i have always had a question about athiesm?

Question

this isnt a jab at athiests... so dont get all crazy on me.

If Athiest dont believe in a higher being and, there fore, have not set of 'written in stone' guidelines for life... how do you develop your set of morals and values? Do you have morals and values? i mean.. you have to have them.. but... do you have loose morals if you dont have a set guideline to go by?

again.. im not jumping at athiests this time.. im really just curious...

and one more..

what do you think happens when you die... do you think thats just it? you live, you die... and your 'self' ceases to exist as well as your body? if so.. what is your goal in life if its not to 'follow your walk and achieve the final reward'... i mean... doyou only care about secular gain? or do you worry about having good personal character anyways.. even though you have no goal with which to achieve using that good character?

i know im annoying.. but i just wanna know... i want to understand from the other side of the road.

no, im not saying the only reason christians dont do wrong things is because we believe that God is watching... i wouldn't do bad things anyways.. but.. i've just always wondered... i mean... I've never spoken to an Atheist or learned anything about atheism so im just curious. I mean... i didnt mean to come off as rude.. as some of you seemed to think... im HONESTLY probably one of the few 16 year olds who dont know much about Atheism..

and i thought Buddhism had SOME deities? oh well.. that was 7th grade history... not 10th... so i didnt remember.

ok.. now i kinda get whati already had to know. but just hadn't but 2 and 2 together yet... i still must say.. i am a great believe in science.... i even have people prolly sure im going against my beliefs because i put alot of faith in scientific fact.. but the point blank is.. i want to do good with my life.. it doesn't take God to make me want to do that. I want to do something with my life that will benifit the rest of the world to come after me.. thats my goal with my life.. but i discovered what might be a possible misconception about christianity... I understand this sound silly.. but to me.. i would be afraid of death if i thought it was the end... I mean. As crazy as some ofyou make it sound, the concept of Heavan is the ONLY reason im not afraid of death. i belive that we die when its our time and if i thought i was going to end completely.. i'd fear it. but i dont. And also... mentions about before the bible was written.. christianity is one of the youngest religions.

i would just like to say, that I know many of you DID take my questions offensively.. and i understand that.. they were a bit harsh.. but its 3: 40 in the mornin here and im sleepy! I really DONT mean anything by them... i know you could be right for all i know! I BELIEVE in God and the promise of heaven.. does that mean its really there? no.. i think it is.. but that doesnt mean you guys arent all right. But that works both ways... I could be correct as I believe I am... and i just ask all of ya'll to not think that we are bad people because we have a belief system that ya'll think is crazy. I personally, want to be a specialized scientist (havnt picked a field yet) and thats my goal for my life on earth.. to do something that will change the world. Who i am has nothing to do with what i believe. And i dont think that ya'll are all going to hell because you dont believe in God. I would liek to think God is more merciful than that because he loves all fo His children.He loves you too.

Answer 1

Um yeah ... it's called integrity, mmmkay. Not a hard concept to figure out for those of us who are free from brainwashing herd mentality lives which are dictated to us.

Live like there is no afterlife and you will find great fulfillment.

Answer 2

First of all the contents of your question contain incorrect assumptions.
Religion does not have a monopoly on "morals", in fact there is a plethor a of evidence that the reverse is true.
Human morals are intrinsic, and a result of evolutionary selection.
Humans aren't the only creatures to have what you would call morals.
Strict adherence to a religious code does not necessarily mean one is a "moral" person, nor does accepting true and scientific explanations of nature mean one has "loose" or no morals..

The second part also makes many assumptions, but to answer:
When any living creature dies, it starts to decay and the biological energy is tranfused into nature the way it always has done. Humans are no different.

The "final reward" you talk about can be the successful perpetuation of your genes through good and attentive parenting, and any lessons learned are passed onto your children. Perpetuating your genes through the success of your progeny is the only way one can live past death. Isn't that enough?

The knowledge that death is final is a great incentive to do ones best work here and now, and in no way suggests untethered morals. It has the opposite effect in fact, as there is no such thing as divine forgiveness for every moral transgretion..!

And my goal is to ensure the success and happiness of my children, and ensure they have free access to mainstream scientific knowledge, and to avoid bigotry, racism, divisive beliefs and ignorance. So that would preclude any religious teachings, especially christianity..!!

You..??

Answer 3

2nd paragraph questions: You dont have to have a,"written in stone," guidline for life. Its a personal matter how you live your life, but if your scared of societies morals without gods laws thats just living in fear. You need to live the way you want to be happy . I have some good morals and here are some examples of them. I dont drink alchohol, I dont smoke, I dont do drugs, and Im a vegan. I have very strong morals considering im very liberal and like to help people. As a matter of fact I want to become a doctor.

