Challenge to Athiests regarding what is moral:?

Question

How do you define concretely what is moral & what is immoral? I don't mean you as an individual, what I mean is: Is it possible to define concretely a set of morals to be used and applicable to society as a whole?

In saying that, what exactly assures you that your own view of what is moral is correct? Personally I think it is wrong to rape babies, but I'm sure somewhere in the world there is someone who thinks that it is perfectly fine. So between he and I, who decides (hypothetically) who has the moral view? People have different ideas and expectations on what is right & wrong.

Morality cant rest with what is currently popular or agreed to by the majority. Eg: There are white people who in 1930's Germany thought it was ok to exterminate the Jews- a view which I am sure many of them would be ashamed of now. I won't even touch the slavery issue.

So, is there any way to define objectively what exactly is moral without bringing religion and God into it? This is the challenge.

Note: Everyone seems to be missing the point. How is it possible to apply a set of moral codes to all of society? Who defines what is the right set of moral standards in a society? It cannot come down to majority, as I pointed out above.

Answer 1

I think it's difficult not to bring a religion into a argument about morality.

Atheists denounce the belief in god and god having power over them, but the core ideals of morality and virtue comes directly from religion. Shouldn't kill, shouldn't steal, shouldn't rape - They are all from the basic ideas of religious law.

As for a concrete definition, it's not possible. Morality, as you pointed out, is forever changing. Morality is an abstract idea, one that is constant to change. You just can't make it concrete, because the moment you do, it'll be challenged by debate.

Answer 2

Any one who would think Raping babies is ok, has something psychologically wrong with them.

Right and wrong is not that hard to define on most occasions. Killing senselessly is immoral. Executing a murderer is something I view as moral, because you are stopping them from killing further innocence.
Rape is immoral. It hurts and traumatizes people.
Slavery is immoral. It is harm full, and oppressive. Though if you want to bring religion onto it, the bible says that it is ok. Siting that "a Slave must obey their master as they would obey Jesus".
Popularity of a belief also does not make something right. What happened in Germany was most certainly a horrible thing. Which is why much of the world stood up and fought against it.

Between you and the baby raper, you have the moral view. Because harming another is wrong. Raping a baby is most certainly harmfull, and most possibly deadly to the child.

How do objectively define what is moral and not... Well. It is not moral to bring harm against another person physically, emotionally, or mentally, unless they have brought extensive harm or death to another.
Stealing is of course, not wrong because it is harmfull to a persons financial position, which can lead to the downfall of the individual.
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And to lenmac71
Is it moral for a brother and sister to live together as husband and wife? I do not see why not. As long as they do not produce children. The children will most likly suffer from any number of deformities or other problems. That is causing harm, and that is not moral.
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Lenmac71, Blackathiest said it was wrong becuase they would be emotionally harming them selves in the event of a child. This I agree with. Which is why I stated that they should not have children. No children, means that they will not be harming them selves emotionally, or the child. I think that if indiciduals are going to form an incestious reltionship, then the man should have a vascectomy, and the woman should have her tubes tied, which would halt the problem of having children. Should only the man have a vasectomy, then they could get a semen donor, and still raise a child that was related to them. SO! If you REALLY paid attention to what we were saying, you would have realized that we agreed on it, we just said it differently.

Answer 3

Why would you want to decide what is or is not moral for EVERYONE, why not let those that commit the moral or immoral acts decide for themselves, then if their decision is opposite of yours, and it affected your life, then you retaliate if you need to, such as, if your child was the object of someones thinking that it was ok to include said child in their sex life, and did so, and you disagreed, due to your idea of right vs. wrong, you punish that person for causing your child harm. This is a case where no one is going to argue that it is morally ok to have sex with children, morals that you would find disputed would be as an example, letting a 16 year old drink alcohol, or allowing them to do things that SOCIETY has deemed improper for anyone under a certain age to be allowed to do. and finally, what you are asking is there any way to decide what is moral without the bible, not god, the bible is a very good book of rules society is based on, but even in the 30's people knew killing in the name of religion was wrong, just as they know it today, but it still does not keep people from doing it.

Answer 4

Ethics - a term I prefer because morality is too tied to religious thinking - is not an absolute science, nor could it be. One could try to say something is ethical if it does no harm to others - but nearly everything we do can be seen as harming someone somewhere. Eating breakfast, for example, means someone somewhere else can't eat that food, and might starve - should you feel bad? The question becomes, where does one draw the line?

Obviously, acting ethically requires constant thought and reflection - which is why religion offers the lazy person's route that requires only following rules, thinking no more than a dog following its master's commands. Of course, this is also why good people - the average German soldier of the 1930's, the Southerners during slavery - are easily convinced to do horrid things.

Answer 5

I don't see that bringing religion and God into the issue helps at all - you're still left with "who decides who has the moral view". In fact, even if there really were a God who appeared and laid out a set of morals, we'd be left with the question of what makes those things moral.

I certainly agree with you that morality is not defined by what a majority holds to be moral and immoral. Even if everyone on Earth thought that killing was just fine, it'd still be wrong (and of course even if there were a God and he thought that killing was just fine, it'd still be wrong, to refer back to the previous paragraph).

Answer 6

Morals will always change throughout history. The only way to prevent a society from moving in a direction of "evil" morals (say Naziism) is to constantly place our morals in question. There should never be a belief in Absolute Morals because they become above question. If people constantly question the morality or their and the rest of society's actions, we will not have a problem.

Unfortunately most societies like to place morals on an alter and any question of them is viewed as anti-social.

Answer 7

The same way you do - with your own moral instincts. We have bodies of law to settle the possible differences that would actually impact others.

Christians - Oh yes you do. You follow only a few rules in the Bible, and some that aren't found there at all. The way you pick and choose shows that you have your own moral code and decide what in the Bible is true moral teaching.

If you actually followed the Bible, you would believe that slavery is OK, clothes of blended fabrics are evil, and that the proper way to deal with someone who raped your daughter is to make him buy her from you as a wife.

Answer 8

Morality comes from principles like the Golden Rule and social contract theory. It is largely subjective and entirely inconsistent across both space and time. And that is the same for both theistic and atheistic morality. The only difference is that we atheists don't set out our morals as a list of rules and expect people to follow them thousands of years later when those rules no longer reflect the values of society.

Answer 9

I do not believe you can.
One set of morals for an entire society is not possible.
Laws can be passed to decide what is acceptable, but that is why their must be punishments in place; some will disagree and violate the laws.
There is no set of moral rules which will be universally accepted.
The best you can hope for is a set of laws which will be enforced within each society.
Unfortunately, you can not separate morality, law, and religion; the laws of each society in this world are very close to the religious moral beliefs of the dominant religion in that society.
Generally these laws do follow that religion, the variances can easily be attributed to the minor influence of other religions allowed in that society.

Answer 10

Morals arise out of modern sensibilities and the feelings of pity, sympathy, empathy (etc) that we have hard-wired into our brains.

Religious people do not even get their morals from religion (even if they claim to) otherwise they would be stoning every woman who is not a virgin on their wedding night.

Looks at Scandinavian countries as another proof that religion does not mean morality. Scandinavians are probably the most atheistic people on Earth and their crime rate is nothing compared to the religious USA's. This does not prove atheism causes morality but it does prove that religion is not a source of morality.

Laws, empathy, rational argument, natural selection, these things drive our morals. Not old books written by crazy fools.