Had atheism come first and remained that way until today, where would morals come from? surely, you must get your morals from us Judeao-Christians. yeah i know it is a difficult question, even for you atheist, but i would really like to know...please? and why? please tell me why...
2007-08-20 13:50:13 · 33 answers · asked by houc3672 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
but were morals not determined by the poeples BELIEF system. i mean what they believed in, their god, other deity or whatever.
2007-08-20 14:18:17 · update #1
Morals would come from people. Without religion or without ever having religion, people still know what is right. What do you mean, a difficult question? And what do you mean that there were no morals before judeo-christians?
2007-08-20 13:53:58 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 11⤊ 2⤋
You have hit the nail on the head.
This is perhaps the most important aspect of all religions: giving us instructions on how we should live and treat others.
These instructions or laws are usually backed up with "Divine" punishments and rewards.
The question that faces anyone who can't swallow the God myths is how am I to determine right from wrong, good from bad.
It seems so simple for believers. But what if I am not a believer then what system is there to follow, do I have to reinvent an entire moral system?
No, I do not think so. You are free to use all the moral value systems - in whole or part.
Does a person really need to be threatened with the fires of Hell to know that it is wrong to make people suffer needlessly; that it is wrong to be dishonest? That it is wrong to be so greedy and self interested that you steal and betray others?
There are natural laws of life that show that bad actions and bad thoughts lead to an unhappy life, often just plain common sense.
2007-08-28 12:19:26 · answer #2 · answered by smkeller 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well...what about the countries that are NOT Judeo-Christian? Like...India, Japan, and all them? THEY have laws and morals that are quite the same as the Judeo-Christian rules (such as...don't kill people, Adultery is wrong, etc.) So...how does THAT happen if any Judeo-Christian religion is a minimal? (Except for Islam in India) So..does that answer your 'difficult' answer, or just give you something to chew on? I hope it is the latter, so you can answer it for me. I'd like to know how the Judeo-Christian 'morals' come to non-Judeo-Christian places. Also, morals are dictated by the society. I'm an Atheist/Agnostic/Whatever, and I have more morals than most of the Christians at my school. Who all say that they're all 'God-loving Christians' and what not....
2007-08-20 13:58:42 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
It's more complicated than that. We've had 30,000 years of evolving civilization. Our concepts of right and wrong, of morality, have evolved at the same time. Out morality isn't based on judeao-christian ideas. It's the other way around.
2007-08-20 14:09:00 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
Atheism did come first. Animals have no concept or belief in higher spiritual powers, and have no religion. We evolved from animals. Only when we became capable of higher order thinking did it become possible to examine the world and form religious beliefs based on those observations. As religions evolve as well, their teachings become closer to observed truth, and former beliefs are modified to fit the facts.
Morals and ethics evolve as a system for dealing nondestructively and constructively with other members of the community, and the environment. Religions as institutions codify and enforce those systems, to allow teaching established successful interpretations of the way things work. Without such institutions, each person would have to work out a code of ethics in each generation by themselves, with no history of what works to fall back on and use as a reference. So, strictly speaking from a morals and ethical tradition point of view, religions are indispensible. One may include, in this model, government and school institutions in the overarching rubrick of "religion", since it is in belief in the importance or sanctity of the traditions of these institutions that their effectiveness lays. Once could say the entire culture, therefore, is a religion, containing acceptable codes of conduct and generally accepted beliefs.
2007-08-28 08:02:02 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
People had morals long before you Judeao-Christians came along. Morals are based on common sense, emapthy for our fellow human beings, and intelligence. They are not based on a book. The (good) morals from your book are based on the common sense morals that have been around since the beginning of time.
If "morals" only came from your religion and your book, then we would consider it moral to kill everyone who didn't follow your beliefs, kill children for disobeying their parents, kill people for working on the Sabbath, own slaves, beat slaves (as long as you don't kill them-you can only kill them if they try to run away) and a whole host of other atrocities that were not only OK in the Bible, but encouraged.
2007-08-20 13:59:36 · answer #6 · answered by Jess H 7 · 4⤊ 1⤋
I am a consecrated Christian. But I do not accdept the theory that all the moral standards came from Jewish and Christian teachings alone.
In india we had many old writings regarding the moral aspect of life.
But monotheism and a God that is not an idol is from Jewish tradition.
2007-08-27 21:57:40 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
how pretentious of you to believe that there were no morals before christianity. ever heard of the code of hammurabi? not jewish or christian, yet most of the modern laws are based on it. granted, religion has had a large impact on law, but look around. the basic tenets of self-conduct are similar, if not exactly the same. also pretentious of you to condescend to non-christians, as if they are less intelligent than you.(even for you atheists...) not a difficult question at all, if you know that there was life before religion.
2007-08-26 04:16:10 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Morals are inherent. A human being knows right from wrong, it's that easy. It's something that you just...know.
Not to mention, Pagans had morals long before Christianity existed. 6000-8000 years before Christianity, that's a long time. Christianity is a young religion, and not the one that started teaching morals.
It would stand that Christianity got morals from older religions like Paganism, and that the older religions got their morals from thinking human beings. Religions is made from humans, so you get morals from humans before religion.
So no, I don't think Christianity started morals at all. Morals are ancient. Morals are not learned from religion, but originally from people before there was any type of religion. So no, morals come from people. Religion is much younger than morals.
2007-08-20 13:57:18 · answer #9 · answered by mathaowny 6 · 8⤊ 1⤋
Did it ever occur to you that the morals were about the same in Egypt as they are in your faith. How about the tribes that have been found that were primitive that never heard of your religion?
The fact that morals are roughly the same no matter rather they heard of your particular religion or not is solid proof that they don't come from your myth.
2007-08-20 14:02:42 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Wow great question! and as an Atheist I just had to answer, its quite simple really... (Thinking back to all the times religious people avoided the question, chance to imploy the same tactics)
...Judeao-Christians sounds like some kind of kung-fu religious people. LOL!!!
2007-08-20 14:02:57 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