Why do theists think morality ONLY comes from religion?

Question

It obviously doesn't We have religious leaders who are scumbags..we have atheists who are public servants and live good clean lives.

Humanity's understanding of right vs wrong has evolved over time. We once thought slavery was ok and religion said cool..we thought it was ok to kill for most crimes..now we don't agree.

People have been working with morality since dawn of time and all religions had good vs bad. So either all those Gods are valid and provided the morals....or morality is not exclusive to religion

Morality and honor....and what God, if any, one believes in seem to be 2 seperate issues.

LabGrrl> sorry I was not specific enough...this is in response to the multitude of quesitons here on Y/A asking how can atheists possibly have any valid morality since they don't believe in God/religion.

Sentinel> you realize, I hope, that reality doesn't match what you said?

rebecca v d liep> um...how many writers are atheists? do you have a list? Anyway atheists are good because to do good things makes the world better..hence better for them as they live in world...if they do bad..world is worse off and hence worse for them...enlightened self-interest it is called

dewcoons> NO ONE could live a godly life..as you would need to be a god. Now if they live good life what does it matter? You take a religious man who does good and an atheist who does good..and they are equal..they do the same good, live same good..you are not better than someone else if you live just as they do..no matter what you think

Lion of Judah> you are just flat out wrong...there is like 1% truth to your answer. Actually READ history and you will see how right vs wrong evolved. Again slavery was one okey dokey and now is considered wrong...that is a right becoming a wrong. Religious law allowing death becomes a opposition to death penalty......so again your answer is invalid due to a false foundation

Lion of Judah> "only a sith deals in absolutes"...and they were the dark side of hate, aggression, anger, destruction.

Think about it. If there are such absolutes then sacrificing your life is wrong because it is suicide and you go to hell, if there are absolutes then killing to prevent yourself being killed is murder and hence you go to hell........there are NO absolutes...everything is context sensitive.

Oh and my morality comes from my parents teaching me to figure out right vs wrong for MYSELF...I do right because I want to, not because I will go to hell....only a child needs to be threatened with punishment to follow the path of honor

Sentinel> no not really..I have truth, history, facts all on my side. your answer is just flat out wrong and no attempt to blame my ego will change reality....your faith that the whole space-time continium will change to suit your desires because you believe so hard is just sad and also known as..ding ding ding THE SIN OF PRIDE.

Earl D> are you on the wrong question. I have NEVER said the majority of scientists are atheists because they are NOT...so your kinda invalidated there.
Now you wanna compare..ok..lets see witch burnings, infecting Indians with smallpox+other diseases, breaking every treaty with the American Indians, Holocaust, Cortez his brutal atrocities in S.America, countless wars in Europe including WW1+WW2, Crucifixtion, the guilotine, gladiator games, 9/11, Manson killings, Vlad the Impaler, Teachers having sex with kids, PRIESTS RAPING KIDS ,drawn+quartered, the rack.....all brought to you by the morality of the RELIGIOUS.

With all these black marks which are just the tip of the iceburg....I find the "moral superiority" of the religious not only vain and unjustified, but one of the biggest hypocritical lies ever told

Earl D> if you have never seen one encourage to "stay pure" (which is such a bigotted and stupid comment to say of sex...having sex or not having sex doesn't make you any more or less "pure") then it is because you are not actually reading anyone's answers. I have seen many....but then again we have to realize that the no sex b4 marriage was NEVER followed by the religious so they are not really better for making a rule and then breaking it..in fact that are worse for doing so

and fyi..I do believe in a God...I just hold that religion should only be between a person and his/her God....once you get multiple people involved religion is nothing more than darkness incarnate

Answer 1

Most lack education in Philosophy and can't comprehend a moral system other than their own. It isn't just believers who ar elike that, though. May nonreligious people have trouble understanding the logic of believers.

I wonder how many Christians know that the first Western Philosopher to come up with the Goden Rule was Aristotle, not Jesus -- who proposed it 500 years before Christ.

Answer 2

It's pretty simple really. They have this really warped logic about the whole thing. Since God is the source of all good, there can be no good without him. He is the source of all morality and all of his actions, including hypothetically drowning a dozen puppies or commiting genocide, are just. Therefore, there can be no morality without accepting Christ. Pretty delusional isn't it?

Under their scheme of thinking, a hypothetical atheist who brings about world peace or ends disease would not be moral because he hasn't accepted Christ. Thus, he deserves to be tormented for all eternity by a red-horned farmer with a pitch fork that lives in the center of the Earth.

You're absolutely right. Religion isn't the only thing preventing people from killing each other or commiting atrocities. In fact, religion seems to be responsible for many deaths world wide. If the threat of divine retribution is the only reason you aren't raping that hottie walking down the street or stabbing your boss in the face, you have problems.

There is an interesting issue brought up by this question. Philosophers have been attempting to create a moral scheme based completely on logic but to no avail. Emotion, not neccesarily religion, must inform your morality. At this point in the argument, Christians usually get smug and say a lot of good rules (e.g., not killing people, no stealing, etc.) are from the Bible. This is flat out wrong. It is true that these rules can be FOUND in the Bible, but these ideas weren't by any means NEW when the Bible was written. It simply reiterated things found in older religions such as zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Hindhuism. Further it is incredibally silly to assume that people thought murder was okay before Jesus.

Answer 3

You're confusing etimology with select examples.