5th paragraph questions. I dont know what will happen when I die besides being bones in a box or ashes in an urn, but I have pondered being born the same person again because I believe that when I die, time flies so fast the unvierse recreates it self through the chaos theory, thus being being born again. Silly huh? No, I dont only care about secular gain. I want everybody to have the right to live their life the way they want to, yet I see religous extremist fighting in the name of god or forced religous views on others which is not right. To each should be their own and thats how we can seperate peace from chaos.

Answer 4

Talk about a complicated question, this one takes the cake!

First we have to define "athiest." For the sake of argument I'll use the definition that an athiest is one who does not believe in the Christian model of a transcendental, omnipotent "God" in "heaven." I would fit that definition, but that doesn't mean I do not believe in spirituality in another sense.

Ok, now that that's clear . . .

I was raised in a very loving and religious family and I have a strong set of moral values. My family stressed acceptance, understanding and forgiveness and I hold to those values with all my heart. I believe that no one is any better than anyone else simply because of happenstance (i.e. race, wealth, origin, ethnicity, etc.). I believe that we are all part of a large society and a large world and we need to live and work together in peace and harmony. Therefore I believe in much that is taught by religions and the Ten Commandments. There are some areas where I differ from the teachings, but then we all take a different tact to what we have been taught.

Guidelines, morals, values . . . are all terms that get associated with religion(s) but are not exclusive to religion. Just because someone is not religious does not mean that person does not have those traits. What athiests do not have is a "creed," which is a set of codified beliefs and, more often, rules on how to live. I, for one, take what I have learned through life, decide for myself what I think is important for a healthy life and form my own set of beliefs, independent of a higher authority (church hierarchy) telling me what it should be. Does that make sense?

Now, as to the death thing . . . My personal belief is that life on this planet is at the will of DNA. DNA may very well be an intelligent life form on a much smaller scale, too small for humans to understand. DNA may be the "intelligent designer" that Christians are trying to shove into biology textbooks. DNA is not immortal, obviously, so therefore at death those cells cease to exist. Our life as humans, as well as every other form of life on the planet, is merely an opportunity for DNA to replicate and replicate and replicate. Some may choose to not replicate, but it is undeniably a natural desire to do so and it is the one trait that all humanity shares. DNA designed humans to live long enough to replicate many times, and made it fun to do (at least in the first part). When we reach the end of our life the organic systems cease to function and all of our cells die from lack of oxygen. The DNA in our bodies served its purpose and the legacy is left to our offspring. Our bodies' cells degrade, turn to dust and . . .there you have it.

Answer 5

You absolutely do not need religion to tell you right from wrong, good from evil, unless you were born on an island and raised by a wild animal it is point blank obvious what is good and what is evil.
See people that are kind and have a good moral character that don't believe in a god truly are the best kind of people morally because they do this utterly out of their own hearts and do not do it for fear of being punish by "god" and don't expect a reward in any kind of afterlife.
Life is indeed a miracle.....but an accident, you live you die, your body decays and thats it, it goes into the planet and is apart of something else. matter cannot be created or destroyed so it is all "recycled" in a sense. no pain after no happiness nothing. This scares most people out of there gourd so they need something to believe in.

Religion has actually caused allot of suffering around the world all on who is right and who is wrong, well i got news....YOUR ALL WRONG, so get out of your fantasies and wake up. and no iam not someone who just hates religion and just blindly dismisses that as lies, iam actually extremely scientific and can write 10 pages of why i believe what i do, but iam not about to.

Answer 6

First of all, realize the fact that the only thing Atheists necessarily have in common is they don't believe in God.

That being said, Atheists get morals and values the same way non-atheists do... inner integrity (such as empathy) + tradition (your parents teaching you right from wrong).

How are 'guidelines' like the 10 commandments so amazing anyway? how dumb and barbaric do you believe human nature to be that we have to be commanded to realize something so simple as it's not good to kill one another.

The Golden Rule(TM) is not an exclusively Christian/Jewish/Muslim etc phenomenon. It's the most basic form of logic.

As for dying, some atheists technically could believe in reincarnation or some other new-agey afterlife idea, but the majority of us, when you die, your consciousness ceases and your body rots.

The difference between us and you, is we don't find this terrifying, and you do.

Answer 7

(Agnostic)- first off, you can believe in a "higher being" and not the morals of the books it has supposedly written. Second, they get their morality from reason, with basic emotion thrown in. I hate to break this to you, but you don't get your morality solely from the Bible or any other holy book. You are able to pick the "good and bad" of that set of rules just like any other ideology, based on what makes sense in your mind.

I actually would say that i have loose morals, and am rather proud of that. Not in my behavior, but in judging others' behavior. Religious people get way too upset at things they shouldn't care about, and not upset enough about things they should. Basically, i think religion diverts moral beliefs from productivity.

Who knows what happens when we die? I REALLY hope there's something (especially a John Edward type thing) just because that would be freakin' awesome. I wish i could see the past, and the future. Dead loved ones would be petty compared to that in my view. The Christian version of heaven just seems like wishful thinking to me, and frankly quite boring (though better than christian hell).

