Why do Athiests do the right thing?

Question

I know mosts Athiests are good people just like any other group there are good and bad anywhere.

But my question is if there is no God than why behave?

You can rob a bank and if you get away with it you get away with it so why do you not rob the bank?

Answer 1

We do the right thing because it is the right thing. We do not require coercion.

Answer 2

I am a "believer" as you people would call it and all i can say is then the world would be hell it would be so bad that you would not be able to find the good in people and no that you can have a good life even though its hard at the time. And also if you are wondering why God seems so mad and all this its because 1. Anger is an emotion and ever one can be angry and 2. the reason there is terrorists and stuff and bad things is so that God knows truly how much you love him and can trust him. So why dont you take that in before you go bashing God. Sorry just had to get that out and uh good question.

Answer 3

The question is self-defeating: If you admit you would rob and rape in the absence of God, you reveal yourself to be an immoral person; if you would do the right thing even with no God, you undermine your premise that God is necessary for morality.

In any case, we can arrive at morality through reason, without God. Now, we may not have a definite, perfect understanding of what is or is not moral, but we can reason that things like murder or rape are obviously not moral.

People have come up with all kinds of ways to determine morality. For example, John Stuart Mill was a believer in utilitarianism, which states that the best action is the one which provides the greatest happiness to the most people. Then there is Immanuel Kant's idea of the categorical imperative, which is as follows: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Granted, people have debated the merits of utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and other systems of ethics for years, but it goes to show two things:

1) Morality is possible without God.
2) No one has a perfect, definite understanding of morality.

As for what I believe in? I believe that you should not do to others what you don't want them to do to you. If you steal or lie, I believe that is tacit acknowledgment that you don't mind being stolen from or lied to. So, that is why I try to live a good, moral life.

Answer 4

I don't think that you can rob a bank and get away with it if God was not watching. Atheists have pretty advanced science and technology so I'd be surprised if you've managed to get away.

To answer your earlier question, if there is no God as I believe, why do I behave? Why do I visit the church? There is no 'logical' (as one would put it) answer to that question. All I can say is that it is morally RIGHT. I go to the church not because I believe in God, but the faith helps me deal with my everyday problems. And then I go right back to science and math. And then I come back to the church. Both deal with different sections of life: science with curiosity, church with emotions.

If you imagine that science is a gun, then you can say that a church would be the safety. You can disregard the moral rules of life and shoot people, or you can use the safety and shoot only when necessary (which, by the way, you should probably never do in your life unless you are a cop or a soldier). The church sets moral rules and responsibilities.

That is why we behave. If there is no God, we would still follow the moral rules and most of us still go to church because the faith is important.

In any case, the cops (atheist or not) will still find a way to catch you with their forensics team if you rob a bank. We may not all believe in God, but most of us believes in the law. And you will have to deal with that.

Answer 5

Being an atheist doesn't mean a person is unable to make moral decisions, is unable to tell right from wrong, or isn't compelled to do the right thing out of a sense of morality.

Do you think that all bank robbers are atheists?
All wife beaters, all cheaters, all murderers?
How many people do you think actually consider the prospect of Hell before they make a decision to commit an immoral act?

Can a person be moral without being commanded by God? Does God have reasons for demanding that we be moral? If so, aren't those reasons good enough to stand on their own without considering their source? Empathy, compassion, conscience, kindness -- aren't these all things that we bring about in ourselves by cultivating them in others? Enjoyment and love of life, meaning and purpose ... these are things that are made even more precious by the concept that life is finite and brief, and that we must make the most of our presence on the earth while we have a chance.

Answer 6

This 'goodness' is of one's own nature, it is exclusive of whether one is atheist or christian or hindu or muslim.......so is 'badness'.
A point deserves attention: the good deed of a believer may be, if not entirely at least partially, 'tainted' with the expectation of reward in the hereafter, while an atheist will be good, not even 'for its own sake'. but purely out of circumstance.

I do not rob a bank because I am just unable to, an inner law - if 'law' it may be called - impedes it, while a believer ( not one who is 'good') would consider robbing a bank if he finds a way of 'bypassing' the outer civil and religious laws through a good lawyer or confession, thus avoiding the penalty of prison or hell.

Answer 7

its called the law :)

Besides morality is not a religious monopoly, ethics and laws existed long before Moses. After all we are social animals with complex societies, if we didn't have an advanced sense of morality society wouldn't work.
Ask yourself, if the only thing holding back from murder is fear of God. The answer, I hope would be no, you know its wrong without a priest to tell you.
What religion did was codify laws, but once it does that it rarely moves with the times, so Islam and Christianity now have weirdly out sync notions of sin and thats why theocracies always seem medieval.

Answer 8

A lack of belief in religion doesn't equal a lack of morals. Truth is, you won't get away with robbing a bank, nor will you live a happy life if you punch everyone you meet in the gut. There are reasons other than God for doing a good thing.

Answer 9

We don't know how people would act if society had never had a code or something to guide us. We know that for some who have never heard of the Bible or it's words to live by, live much like what we would call primitive. They live by their set of rules and morals. Those who follow other religions follow the rules based on it. The nonbelievers who live among them take much of their lead from that set of rules.
Besides, because one does not believe in God, does not exclude them from the law.

Answer 10

doing good and bad depends on two things: mind set gained genetically and the way how he/ she is brougt up

God is a princilple or the highest ideal or ideal personified to make the social being nitted together in the family,society,country,nation, and the world . for the humanity to survive with the laws of nature because the the mind set is different in each individual and make difficulty in adjestments to be a social being successfully

Answer 11

Mama sat him upon her knee and told him what he did wrong, how he disappointed her, and how he was to never, under any circumstances, to even think of doing it again.
As he grew to include playmates in his time spent absent of mama's watchful eye, the watchful eye of the playmate took the place of mama's and was quick with a handful of hair and a punch to the snoot as a reminder of boundaries expected to be kept.
Later roaming of the halls of education included the watchful eyes of teachers, principals, and vengeful older playmates, all of them ever vigilant to lay waste to folly.
The learning of basic societal concept of right and wrong is common to believer and nonbeliever alike. This should indicate that Biblical teaching concerns a matter other than following law. Indeed, it does.
An artificial substance may serve to fill a hole, but the presence of the original substance produces wholeness.