Why be moral..?

Answer 1

just in case...

Answer 2

why not ?

What is right and what is wrong ?

Atheists' morals are not absolute. They do not have a set of moral laws from an absolute God by which right and wrong are judged. But, they do live in societies that have legal systems with a codified set of laws. This would be the closest thing to moral absolutes for atheists. However, since the legal system changes the morals in a society can still change and their morals along with it. At best, these codified morals are "temporary absolutes." In one century abortion is wrong. In another, it is right. So, if we ask if it is or isn't it right, the atheist can only tell us his opinion.

If there is a God, killing the unborn is wrong. If there is no God, then who cares? If it serves the best interest of society and the individual, then kill. This can be likened to something I call, "experimental ethics." In other words, whatever works best is right. Society experiments with ethical behavior to determine which set of rules works best for it. Hopefully, these experiments lead to better and better moral behavior. But, as we see by looking into society, this isn't the case: crime is on the rise.

There are potential dangers in this kind of self-established/experimental ethical system. If a totalitarian political system is instituted and a mandate is issued to kill all dissenters, or Christians, or mentally ill, what is to prevent the atheist from joining forces with the majority system and support the killings? It serves his self-interests, so why not? Morality becomes a standard of convenience, not absolutes.


But, to be fair, just because someone has an absolute ethical system based on the Bible, there is no guarantee that he will not also join forces in doing what is wrong. People are often very inconsistent. But the issue here is the basis of moral beliefs and how they affect behavior. That is why belief systems are so important and absolutes are so necessary. If morals are relative, then behavior will be too. That can be dangerous if everyone starts doing right in his own eyes. A boat adrift without an anchor will eventual crash into the rocks.


The Bible teaches love, patience, and seeking the welfare of others even when it might harm the Christian. In contrast, the atheists' presuppositions must be constantly changing, and subjective and does not demand love, patience, and the welfare of others. Instead, since the great majority of atheists are evolutionists, their morality, like evolution is the product of purely natural and random processes that become self serving.


Basically, the atheist cannot claim any moral absolutes at all. To an atheist, ethics must be variable and evolving. This could be good or bad. But, given human nature being what it is, I'll opt for the moral absolutes -- based on God's word -- and not on the subjective and changing morals that atheism offers.

Answer 3

Without morals what would we be?

We would be robotically driven without any value for life, would we even be human? We wouldn't be considered as intelligent as we are if we didn't have morals. All cruelties spring from ignorance, after all.

Mostly, best thing to remember, is to treat others the way you wish to be treated. If you hurt someone, you'll probably get hurt back. It's a cycle that's never ending. Pain causes more pain.

That's why we should be moral.

Answer 4

Your morals make the person you are. To have no morals is scary to me, its like not caring about how others feel and you'd do anything to get what you want. Morals also give you boundaries in life. I would never like to be described as a person with no morals!!

Answer 5

If your thinking morals can be only good, they can be wrong as well - they just uphold another part of the system we call life. I can say killing is wrong, yet to a person who enjoys it, killing isn't a bad thing, thus a good moral to keep around for him.

If they are only good, then what do we call those opinions that are bad? "bad morals"?? I guess we'd call that person corrupt, which is really just saying - if all people with good morals are blood cells, then that guy is cancer to us ( which still ends up being part of a cell right, then they are the same, just with a different motive)?

Answer 6

If Ethics is right conduct and good living, according to a code accepted by the society we have decided, of our own free will, to live in, and Morality represents this code of conduct, then we either live by the accepted code of conduct or change to another society. A major conflict arises when, as in the case of Hitler and his cronies, an “immoral” Government takes control of a country. The Prussian officers who, in July 1944, decided to “break” the personal oath they had taken to Hitler, were inspired by Immanuel Kant, another Prussian, who had clearly stated in many of his works, but in particular the preface of “Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft – Königsberg 1793” , that Man did not need a Superior Being (God or King) to indicate his Duty, because the Moral force within him was sufficient to show him the way. It is the Eternal conflict between Man and Society. In a “just Society”, the Morals are the “right ones”. But what of a Criminal (Nazi SS or Communist NKVD) in a Criminal Society led by a Criminal (Hitler or Stalin – you choose) ?
I believe the reply lies in what is gradually becoming a Universal Morality, based on the Rights of Man. Crimes against Mankind are Crimes against this kind of Morality, which is or should be in each of us. No Religion, Creed or Loyalty can subvert this Universally accepted brand of Morals.