Goals in life are up to the individual, don't you get that even as a believer? Being good is beneficial to your own self-interest (others are nicer to you), satisfying, and more likely to change things for the better for others. Also frankly it usually isn't that hard, especially the little things. I think it's more strange that people can on the one hand believe this world is perfectly designed for us (and we are ourselves perfectly designed), and on the other hand believe it's just some test to see if we earn the REAL perfection. Why wear a seatbelt, it's only keeping you from God? Believing so much in heaven would make reaching people's souls with religion more important than economic, political, social betterment. So what, women can't drive in Saudi Arabia, as long as they get to heaven that's all that counts.

Men have killed their children because they were convinced the kids were going to be corrupted by modern culture and their souls wouldn't make it to heaven. In the Christian view, he damned himself to hell to make sure his kids got to heaven. I honestly can't find in the PURELY SPIRITUAL worldview why that is a bad thing?

Answer 8

On morals, there's this thing called society, and it develops rules. (See Karl Jaspers on this, perhaps)
They are tribal in origin, and they've been seen at work in monkey troupes, though we hope we've developed a *little* beyond that. Sometimes it isn't obvious.

This accounts for the rules being broadly similar in most places and times, with specific interesting variations.
Dostoevsky suggested "Without god, everything is permitted" and refuted it in "Crime and Punishment."

Yes, I was unaware before I was born, I shall be unaware after I die. Seems the most likely for a variety of reasons.
What shall I do with the time I've got?
There's a measure of conforming to society, because society doesn't like it, certainly. The rest is down to my conscious assessment of values, and pleasures.
No goal? Many see their children and relatives, and the good in their lives, as a worthwhile goal, for one example. Worth dying for, if necessary.
Gonna die anyway... why not spend it well?

Answer 9

ATHEIST ATHEIST ATHEIST! an exception to the I before E except after C rule but really not that hard.

We get our morals from our society, from how we are brought up and from something called empathy. It's what makes us sympathise with others in pain or trouble. You'll find that most people in most societies live like this. Live by something called the golden rule. It doesn't take a god to live by this. Society and our race wouldn't survive if we didn't

You live - you die - you cease to exist. that's it. Why make up fairy stories about what happens afterwards.
Do you only do good deeds because you think it will help you get into heaven? That's awfully cynical.
People do good deeds because it makes them feel good it's that simple. I don't need the threat of eternal damnation to behave in a good manner - why do you?

Answer 10

All morality begins and ends with empathy.

We have evolved the ability to empathize, to share the motivations and feelings of those around us. From this, we have gained the ability to empathize with the plight of others, to understand what may be causing them distress or pain, and to wish, for their sake, that their suffering would stop. Armed with this empathy, we act in a moral way to prevent the distress and suffering of others. Our opinions on what constitutes a moral course of action may differ, but the underlying empathy is the same.

With empathy for others and recognition of the similarities between people, we each build an internal code of the morality of our actions.

As for the second part of your question: In essence, for you, the world only exists while you are alive. When you are not alive, you are not there to experience your death. There is no uncertain afterlife. There is no heaven. There is no hell, nor is there a limbo. There is no pain or pleasure. There is not even a void or a blackness or a nothingness. You will not perceive anything at all, for your perceptions are a function of your working brain and body. Without those, you are no longer able to perceive.

Another way to understand death is that for each of us, we are always alive. We will never notice our own death. Every perception we have of the world will be while we are alive. So, while we are alive, the world exists for us. If we are not alive, the world does not exist, for us. Our perception of everything ends at the moment of death. Yes, we of course know that the world goes on without us, but as part of what we experience, it does not. We are not a ghost or a spirit in a future world, we are simply not there.

Answer 11

*drink*

Where is it written that religion has a corner on morals and values?

The Code Of Hammurabi set down laws of civilization (no killing, no stealing, no lying about other people, no cheating, etc.) 300 years before the Ten Commandments. In fact, the Jews ripped off most of Hammurabi's code to write the Mosaic laws. By all accounts, incidentally, Hammurabi was not spiritual, and worshiped no gods. His Code was just a result of fairness and common sense.

I'm an atheist, and I know it's wrong to steal, to kill, and to gossip. It's wrong because it hurts other people, not because some spirit says it's wrong. That's what real morality is: Don't hurt anyone. Hold all the screwball beliefs you like, just don't use them to bludgeon other people who disagree.

And yes, dead is dead. This isn't some rehearsal for an afterlife. Immortality is being remembered by people for what you did in life. Besides, the religious concept is patently ridiculous: We're supposed to spend our lives praising and worshiping gods, and hating our earthly lives. Our reward for this? To go to heaven, and spend ETERNITY praising and worshiping gods. Not much of a reward, if you ask me: To spend all eternity massaging the egos of spirits. No thanks.