if atheists are immoral because they don't believe in a god...?

Question

wouldn't that mean everyone else who doesn't believe in your god is also immoral? since they are receiving their morality from what you would call a false god, you couldn't very well argue that they are any more moral than atheist since the claim is that morality only comes from your god.

nina, i'll tell you why i care. it's a common misconception that those who don't believe in god are somehow less moral than those who do. it's such a big misconception that it's a large influence in elections. doesn't that bother you that so many people are convinced of such an outrageous lie in this day and age? certainly you would be bothered if people still thought women were less intelligent than men, simply because they're women. wouldn't it?

jean, i would still have to say that immorality would apply in the case of this question. so amorality means you have no sense of what right and wrong is. immoral means you know the difference but you still choose to do wrong. that was the point of the question.

Answer 1

I have met far more immoral Christians than immoral atheists.

Answer 2

Atheists reject God interior the sense they deny his existence. soliciting for verifiable information is kinda stupid, thinking no person recognizes a respected verifier in those discussions. If verifiability is a private set of proofs, then whose to declare your proofs are greater verifiable than Joe's or Bob's or Steve's? And in the event that they must reject yours? Immorality has no longer something to do with this technically. How does a guy recognize something is immoral besides, till there are morals to recognize? are you able to verify a ethical standard or is something you deem as own selection? the place did your morals come from?

Answer 3

Atheists are moral because they realize that it's the right thing. They think about their ethical decisions and principles. It is frightening to consider that people take their moral judgment out of a Bible or Koran with so much violence and hostility to non-believers. It is even more frightening to realize that their morality is almost entirely based on a punishment and reward system.

Check out the statistics on what percentage of crimes are actually punished. I remember a criminal law professor writing a list on the blackboard some 25 years ago that went:

__ Crimes committed
__ Crimes reported or detected
__ Suspect investigated
__ Suspect charged
__ Suspect arraigned
__ Not plea bargained for probation
__ Stand trial
__ Convicted
__ Sentence not suspended
__ Do time in county jail
__ Do time in prison

I got down to a very, very small percentage by the time you got to the bottom of the list. Clearly, fear of punishment is not very effective in a system like ours.

Answer 4

It depends how you are defining immoral. In fact, to even use this word implies that there is a definition of moral (that is not immoral), which means you are appealing to some higher truth, though that truth might be defined by whatever you feel like moral is. So in your worldview what is moral and what is immoral?

Since your definition of moral is probably different than mine, I don't think I can even answer this question the way you're asking it.

In my worldview we are all immoral and God is the only moral being. Since we do not abide by his morals all of the time, we are all by definition immoral.

Answer 5

Very few, except for the most simplest and child like of religious adherents, would make the claim that merely not believing in God makes you immoral. Most religious people, who have any degree of learning, experience with nonbelievers, or are slightly analytical, will concede that many atheists, and people of faiths different then theirs, can be exceedingly moral. Most of these more sophisticated religious subscribes will just claim, that though people of other faiths and atheists may be moral, they don’t have a justification for why they should be moral. Of course any religious person’s claim to somehow have an “objective” source for morality is spurious.

I have two charges to those few simple believers who baldly assert that lack of belief in God automatically makes one immoral. My first charge is simple in that your argument is circular. My second charge comes in the form of a challenge. If your God is by definition the embodiment of morality, and you believe in the inerrancy of your holy books, then you must follow everything in your scriptures to the letter. Trust me, even the most fervent Christian, Jew, or Muslim, would never follow everything in their religious texts, because they recognize how heinous God is in much of the texts that bear his authority.

I declare, as I have done time and time again, that we don’t get our morality from God or our religious texts. Instead we develop and modify our moral perspective the more we learn, and then force fit our scriptures to the confines of this ever changing moral outlook, and then falsely ascribe our morality as originating from the admonishments in scripture. Religion has always plagiarized the moral developments of the world, and it continues to falsely take credit for our moral enlightenment today.

Answer 6

Well, some religious folk think all theists really worship the same god. As in, the god of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism (and sometimes of other faiths) is the same being. And so people believe that some faiths just misunderstand aspects of this deity, but do have knowledge of it. In which case, they are trying to follow god's will but lack some of the proper spiritual information.

Answer 7

awfully big IF there buddy.. i'm no athiest, but most of whom i have met are not immoral simply because they hold themselves accountable. morality is a choice. i have known many people who are beleivers of one sort or another who CHOOSE to be immoral. (not bashing believers, just those who are hypocrites)
believing or not is not in itself immoral.
think about it, if someone gives to charity, helps little old ladies cross the street, does not lie, cheat or steal. but they don't believe in god, does that mean they are immoral? let's take the churchgoer (for example) who chooses to sin, for whatever reason, is she moral simply cos she believes in god?

Answer 8

Well, by Christian teaching, not believing in god means you have a ticket to hell...

So by that definition, unless you believe in what Christians call "Lord" then you are immoral.

**Funny fact, the word Lord is used so that people would not use god's name in bane. Funny thing is, the word god, god isn't a name. God is just a word that means similar to deity, and christians use the word Lord to describe god in order to not use the word god. there for Lord became god's name so they are using Lord name in bane anyway.

Answer 9

What do you care anyway. If you are not interested in God's salvation plan, why do you care if someone calls atheists immoral. If you called a dog's tail a leg, how many legs the dog would have? Hint: a tail is not going to be a leg even if you called it a leg.

Answer 10

Who says atheists are immoral? I think there are people in every walk of life who are immoral and I also think there are people in every walk of life who are moral.

Answer 11

A Christian saying non-Christians having no morality

is like

A person eating in a restaurant saying the rest of the world has absolutely no food