Answer 7

You assume you have a choice in the matter. Even if your moral code is abhorrent to others, or indescribably incomprehensable, be you utilatarian, nihilist, solipsist, idealist, Kantian, Marxist.......you have a moral code. It might not be one others approve of, but your awareness of it and your very interaction with others means you must have guidelines and rules of your own, and these are known as morals. Acting in a consistant manner in relations with other sentient creatures means you have a moral code. To not have one means that either you are not sentient, are not consistant or rational (which can be interpreted as either insane or not sentient) or have never interacted with others.

Regardless of the fine detail, your existance in a social context necessitates a moral code almost by definition. No option but to rationalise and act on your own rules.

Answer 8

As human beings, we have a concept of morals, well at least its an idea. But after all we are still, in nature, animals, living organisms that are programmed through evolution, to follow the instinct of survival and replication. Everything we do in our lives and all the choices we make fall unto this no matter how you put it.

Answer 9

There is an age old debate in philosophy about human morality where the questions are asked about the source of human need for morality. Is it natural for humans to be moral, or is our sense of morality to developed as response to complicated situations that we create for ourselves due lack of our knowledge and understanding? Is morality innate to the mind that does not matter how far we develop in our knowledge and understanding our need to observe moral codes will always be there?

It could be possible that at some future stage in the evolution of mind we might find ourselves no longer in needs of strict or formal moral observation. This can be put in terms of things that have become so much part and parcel of life for instance, things that we no longer remember to be so impossible to conceive once. We wear cloths for instance, and then we live with so many things that we hardly notice them being about us; there once was a time when for centuries no one had a clue that there could be a zero is in the number line, but today we hardly notice the importance of this revolutionary concept.

If morality is innate to our mind then it will stay expressive as code for excellence in our personal and social behaviour. We might excel in the future to realise better incentives and motivators for the causes of our progress than mere materialistic pursuits of survival and domination, but then our sense of morality might also undergo evolutionary transformations; we might try to excel in sacrificial living and devotion as in religion, for instance, or we might make inquiry of knowledge as in spiritual development our goal and use codes of morality there, the we could have an enhanced sense of wonder about a wider range of things in our life. All these things at present are with us but then there is much fuss in our religious fervour, for instance. We perceptively fall easy victims to superstitions, myths and opinions boosted by powerful global public media, and our sense of wonder is mainly about casting the same greedy eyes upon a wider world so that we may exploit it for purposes that are still very basic. There is so much room for improvement.

Besides, to be moral is not merely a matter of knowing what we should do and what we shouldn’t. It is something that we structure round our self to safeguard our otherwise most perilous journey through the flux of situations of life, and into an unknown future. It is for an inquisitive, endlessly curious but instinctively voracious mind. We need each other in this journey and we need each other in best possible way that there could be. We need to have a common understanding of what is standard of behaviour, a standard not out in place by a state or an authority but by the very nature that we are.

But on the other hand if human morality is indeed an acquired concept then we might work our way out of this moral maize in time to come. With the help of a better knowledge, deeper understanding of things and enhanced intuitive and transcendental abilities, we might see that there are no flaws about human mind that cannot be cured before causing harm.

Answer 10

We all have to aspire to some form of morality, without this we would become liars , scroungers, scum, you know what I mean here,Why preach the subject when it is so obvious to all you decent people out there.

Answer 11

If it's in your personal make-up to be moral , you are . If morals mean nothing to you , you're sub-human .