CHRISTIANS: assume for the moment that no God exists. NOW can you tell me from where you'd derive your morals?

Question

Many people in response to my last question disregarded my request and basically stated "I cannot separate my sense of morality from my deity".

Atheists are asked all the time where they get morality from. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Yes, I'm asking you to assume for the moment that there are no gods. Not Yahweh, not Quetzalcoatl, not Ra, not Mithra, not any. If you CAN'T do this, please DO NOT ANSWER.

Alright, you've put yourself in the shoes of an atheist (metaphorically speaking, of course). No gods exist. Now... from where or what do you derive your morality?

P.S. If you've already answered, you don't need to answer again unless you really need the points.

Answer 1

Biologically, evolution has equipped humans (a social animal) with brains capable of developing moral reasoning and even altruism. However, evolution has also produced a human brain with some fairly questionable moral imperatives including the desire to reproduce beyond the capacities of the planet to support human progeny in the long term, together with the privileging of close over distant kin (which "justifes" wars and genocides).

The central moral questions facing humans are how they accommodate to their planet and to other humans and sentient beings sharing that planet.

Socially, people derive their sense of morality from three sources: authority figures, peers, and their own rationality and processing of their experience of how the social world functions. Human moral sense always starts out authoritarian (e.g. in young children), moves through a peer derived or collective morality (e.g. in adolescents), and may or may not get to a self-derived stage in mature adults. The third stage is the most sophisticated, but all three stages may be present in a person's moral sense to a greater or lesser extent.

Religions can engage people on any of the three levels. The most obvious elements of religious morality are often authoritarian, but religion doesn't have to be that way. For me, the most useful yardstick of how "deep" a spiritual belief or practice is comes from how non-prescriptive it is (non-authoritarian) and how little it depends on peer influence. Whether people label their values as "religious" or "non-religious" gives little indication to me of how developed those values are.

Some followers of monotheist religions conceive of their god predominantly as an authority figure who commands. They often mistake "inner derived" or "rational" morality for the absence of morality.

Kohlberg, Piaget, and Carol Gilligan have done a lot of work on this. Kohlberg breaks the stages down slightly differently, but all three retain the model of a developmental pattern. If you're interested see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development and check out the "See also" at the end.

Answer 2

thats a really hard question. It is hard to give a 100 honest answer but i shall try...

I think it would come from just my parents and making sure i didnt get in trouble with them. I really dont think i have any morals. Everything i do and dont do is because of my faith and my religion. Before i was a religious person i was a good person but did things that i would not now. So my sense of moality would just really be so i wasnt judged... if i even had any morals...

im not saying atheist dont have morals at all here. Im just saying if it were me i have a hard time seeing me having morals if there were no God. So where do atheists get there sense of morality? Cause i know some atheists with great Morals!

Answer 3

OK, if no God exists, then I would be as good as I can be, and as kind as I could be, since I had a fairly happy childhood, good parents, and a good education, and know that willing myself to be happy is a good way to insure that good things happen..

However, if I felt I was the victim of someone or something or felt that someone else had wronged me, or even if I was just in a bad mood, I wouldn't necessarily be good or kind. In fact, having a pretty good idea of my own nature, I would have a need to seek revenge. After all, if it's all up to me, I need to get people told.
Furthermore, there are a lot of people I would need to sue, including the physician that I feel is the cause of my losing a baby. Besides just suing people, I would also have to tell certain people (including bad bosses and family members) what I honestly think of them, because I couldn't just carry it around inside myself, and wouldn't want to get sick from the stress of not being able to express these bad feelings.
Also, when I do good things, I would need to do them somewhat publically, and be sure to get the credit I deserve for doing them. Of course, I wouldn't be OBVIOUS about this, but just in the interest of inspiring OTHERS to do good things as well, I would try to make a show of doing good.

This is just off the top of my head. I could actually probably write a book on the subject.

Overall, I guess I'd just think a lot more of myself and what I needed, rather than of other people.

Answer 4

It irritates me how many answering Christians seem to think that their God of their religion is the only source of morals. What about all of the other religions? each one has a very different idea of morality, even the bible has evolved over the years and has been adapted to the ever changing moral standards of the human race. 100 years ago it was a socially and morally acceptable thing for a girl 12-13 years old to be married BY THE CHURCH to a man up to and over twice her age. Now its considered statutory rape, pedophila and so on.. so if "God" instills these morals into us, then why do they keep changing? Why was it alright to let a 13 year old girl enter into a binding legal/religious ceremony and start having sex and children a few centuries ago, but now its not ok? Why was it ok to beat your wife under the law as long as the stick was no thicker than your thumb, but now its a crime? Its simply because morality does not come from any deity, it comes from us... as we mature and evolve socially, intellectually and philosophically so too do our moral standards evolve and mature to greater levels. It has nothing to do with gods of any kind but it has everything to do with human evolution....

Ps I know I didnt really answer your question but I had to put my two cents in for what its worth..

Answer 5

This may sound awful but everything I do is derived from within myself. I was taught right from wrong from my parents. I wasn't brought up in a religious household and my mother left faith entirely up to me. When I sought it, she spoke to me about it. Now I do believe in God, but assuming there is no God, I guess I would get my sense of morality from where I get it now... Myself.

I am not a religious person, nor do I live my life solely for the Lord and I guess that makes me a bad Christian. If I am faced with a moral situation, I analyze all potential outcomes. I ask myself if my actions are going to harm anyone around me or myself. I look at it from a legal standpoint, if applicable, and ascertain whether or not I wish to proceed. I can't think of any situation where I've ever asked myself "what would Jesus do?" or "will this please the Lord?"

That's just how I am... I still consider myself Christian, but I guess if anything, I could really be categorized as a skeptic....

Answer 6

There are several non-theistic ethical systems. Emotivism and Utilitarianism are two. The difficulty is establishing what might be called ethical or moral "facts" or moral statements that describe the inherent nature of actions or beliefs. Evolutionary ethicists have had a difficult time with this, often committing the formal fallacy G.E. Moore dubbed the Naturalistic Fallacy. Or they commit the "appeal to nature" informal fallacy or Hume's "is/ought" distinction. This is where the moral arguments of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris falter. To answer your question, I would be a utilitarian of the Peter Singer / Richard Rorty stripe. They are most consistent with their understanding of the way the world is composed.

Answer 7

The only answer would be logically, the mind. But the trick to that is how you would interpret things. Example you might see a group of guys beating up a weaker person and think, "Well, it's normal. Only the strong survive." Or in case you might think the opposite. Although I admit, I wouldn't really understand the logic of being nice when I can use force. So I think my morals would be more, for my own intentions and not not best for everybody else. I would be installing fear into them instead of compassion and love.

Answer 8

Many things I was taught as a Christian would not make for a very moral person. Luckily I realized what was being forced on me and I got away from it. Sure that isn't an answer to your question but I am pointing out the flaws in thought of others.


Edit: Apparently people can't answer hypothetical questions.

Answer 9

Morality is an issue that atheists and Christians alike use to impose judgment on each other.

Christianity is not about moral judgment. It is about the Adoration of God and the significance he plays in our lives.

Morals will always be a battleground of men. We can put a person on death row. I think that genuine Christians believe that God can put that same man in Heaven.

Answer 10

There is a universal moral code that most people are born with. The differences are derived from the interpretation of these moral codes. Its passed down through our genes. I've always assumed that God put those code in my genes, but I've always assumed he put everything else there as well. So my answer wouldn't change with the existence (or lack there of) of God. Morality is passed down through our genetics.