imagine many atheists did indeed learn their morals from their parents and consequently Western religion, that isn't the really important thing .

It is how we deal with novel moral challenges in the modern world. And for that we ultimately have to make our own decisions, whether we choose to base them on codes written 2000 years ago or not.
.

Answer 5

There is an interesting anthropological argument that is known as the “moral argument.” The argument is this: Man has within him a moral nature, a sense of “oughtness”; where did it come from?

As C. S. Lewis said, “Human beings all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.” You see, there arises in all of us, in any culture, universal feelings of right and wrong.

Wherever you go, people in every place and every walk of life, say things like: “That’s not fair.” “How would you like it if someone did that to you?” “That’s my seat, I was there first.” “Come on, you promised.” When people say things like that, they are appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which they expect the other person to know.

The other person doesn’t say, “forget your standard,” but almost always tries to make an excuse to show that they really didn’t go against the standard. As C.S. Lewis said about this standard, “...the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm.” You know, there are reasons why you should be let off the hook. That time you were unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money came when you were very hard-up. You never would have promised that if you would have known how busy you were going to be. And then comes the argument between these two people. It is clear that they both believe in a standard or they couldn’t argue about it. You can’t argue that a football player committed a foul unless there is some agreement about the rules of football.

If morality is simply something learned from our culture, as they want us to believe, then why are the moral teachings of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Indians, Greeks and Romans so very similar? C. S. Lewis talked a lot about this. Has there ever been a culture where people were admired for running away in battle? Or admired for being selfish (even though they might differ about who you should be unselfish to)? Men have differed on things like whether you should have one wife or four, but they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked. In the words of Thomas Mayberry, “There is broad agreement that lying, promise breaking, killing, and so on are generally wrong.”

And whenever you find someone who says they don’t believe in right or wrong, you will find them going back on it a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you break one to him, he will immediately be complaining “It’s not fair!” Even a thief gets upset and feels wronged when someone steals from him. As it has been said, “If there is no God, no atheist can object on moral grounds if I want to kill him.”

I had an atheist friend some years back that I would always argue creation/evolution with. One day he came in and told me how mad he got from watching a documentary on the Holocaust. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I thought, “Why are you so mad; it’s just survival of the fittest, right? You don’t even believe there is such a thing as right and wrong.” You see, no matter how much he denies it, he feels that standard as well as I do.

So, where did it come from? We don’t see it in animals. Oh, they will sometimes act nice toward their own families, and evolutionists will try to point to that as the beginnings of morality, but that is a far cry from what we see in humans. A dog doesn’t feel guilt from stealing another dog’s bone. Apes don’t sit down and talk about morals and ethics. If an ox gores a man to death, it is not arrested, tried, and condemned to the electric chair. We recognize its inability to make moral judgments and so we might just confine it in a sturdier pen and warn people to stay away. If we evolved from animals, how did we come to be moral creatures?

Could non-moral matter combined with time and chance be an adequate cause for this? If people are merely products of physical evolution and “survival of the fittest,” why do we sacrifice for each other? Where does courage, dying for a cause, love, dignity, duty, and compassion come from? This seems to be the opposite of what evolution would produce; in a struggle for survival, will the existence of a conscience help or hinder survival? As John Adam has said, “...according to the evolutionary principle of survival of the fittest, a loving human with a conscience is at a great disadvantage and would be unlikely to have survived the evolutionary process.”

It fits much better that there is a moral God who placed morals within us.

Answer 6

No. It is a proven fact that morals are a result of social influences, not religious awareness. This is why so many "men of god" can justify the violence and discrimination the use to achieve their goals.

The fact is we don't need religion other than the 10 commandments. If everybody lived their lives according to the 10 commandments the world would be a much better place to live.

Answer 7

Well, your question makes no sense, but I will say that you don't need religion, specifically Christianity (because that is the most common religion that says they are the only moral ones), to know whats right and wrong.

Knowing the difference between right and wrong has been around long before religion. So religion adopted morals into their belief system.

Answer 8

I probably did become an atheist because of my parents and the religion i was in. I was consistantly told to fear. Well when I got older and the fear they told me about all my life never happened. I woke up. The brainwashing is pathetic. mo.

Answer 9

~~~ Batgirl ,,, We are not bound by the rules and regulations of your Dogma. There is a wise old saying, "Let your Conscience be your guide." Just remember that atheists can be just as Spiritually Immature(conscience) as Christian Leaders like Haggard, Bakker, Swaggart, etc, etc,,,,,There's another saying that goes,,"Morality is the invention of Human Intellect,,, and Wishful Thinking." by Alan Watts.

Answer 10

It is more than possible to develop morality without belief in a creator. I dated an atheist who was one of the most moral men that I've known.