what is the purpose of having morals if God doesn't exist? no sarcasm please,I just want speculation and logic

Question

First of all, within the context of the question, i am agnostic

I mean, from an totally secularist, evolutionary point of view it is survival of the fittest and just that. What is the purpose of not lying, not stealing, not murdering if there is no higher power or higher purpose that one is trying to achieve. If our goal and ulitmate purpose in life is (speaking from a evolutionary perspective) to survive and reproduce, wouldnt such morals be obsolete and too utopian? If you really think about it, all morals are all in some way or another derived from religion (not implying that atheists dont have morals, dont get me wrong).

I would appreciate any imput, as long as it is thought out and not sarcastic or offensive.

for the context of the question, temporarily assume that God does not exist. this is debatable, but just leave it for now.

no bible quoting, pretend it doesnt exist either, just explain from a totally secularist point of view the important of morals

for the person that said that I dont rape because of a 6000 year old book, I told you i am agnostic, you fool

print ninja, your answer was pretty well thought out, but if you look one level outside of the context you describe, we see that questioning why, and wanting to meld into a social group is really still for the ultimate purpose of surviving and reproducing.

humans are weak compared to other animals, no denying that. however, when humans work together, they dominate all with their intelligence. isn't this a form of survival?
you say that humans question "why". they question "why" so they can acheive the most work with least energy. as in "why am I trying to catch an animal when I can eat plants". it can also be interpreted as survival instinct and ability to determine the best possible route for survival. I liked your answer, but it if you dig in deeper into it, it is still the same routine of surviving and reproducing

Answer 1

There is no point in trying to justify that God exist, to someone who has already made up his/her mind that He doesn't.

To explain about God does not need logic. It all comes from the heart and faith.

Answer 2

There would be no purpose. Doesn't it make sense that if there were no God, each human being would be living only for themselves? Other people would never matter except and only if they could serve a purpose for me.

Why would it be a problem to think this way? Why would we need a conscience? We have been told that it is a way for survival. Do animals have a conscience or do they do what they do out of just a way for the species to survive? Does a wolf care if he kills and eats a small child?

Why do we have a sense of right and wrong? Is it true that what Adam and Eve did, really did bring death, destruction, sin and the knowledge of good and evil into the world for mankind?

Did Jesus come to die for us and to forgive us because we do have this sense and we do commit evil deeds and we are a spiritual and physical creation?

I can not speak from a secularist point of view. I do not believe that way. I am not religious. I am a Christian.

Answer 3

First I have to say that I know there is a God.
Having said that I will answer the way that you want me to.
If there was no God, morals would still be worth having.
With out morals the world would be in worse shape than it is in. There would be more murders, stealing, rape, etc. Why would morals be obsolete just because we want to reproduce and survive? Morals make most people, not all, think before they act. Morals are derived from peoples conscious. But then that takes you back to religion doesn't. Well it's a good thing that there is a God then, isn't it.

Answer 4

That's an interesting hypothetical. I like it. I think that we would have many of the morals that we now have.

If we were actually just a highly developed animal in the animal kingdom, we'd probably be like the apes or a wolf pack - there would be some system for finding a "pecking order" , etc, The group would instinctively know to protect the weak in the group, and if a leader decided to go all Saddam on the weaker ones, he'd get eaten. Wolves respect and obey their leader, but the leader is also the hardest worker and would die in a fight before allowing the pack to be hurt. I think things would be alot less politically correct - note that male elephants will kill a male who won't be broken of the habit of trying to "mount" other males.....

Answer 5

Perhaps the morals come from hoping that others will have morals as well. You cannot very well survive and reproduce to your full capacity if you have to worry about being killed by anyone who happens to be around you. Furthermore, you cannot prosper in today's materialistic world if you must worry about others stealing from you or screwing you over in anyway.

People with morals hope that others have morals as well so that life will be more harmonious, and everyone can concentrate on their own survival and personal happiness without having to worry that someone else is going to screw it up.

A complete lack of morals would result in a chaotic society until finally there would be only chaos and no society. I don't think the survival and reproduction rates would be very high then.

Answer 6

It will be interesting to see how others answer this. I would say that assuming there is no God, mankind has found over the centuries that morals have helped them be more successful as a group of people, so the pressure to conform to social mores is strong.