A Psychologist or Pychiatrist is supposed to help people improve their lives, but there was so much rampant sexuality disgued as theraphy that laws were passed making it absoutely illegal for a therapist to have sex with one of their clients or patients.

These are scientists, often Atheists as you point out to us a majority of the scientists are atheists.

Why did it get so rampant that some Shrink was having sex with some lesbian in an effort to make her Hetero that they had to pass laws regulting the scientific, majority Atheist profession.

Could it be scientists and Atheists have no moral concepts and have to be regulated to that end.

We hear reports all the time about Denist Fills Wrong Hole

Once again you claim A MAJORITY OF SCIENTISTS are ATHEIST

It is written here by Top Contributor Atheists that Christian Scientist is an oxymoron.

We haven't even gotten into the 30 year old women teachers having sex with 14 year old boys in their class.

Nor have we gotten into the HAVE ALL THE SEX YOU WANT posts here at R&S by the Trolls and Atheists who encourage girls to strap a matress to their backs.

I have yet to see ONE Atheist encourage someone to stay pure until such a time as they are ready for marriage and children making.

Yet I wonder how many Atheists go to a divorce attorney because they find out their spouce is comitting what is bibically known as Adultery.

Or do Atheists, as a whole, advocate open marriages.

Answer 4

Suppose I hired a person to fix my computer. When he arrived at my house, he climbed up on the roof and reshingled the entire house. But when he is done, my computer is still not fixed. He could have done an exceptional job of replacing the roof, but it was the wrong thing to do.

While an atheist cold possibly live a "moral" life, and do many good things. he can not live a "godly" life. Without knowing what God intends for him to do, he is liable to be fixing the roof when the computer needs to be looked at. In the end, the problem is not solved and all the "good work" is worthless.

An atheist can never live a godly life, which is higher then simply a "good" life.

Answer 5

Much or religion focuses on fear. The theory that morality springs forth from God is designed to keep people religious, after all the last thing they would want is anarchy. In reality Morality is completely separate from religion. We can see this clearly highlighted by Christians in the west. The bible is very specific about how to 'morally' treat women. Even the new testament is clear about their place in society, but modern Christian reject the religions rules and morality surrounding female behavior, because they accept that women have more value than just being supportive to men.

This clearly indicates that even among religious people, morality is really dictated by society, not religion.

Lion of Judah makes claims of moral absolutes in the post above, but rejects OT law and morality, and much of the morality listed in the New Testament because of the society he lives in. He has evolved morally to appreciate and respect women (hopefully), and reject slavery, unlike the morality that is expressed in the text he claims sets moral standards.

Dewcoons claim that good works are worthless without God, is indicative of how religious belief can make untrue claims to support itself, without followers even questioning them. How are good deeds and a life lived in sincerity and charity worthless?

Answer 6

So..If God does not exist, then what is right and what is wrong ?
If it is a matter of opinion, who's ?
If it is decided by society, how ?

Take both those questions all the way back to the beginning of recorded human history.

Humanity's understanding of Right and Wrong DID NOT evolve over time, that is a fabricated farce and pure bunk.

Secular Atheist Darwinism is an lesson in hypocrisy,
According to Darwins Laws of natural selection, (Survival of the fittest) there is no right and wrong, that might makes right and the weak dies off to make room for the strong, according to that, that would mean Hitler had it right, Stalin had it right Napoleon had it right, not that any of them had Darwins Law in mind when they went about their agenda.

The blunt truth is, however, that there is an absolute right and wrong.

There can be no compromise on the truth of what God has revealed. There is only one God in all existence who has always been God.

We Christians are to sharpen the lines between truth and error. But, to do this we must first know what the truth is. We must know what the Bible actually says about right and wrong, about doctrine, about God, about ourselves, about judgment, and about Jesus. And then, we must be willing to say, "That is sin" when we see sin. We must be willing to stand up for righteousness, even if it costs us. Far too many Christians compromise and let the world take their truth and gospel in exchange for comfort and safety.

Let me say this : The world wants to blur the lines that separate the absolutes of morality and truth from its lies and compromise. The world wants Christian morality and absolutes removed. It wants moral and truth grey areas to overshadow biblical truth. By contrast, however, the Christian church is supposed to sharpen those lines by preaching, teaching, and standing up for the absolute truths of God's word.

Answer 7

I have always respected Sentinel, but he is very wrong today. Egypt lasted much longer than any other civilization to date. You will find that Rome fell after over one hundred years of Christian rule.

We all have compassion, and when applied with sound reason it makes a good bases for ethical behavior.

Answer 8

because we read atheist writers like Freud who don't believe in morality, or Nietzsche whose morality is repulsive. Why don't atheists read their own writers???
seriously, of course there can be good atheists. But they can't answer 'why be good?' other than to say 'because I want to'. (theists have an answer to this - the natural law written in the heart, even if atheists do not recognize it) More power to them, though - I would rather be in a world with good atheists than naughty ones.

Answer 9

It was the God of Abraham Who defined morality and did this gently over time so as to become a national awareness for the peoples, contrast this concept with the pagan immorality of Greece,Rome,Eygpt, Summeria and Babylon all of whom perished eventually because they had no definite guide to true morality.

Answer 10

I am theist and I know it doesnt come from religion
Morals is standard conditioning from society and family to behave with in a certain set of accepted rules of the culture. Those rules and morals differ, sometimes vastly, between said cultures.
Does religion reinforce those morals set down by society and family? It CAN. But people with no religion have the power to do the same thing.