Asking Christians: Do you think people could figure out right from wrong without religion?

Question

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Why do animals know right from wrong without reading the bible?

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Answer 1

I believe that God imbedded a special sense or moral within us to determine what is right and what is wrong.

Answer 2

Animals have instincts they go by instead of reason and free will.

As for humans, consider Israel. Back in the day they were given the Mosaic Law, no one had any idea what germs or bacteria were. If you tried to explain them, you would be classified as a nut! "What's wrong with leaving dead bodies lying about. They don't move or disturb the furniture." "Why should I wash my hands before eating or after taking a dump?"

Fortunately, God knew why. To keep His people safe He gave them these sanitary laws. While other people got sick, they prospered.

Though God did not promote slavery, He recognized it as something men wanted. So He gave them laws that kept people from losing perpetually their family land and money by making Jubilee years which returned property to the rightful family.

Men die from accidents and murders. How to tell the difference? What to do? God's Law set up 6 cities of refuge. Someone causing the death of a person could get to one of those cities to safety. A trial would be held and if the person was found not to be a murderer, he could stay in peace in that city.

It was a simple system. Though all of us have it hardwired into us about killing and stealing, even the most remote tribes have such laws. This was for people of different groups to be able to interact together.

Answer 3

Do not hurt other people unnecessarily. That's really the only morality that you need to have. Everything else is a variation on this theme. You don't need a book to learn this. In fact, the book that is quoted time and time again as the moral compass of the western world is filled with wanton acts of brutality and genocide carried out by or with the blessing of this being from which so many claim to draw their morality. Only pestilence has caused more human death and suffering than the concept of God. I don't want to be associated with something so purely destructive.

Answer 4

Animals don't. They simply know what gets them good results and what gets them bad results. That type of thinking shapes their behavior.

I suppose people could figure out right from wrong without religion. However, if someone questioned them about right from wrong and had a different opinion, the person who had figured out right from wrong would have no authority to correct the other person. When you go away from biblical ethics, it creates many debates about what is right and what isn't. I was watching Fox News one night. They were debating whether we should let people walk around naked in public and have sex on the street. The Bible tells people to dress modestly and teaches clearly that sex is a sacred thing, reserved for married couples, which are husband (man) and wife (woman), by the way. Problem solved, but not in our culture which rejects the Bible. I read about another situation when a little girl found someone's purse and returned it to its rightful owner. She told her friends at school what she had done. The class took a vote on whether she had done the right thing or not. The class voted that she hadn't. The teacher, because there is no absolute standard for right and wrong, didn't correct the class and encourage the girl to repeat that type of noble behavior. She simply said that the girl must've been wrong to return the purse because the children in the class said she was. While a person may stumble upon right and wrong without using the Bible, there is no authority in a person's opinion, unless that opinion is supported by God. Therefore, we need the Bible to establish right from wrong.

More than that, we need people to read the Bible, so they know what it says, and we need to teach them how to interpret it. The Bible was not written directly to us. It was written to the nation of Israel while they were in Egypt, in the wilderness, captive in Babylon, etc. Part of it was written to other peoples as well, like the Ninevites, the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, etc. In order to get a correct interpretation, we must first understand, at least somewhat, how these people interpreted the passage. Then, and only then, can we make applications to our lives today.

Answer 5

If I understand this question correctly, you've used the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma argument by arguing that God's commandments are arbitrary: "Even if a god had created the universe and had made its natural laws that wouldn't make his word moral". However, this presumes that morality exists separately from God's nature, and that we merely think that God's commandments are moral because God commands it and has enough power to punish us:""Most theists just unthinkingly assume that because God punishes people who violate his laws therefore that's morality."" This isn't our position, however. We believe that as a result of God's perfection, His perfect nature is the definition of morality. Additionally, this position avoids both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma because morality doesn't exist independently of God, and morality also isn't arbitrary. EDIT: Personally, I don't find his explanation very convincing. Rather, it seems to be equivocating "God cannot change his nature" with "God cannot control his nature therefore something external defines it". In this case the second dilemma doesn't look like a dilemma either. If God is the MPB, then necessarily He wouldn't be able to change his nature, and he would necessarily be morally perfect at the same time. Additionally, moral perfection would derive from himself not some external source. I saw his counter-argument that argued that all we need are "laws of logic" for morality, but I fail to see how (MPB => morally perfect) means that God's goodness is contingent upon the laws of logic. It seems that he's taken the "noorexic"'s argument out of context. What she meant was that God can't do contradictory things like " create rocks too heavy for him to lift".

Answer 6

Oops! You should have said SOCIAL animals, of course. I'm sure you meant to.

Non-social animals rarely need to have an ethos remotely like ours, or other social animal's. Morality is of no real use to a leopard, for instance. The females love their young, hate every other leopard except for males when they're in oestrus, and regard other animals as food, danger or walking rocks depending on heir characteristics.

Lions, on the other hand, behave according to a complex rule-set that favours the collective over the individual. They exhibit 'bravery' - a characteristic found only in social animals.

But the best animal examples are the truly social critters like meerkats and chimps, whose social complexity approaches that of our own in simple tribal conditions.

And part of that is a knowledge of right and wrong that maps well onto our own - in particular the tendency to treat others of your group a little like yourself, and the concept of self-sacrifice. Like ours, it's instinctive.

CD

Answer 7

My husband's an Atheist and he's the most moral, kind hearted, loving, generous,person that I know. He's a much better "Christian" than any Christian person I've ever met!!!!


Animals, on the other hand, well, I think my cat's the anti-christ,LOL!!!!!!!!!!! j/k I love my baby but he's a very naughty boy!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT
My husband wasn't raised in a religious home and then decided to be an Atheist. His parents don't go to church at all, never have.

Answer 8

No, people are guided by their innate empathy. If I hit you and you cry, I feel bad because I see what I have caused. Feeling bad is not fun, so next time I think twice before hitting you. Simple. Works for healthy people - not so much for sociopaths, who don't give much of a poo about religion either (see BTK, church president, serial killer).

How do you teach your kids right from wrong? Do you just poiunt to a book that says "don't hit people" or do you discuss fairness, and how being being hit hurts and how the child wouldn't want to be hit, so why would they do that to another? You encourage the child to have empathy (I hope) and that is how people learn right from wrong.

Answer 9

By the same token, why do most legal systems somewhat closely parallel the Law of Moses? Each person has a conscience. People who listen to their consciences seem to have at least similar internally driven systems of conduct.

Answer 10

Atheist here - I know religion is WRONG which is Right.

So I therefore know right from wrong and there is no god to influence me.

And animals do know right from wrong - any dog or cat owner can testify to that. You can see it when an animal is trying to sneak and do something they aren't supposed to.

Answer 11

Well, sure. We still have what society considers normal. However, what happens if there is no religion, no holy books, no one following any holy book or religion, and society rules that nothing (even murder, theft, et cetera) is immoral? What happens then?

And no, animals DON'T know right from wrong, until they're taught.