The problem with this argument is that most laws of most countries are based on religious principles. Whether you are in Iraq, China or the US, the laws of each land are based on religion. Since these laws are primarily based on religious rules and the worlds religions claim that the laws were receive from a supreme being, it would then revert to the argument that there really is a God and that at some point in our past, he/she did bestow commandments or requirements on us that have simply morphed over the centuries into the various religions we have today.

Just a thought.

Answer 7

"all morals are all in some way or another derived from religion"

Morals were around a long time before religion. Religion often includes moral lessons, but this in no way means morals were derived from religion.

Life's sole purpose is to survive and reproduce - yes. It does this unconsciously. Morality is subjective, but it does serve a purpose. We often think that we are the only animals that can possess morality, but recent observations of close-related primates show that chimps and bonobos show both altruism and ruthless genocide (just chimps on the latter). Morality serves a great function, since we are social animals. It is beneficial to the entire group. If everyone went around murdering, do you think our species would survive? Societal pressures are a major factor in everyone's morality, even if you like to attribute yours to some supernatural power.

Our ultimate goal unconsciously is to reproduce and survive, but since we are conscious in more ways than other animals, we can create our own purposes in life.

Answer 8

If God were to not exist and man were the outcome of chance, then there could be no purpose for mortals because purpose implies that there is a plan and a plan requires a planner. In that case, the only inherent ethic man need live by would be to do whatever is necessary to live a pleasing life. Now in order for every man to have this opportunity, laws would have to be created and man would thus have to live by those laws to avoid consequences, so you would end up with the exact same system that one would have if there were a God, but the basic elements would be vastly different.

Answer 9

If people didn't have some kind of "code of conduct" -be they morals, ethics , principles, whatever -total anarchy would exist. The religions (any & ALL of them), have contributed MIGHTLY to the "layering" of their "codes" upon the peoples they've influenced. Whether God "exists" or not, those "codes" (however arbitrary they may BE- in some cases) serve the positive purpose of "containing" us within a value system of (semi-)equality (as opposed to your "survival of the fittest"- where it would be acceptable for the Strong to beat up on the weak). The naturally "shifting sands" of morality should NEVER be the "be all & end all"- of ones value system. But you don't necessarily need a God- to have morals. By merely believing in your SELF, you can establish a personal "code of conduct" that serves pretty much the SAME end (complete with morals, ethics- etc.) as being a part of collective religion might. Of course MOST of us are not NEARLY that "secure" within ourselves to live WITHOUT a religious "umbrella". -But whether you believe in "God" or NOT, you're STILL going to have morals of SOME KIND- just so that you can still relate to everybody ELSE! :)

Answer 10

I am an agnostic.

I think morals exist to aid survival - either directly or indirectly.

Not murdering is an obvious one - if we all killed each other, there would be no people.

Not stealing is also related to survival. There is a limited amount of resources, and everyone needs a certain amount of resources to survive (food & shelter, etc.). Nobody deserves more than they earn, and stealing stuff is taking things that you have not earned. To have something, you need to work for it. People who work hard survive, those who don't perish. People who work hard create rules to save what they've earned. This way they will survive.

People who don't abide by these societal rules are punished in one way or another by society. Taking more than one earns (stealing) will land a person in prison. Killing another person will often result in the killer's execution.

Morals are basically rules of survival.

Answer 11

For humans, it's no longer strictly "survival of the fittest." Our goals have expanded beyond simply "surviving and reproducing." Emotions have intervened and freed us from pure stimulus/response behavior. Ask yourself, what separates us from the animals?

Our ability to ask "why?"

Our desire to understand and to be understood.

Our wanting to be more than what we are, and subsequently, wanting that for those around us.

These efforts are greatly enhanced when members of a group cooperate with each other. That's not to say that competition is bad, but there is a healthy balance. Our intelligence and compassion has taught us how to channel aggression and competitive instincts into (mostly) non-violent pursuits.

Then there is reciprocity. This has zero to do with religion. It simply says I help you when you are helpless with the understanding that you will help me when I am helpless. It's a win-win scenario. In the wild, for the most part, it's win-lose, or lose-lose.

Of course, we are only a fraction of a second away from behaving immorally, unethically, and selfishly, but the bottom line is that in the grand scheme, there is more to be gained from being nice to each other than in hurting each other.