Athiests, whats the point of having morales....?

Question

If you have no higher power to make you account for anything you've done?

....I mean, if I'm just gonna be a dead pile of skin when I die and my spirit won't live on and I have nobody to really punish me....why would I care if I went out and killed someone?? Maybe the law would send me to jail but....jail is the worst punishment I could ever face besides the possible (but unlikeyl) death sentence.

Why should a man even feel bad for going out and raping your children? If he gets away with it whats wrong with that? There's nothing that makes it wrong becides laws that human beings have created.

Where do you think out emotions come from?? How can humans be such complicated beings with deep emotion and thought without being designed by a creator?

Deep inside you, you know when something is wrong. But who's to say it is?

What's the point of us even being here?

What you're saying means we were an accident, you and I are just pointess beings...

I just don't understand.

No, religous morales don't create a conscience. But what does exactly??? Do you think human emotions and a conscience just somehow popped up there??

This is ridiculous.

Answer 1

Religion aside, as a human being who has felt pain and suffering I know that i would not want to inflict pain and suffering on another human being.

Its a matter of personal responsibility and personal accountability that guide us in life.

In my humble opinion.

Answer 2

Agreeing with Emily, I think that consciousness is a product of evolution as a way of acquiring more resources.

In regards to atheism, I think that the "creator" is created by the creation also as a product of evolution. With consciousness comes introspection and questions of why people die or what one's purpose is in life. The creator is made in the image of the creation which is why there are so many various religions and deities. Therefore the belief or disbelief in a deity is a personal and subjective experience.
I wonder if there is any research on the percentage of inmates who were "god-fearing" before they committed a crime against humanity. I highly doubt that all of the people incarcerated are atheists or that all atheists are or will one day be in jail.

The bottom line is people knew the difference between right and wrong long before written history and even before the Ten commandments so just because someone doesn't believe in a higher being doesn't make them a bad person. Please do not ignore all of the accusations against priests who have molested children, nothing separates them from the pervert down the street who does the same thing. We are all subjected to the human condition.

If you have a belief that works for you then live with that, but if the Da Vinci Code taught us anything its that we should learn to think outside of this world that was created before us. Keep asking questions.

Answer 3

Religious morales don't create a conscious.

Edit:

The first instinct of a species is to survive and procreate. If a person was trying to kill another of it's species, it wouldn't go down too well with the other humans.

People are built with conscious. Almost if like a peer pressure group. The different tribes of people all had different concepts of what was right and what was wrong, but keep similar basics such as murder or stealing or acts that undermined their well-being. Other acts thought to be wrong within the community were punished and differed throughout.

Answer 4

Your entire, very lengthy question is what is ridiculous. Are you saying that if a person does not believe in your God, they can commit heinous crimes without the consequence of guilt, remorse or self recrimination? I don't know what kind of atheist you know, but I am one and I couldn't do that. What keeps me from killing another human being is my believe that killing another human being is wrong. The thought that this person is loved and needed by someone keeps me from harming them.

Look, sugar, I didn't even spank my kids because it made me feel bad. They were disciplined, just not physically. Have you ever met a Buddhist monk or nun? They don't believe in your God but they are some of the most peaceful, respectful people on the planet. Many others live on this planet who do not believe in your God, do not believe in an afterlife, who are nonetheless, ethical, kind and moral people.

You sound really young to me. I think you should shut up and listen to your elders. Ask questions when you are 30, maybe then you'll make some sense.

Answer 5

Life, the word, is our description for not knowing. Only thing missing is the face.

Automatically we are social animals, no more so than any other cast on this planet. The difference being, we really are in our minds the only self thinking being, we teach calm as we teach to kill.

Would it make life different, if you were a self thinking ball of snot, probably not. Life seems to be melting pot, a chemical reaction that made our reality.

My thoughts on green as a color are taught, it may not be the same you know.

As life is a word so is athiest, christian, muslim, bhuddist, or hindu, being aware is the most important and if like the meerkats it helps to hold order, then for those who need names or ideas to justify the order, will do so even at the cost of entering some on else's property (mind set) to push the untested idea into belief, then it becomes control out of a form of shear superstition to then be deemed the truth, then finally a form of law in which you and I have to comply with, sometimes without choice.

