Atheists, What do you use as a moral compass?

Question

As a Christian I rely on God and what I believe to be his devine word. What guides your concience?

Answer 1

So Berry do you call him up and say hey what do you think.

Answer 2

I'm saddened that you think you rely on god for your morals... would that mean to you that if you no longer believed in one, you'd be out killing and robbing, and raping? Hmmmm. How sad for you. Because the bible, and the god of the bible shows one really bad dude, if you have ever read it... Let me give you a few examples:

How about Judges 11. Jephthah, promised god that if he won over his enemies, he would sacrifice the first thing that walked thru his door. He won, and guess what? His daughter became cooked as a burnt sacrifice.... Now why did she get cooked, and Abraham's son get saved? Was he not willing to save a mere female?

Or how about Numbers 13:18.

And you must realize that the 10 commandments were meant for jews only... If you were a member of the Tribe of Israel, it was okay to screw a non-jewish woman, or to kill a non- jew, or to covet a non-jew's *** or goat, wife or whatever.

There is about no way that morality is thought good by what one reads in the bible.... In fact the god in the bible is one nasty dude -- worship anything or any other god, and you will burn forever.... but he loves you???

I hope the rest of this is not too deep for you: I apologize if it is......

1. We are good toward others because we have a genetic kinship with them... in our past, we lived is small communities... it was to our benefit to work together, not against one another.. we are rather preprogrammed to be essentially good and loveing... maybe that is why all women think all babies are beautiful, even if they are white, and the baby is Asian or black, or Indian. And we adopt them, and treat them as if we birthed them.....
2. If you do favors for others, likely that they will do favors for you.
3. If you are generous with your time and your efforts toward, others, it is an open secret that you can be a trusted person, and that in the end will benefit you... One can never have too many friends, and to be friendly and helpful is not faking your concern.... people tend to then help you and are friendly toward you...
Being moral, hon, has nothing to do with belief in sky daddies, and a hope of eternal life. It has to do with being an asset in your community.... I am good, and helpful, and generous with my time and my efforts because it pleases me to think that I am helping others

Answer 3

Why do Christians keep asking this like its some grand mystery?

Its very simple "If I hurt someone, they will hurt me or someone I care about". Thats not a "moral compass", its a simple fact that doesn't take much brains to figure out.

Its only Christians that would go on a murderous rampage without words from their 2000 year old book written by sheepherders.

Answer 4

Truthfully, I still use the Wiccan Rede as my moral compass.

An it harm none, do as ye will.

It falls right in line with everything else I believe, even if I'm not longer part of Wicca.

Answer 5

I have a conscience. It does me well. Some people don't do that well and we have killers and rapists, but then we have christians who relied on the word of god and have killed people by the untold millions. Some people listen to god's word, Son of Sam did and he was told to go out and kill people. Why not. Pope pius the 6th believed in god's word and supported Hitler since he was doing what many of his predecessors had tried to do, kill anyone not saying their prayers in latin. What you have to determine is, is that really god's word or is it the word of people who want you to think that it is, but it really isn't.

Answer 6

I am not going to ram it down your throat but if you are interested read up on "Emergent behavior" in Zoology(I cant spell it T-T) and I think you can get a bases, of why I believe we have morals.

Why do spiders build webs? birds sing songs?

Even ants actually have morals in a manner. There is however one thing I do believe in I was taught through Christianity:

-Treat others how you would like them to treat you.

Regardless of faith, I think its profound.

Answer 7

Why do you call your god 'good' then? If she makes the rules, then surely it makes no sense to judge her by those rules, since they don't apply.


If you think your god is good, then you are saying that morals are independent of your god. This is more likely the correct view.



See, I don't get my morals from a religion, and (despite what you might think) neither do you. This is why people outside of Christendom don't run around murdering people and stealing everything they can.

Answer 8

Then, by all means, keep believing in your god. I do not want you running around murdering, stealing and disregarding traffic ordinances because you don't know it is wrong to do so without you fairy tales.

As for me, I know those things are wrong and I don't do them because I am a logical thinking human being!

And now for a nice refreshing libation!

Answer 9

My compass: Will my actions hurt another human being? If the answer is yes, dont do it. If the answer is no, then consider the action...

Glad I dont live next door to someone that needs a book to tell them not to hurt others... Geez, I thought that was common sense...

Answer 10

The Moral necessity of atheism,see Christopher Hitchens on this.

Answer 11

Knowing right from wrong. Knowing that there are city,state and federal laws that are to be obeyed by all Americans.

A person can be a good person even if they do not believe in god.