How Can Atheist Believe In Good or Evil?

Question

If there is no God and he has no edicts than what happens when two Atheist get into a moral argument i.e. "stealing is wrong". How do they determine who is Right and Wrong if there is no God? Do Atheist believe in right and wrong?

To just say that hurting others is wrong is an incredibly broad statement. When you drive your car that pollutes or tell your mother to buzz off you are hurting people. What do you do when you hurt people? If it is "wrong" to "hurt people" than wouldn't an individual have to live in a box to stop hurting people? Does this mean that Atheist believe in solitude? What about if I believe as an Atheist that killing an unborn child is wrong but another atheist is fine with it? Who is right?
Also, How can some of you say that there is no absolute truth in morals or ethics when THAT statement is an absolute truth? Is morality relative?

Brent Y - If nothing is absolute does that mean that your statement is not absolute?

Answer 1

I hope so if it's a straight athiest.

Answer 2

Yes atheists believe in right and wrong.

Harming others is wrong.

Period.

True ethics are objectively-based; not based on "entity says so."

Yes, I think stealing is wrong.

I know that I don't want my stuff stolen, and what a harm that can be.

Since I don't want to be a horrible person who hurts others, I don't steal, beat people up (which I don't want to anyway, but say I did), and so on.

I understand that to live in a society, one must respect the rights and needs of others.

So I don't push the person with the walker out of the way to get on the bus, I wait.

This is how civilized people behave.

I don't need a Sky Daddy to tell me these things, or threaten me with eternal torment; I am this way because it's right.

Evil I don't know about, because of it's religious connotations -- though I use the word, sometimes for extreme wrongness, other times trivially ("It was EVIL of you to call 'gin' when I have so many points in my hand!")

I don't think there's a force or entity that is evilness, that evil is a thing.

But right and wrong, good and harm, hurting, leaving be, or helping -- these are all real concepts to me.

Answer 3

Atheist believe in good and bad, whereas the theists believes in good and evil. The theists gets their ethical guidelines from the bible (or whatever religious text guides their religion) and the atheists gets their ethical guidelines from a little thing I like to call "common sense". The religious person usually believes it is wrong to kill because it says so in the bible. The atheist believes it is wrong to kill somone because if somebody was to either try to kill them or somone they cared about, then the atheist would probably not like this. This is what the atheists would refer to as bad and the theists would refer to it as evil. The word evil has a religious connotation attached to it, so atheist will more likely use the term bad over evil.
In regards to your question about the two debating atheist aruing over if stealing is wrong or not, I give you this: All you have to use is reason. There might be some instances where stealing is right, although few. People who are religious are usually stuck in absolutes...meaning killing is wrong all the time, stealing is wrong all the time, lying is wrong all the time, etc. I bet anyone can think of moments when killing woudn't be wrong....say in order to save your child's life from a homacidal maniac about to cut the childs throat and you have a gun at his head. Killing is right in this instance. The atheist will look at things a little more subjectively and take situation by situation.
P.S. People had ethics before God.

Answer 4

Since you haven't defined either "good" or "evil," I can't answer that question, since I don't know what you're asking about.

As for the rest: It's not a matter of belief.

I know the difference between right and wrong. I figured it out when I was about eight years old, just like you did. Everybody does that, it's easy. Right is what harms nobody; wrong is what harms somebody. See? No god and no religion required.

I notice that you're asking how to determine _who_ is right or wrong, rather than _what_ is right or wrong. Do you think right/wrong depends entirely on somebody's subjective judgement? and if so, then how do you pick the person who gets to make the call? Would it be the person with the most respect? the most power? the one that everybody is scared of? The results would be interesting, to say the least.

Answer 5

Even a toddler knows when he/she is treated wrongfully,and at 10 months you don't have any conception of a deity. The capacity for moral logic is intrinsic and biological. The area of the brain that governs it is called - I believe - the basal ganglia or something like that. In any event,it's located just above the brain stem. If it is removed or damaged,capacity for recognising distinctions between right and wrong is impaired or destroyed. Most serial killers have a highly deteriorated basal ganglia. (Can anyone else help me out here? What is the name of that section of the brain? Anyone out there with a better background in biology?) In any event,today when youngsters exhibit sociopathic tendencies - particularly cruelty to animals - the first thing a therapist does is schedule a CAT scan for possible damage to this region of the brain. Moral capacities are therefore innate. Religious moral systems are designed to establish a kind of inner police,which can be effective,since actual police can't be everywhere. But recognition of wrongdoing presupposes awareness that one is transgressing; otherwise the concept of sin would have no meaning - and the deist would have to regard an atheist or other non-deist as fundamentally innocent if not indeeed free of sin.

Answer 6

Yes. Atheists don't look to a higher power for moral guidance, instead they rely on their personal ideas of right and wrong. Assuming an atheist will only do bad things because they don't believe in God is like saying a Christian will only do good things because they do believe in God.

Answer 7

Yeah, If you steal from me it is wrong!
This is not relative morality because it is still wrong even if you are a relative.

Atheism is not always about pragmatics. In a lot of cases might makes right is a valid concept. Morality is not especially noted among the religious either.

Answer 8

Nothing is absolute. Believers just like to pretend it is.

Take stealing. Churches get tax exemptions, which means they are stealing the portion of government services paid for by atheist tax dollars. Isn't that stealing? Have you ever taken a paper clip without asking - stealing?

Our military is currently murdering citizens in another country who have never even been to the US, much less done anything worthy of execution. Why isn't our president in jail for ordering those murders?

Answer 9

Just because some one doesn't believe in the existance of God, or other supreme being does not mean that they lack a moral compas. It also doesn't mean that they don't believe in anything. and weather athiest or religous I think we can all say that stealing is wrong. You are depriving some one of something they eithe worked to have or... could have sold to support thier lively hood.

Answer 10

Of course atheists can tell the difference between right and wrong. We just don't need a book or a god to tell us so. Common sense will tell you that the world wouldn't work if everyone stole things - hence, stealing is wrong.

Look at http://atheism.about.com and learn about it.

And the golden rule covers morality issues for atheists. We don't belive in good or evil, just bad decisions that work against you/society and good decisions that work for you/society. We don't belive in sin, but think of it as being punished BY your sins rather than FOR your sins.

Answer 11

I'm a Christian, but I must defend the Atheists on this question. Just because they do not believe in God does not make them immoral. They have families and are law abiding, tax paying citizens just like the rest of us, they just have a different belief system.

Your question puts a bad light on the rest of us Christians and I personally resent it. Your question is in very poor taste!