Life is scarey when you start asking questions only to find there is no one to answer, or because they were thinking, when were they going to get laid next, or what shall I gorge myself on tonight, without any reflection on what they are, or of their whereabouts.

Humans as a rule, are herd animals that follow and only occasionally does a real alpha appear.

This brings me to the next and final part of the conundrum started. I was to answer a part of your question, as will others, some moronic, some quite astute, but mostly I feel, those with closed and sheltered minds, will play a large part in your quest for the answer.

When you have finished grazing in that field, I am sure you'll start discovering there are a lot of things you can do, mostly because, you thought of it first.

Answer 6

A higher power does not necessarily mean a god. You make seek to answer to a god, but it is enough for me to answer to myself, and to society as a whole.

Emotions are part of our self-awareness.

A creator is not necessary as we change without intent or conscious effort. I don't think to myself, well, this constant walking makes my feet hurt, I should build up a callous to protect myself from pain. We change like this, and on a much more complicated level.

And also, we don't all have "deep emotion". Ever wonder why severely handicapped people don't typically express as wide a range of emotion as your standard functioning person? Emotion comes with intelligence, and I needn't tell you that intelligence is what sets us apart from other animals.

As to the feeling of wrong, do you ever wonder why different cultures interpret different things as being wrong? There are cultures, the one I live in as example, in which people constantly touch each other, and this human contact is viewed as reassuring, as loving. Many cultures in Asia do not view the showing of emotion or the touching of others to be normal, or reassuring. What feels like an expression of love to one person may feel inherently wrong to another. What we view as inherent is not necessarily so. Serial murderers are not "broken" people, they aren't missing some large chuck of brain matter, they just kill without regret.

Prior to the Renaissance in Europe, more people died from murder than from accidents, there just wasn't the moral code that exists in today's society.

Genocides are committed by normal people, caught up in what is often mob mentality, they kill because others are doing it, and it is therefore okay. Rwanda and the Holocaust are excellent examples as to how average people can murder their neighbors with only a spark of hatred and the power of the mob.

I believe I am unimportant, that my life is pointless, and my existence inconsequential, as are the lives and existences of everyone else, and that is a relief. If it doesn't matter what I do with my life, I needn't devote my life to the end of poverty. It doesn't really matter if I accidentally kill someone, and I am not obligated to perform in any particular way. My life lacks meaning, and therefore I am free of the demands a predetermined meaning would place upon it.

I can live for me, and that is fine.

Answer 7

Buddhists, Taoists and Confucians all follow paths laid out by wise men, not Prophets. You might say those three are "Non-prophet" religions. By some standards, the followers of all three are atheists.

Here are 3500 words on the morality of atheism, if you are interested.
http://www.stanuu.org/atheist.html

I don't expect you to believe it. If you read at the 10th grade level or better, however, you can understand it. (The author is a Unitarian Universalist with a master's degree. It isn't as simple as a supermarket tabloid or an article in "Watch Tower")

You don't have to believe something to understand it. I read history. I understand, but don't believe in, the basics of fascism, communism, constitutional monarchy and socialism.

Answer 8

those questions are greater greater healthful to be thrown at an anarchist, or a nihilist... An atheist would not unavoidably have not got any values. i will respond to your questions as an (atheist) nihilist, regardless: the factor of having regulations in a community... Oh, there somewhat isn't any factor. Chaos is a innovations set? what form of question is this? Why don't greater societies prepare lawlessness? with the aid of fact it relatively is as much as the gov't to enforce regulations, no longer the sheeple. How might i be conscious of if we prepare lawlessness in spite of if there may be much less selfishness? Murderers shouldn't bypass to penal complex; penal complex's concept itself is ridiculous sufficient. there isn't any such element as sturdy / undesirable. purely reason & effect.

Answer 9

Morals are not the hole domain of the so called Christians , Look at Hitler he was a christian and what happened to his morals ? , a plain atheist can have a very high standard morals . Morals are the acceptable behaviors by which to live with decency and respect in society , and should have very Little to do , if one believes in God or not , this is a personal attitude towards the spiritual .

Answer 10

That's why we try to make the most of life while it lasts. You don't think there's anything wrong with a rapist's actions, unless a judge declares there is? I have my own set of morals to abide by, and I have faith in myself to tell wrong from right.

I don't think you or I are pointless beings...far from it, in fact. However, I have more motivation to live than looking forward to heaven.