Atheists, please explain your moral beliefs and where morality and immorality come from?

Question

do you think morality is subjective, culturally relative, etc and why? thank you.

If you believe it is a cultural product that was inevitable through evolution, is it safe to say you believe we all essentially do everything for our personal gain?

Answer 1

Yes, morality is subjective and culturally relative. What is right in one community or society is not necessarily right in another. It is all from where you stand.
We are herd animals and we learn acceptable behaviour from the behaviour of the people around us. So we have evolved and so you still see more "primitive" animals than us doing the same. There is no such thing as good or evil, it is all perception. The whole "do unto others as to yourself" theme does not come originally from the bible, though it migh be the first time the idea was written down. It is practical survival instinct that makes us want to do good to others, since if you keep the community strong, the individual also thrives. Although not really true in our materialistic western societies today, we are still in that kind of mindset.
And as to your additional question, most definately yes. We do everything in life for self-gain. If you help someone and don't receive anything in return, then you still get the "I feel good about myself" feeling, ie. self-gain.
I don't understand how people can really think that only a fear of hell or whatever keeps the masses from becoming raving lunatics who kill and rape and rob each other. Immorality is learned once again from the community around you.

Answer 2

Partly subjective, but mostly objective. Morals and morality come from 2 sources. Nature and nurture! The nature part is the morality you're born with, it's often better described as your conscience! Few people lack a conscience (some psychopaths), almost everyone has one. Your conscience prevents you from murdering others, inflicting pain on others. It gives you some empathy. Trough nurture your conscience and morality takes more shape and more things will be considered 'bad' by your conscience by that. Think of things as not cheating, polite ways of behavior, maybe less not stealing, not vandalizing (although that might have a little thing to do with nature as well, but that's debatable). Morals are not universal, in different societies other things are considered morally good or socially acceptable, while in another society they may be seen as not socially acceptable or immoral. For example it's considered polite to look someone in the eyes when talking to them, it shows respect. But in other cultures not looking someone in the eyes is considered respectful. That's why morals and morality are mostly objective and universal, but depending on the society you live in, some things can be different and therefore it's also somewhat subjective about what morality is and what is morally a good thing to do.

Answer 3

The Darwinian explanation would be that living in constant contact with others that you have the opportunity to help and will be likely to reciprocate would instill a desire to be good. It's based on the "Golden Rule" that simply states "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you." Immorality comes from a misfiring psychopathic mind.

*EDIT- yes I do believe that people are doing these things for selfish (in a survival sense) reasons and I think I already know where you're going with this. Are you going to ask why people are charitable to strangers in a society that is less likely to reciprocate the charity? I think the answer is still the same. When you see a person who is in need you have a strong desire to help them because that desire to be good has been instilled in your brain over thousands and thousands of years of evolution.

Answer 4

I read that there are societies in New Guinea where the religious beliefs have no moral code at all. Yet the people holding these beliefs managed to live for thousands of years in villages as subsistence farmers without a moral code backed up by any god. Was there a moral code? It would probably not go well for those caught thieving or murdering.

To suggest that theories of evolution give license for all kinds of socially and morally bad behavior is due to either a crude misunderstanding of the theories or a crude misrepresentation of them. Crude misrepresentations of evolutionary theories and evolution itself are characteristic of creationist leaders and crude misunderstandings are characteristic of their poorly informed and misled followers.

In other words, creationists are liars or are deluded.

Answer 5

Theists have nothing to do with morality to society and civilisation. Theists are just concerned with religious dogmas . Do you think , wearing burka by muslim woman is moral, well its subjective and relative. However morality and ethics are a good practice for humanity and prosperity of our society , especially women. If morality is not exercised, law and order also is there to force people to be moral. It is obscurely adapted by atheists too since we deserve to protect ourselves being social animals. what has an atheist or theirst to do with morality. it is basic minimum requirement for human civilization.

Answer 6

I asked a similar question. The first thing that happens is the attack dogs. Not a defense of atheism but an attack on Christianity. Ignoring all that, I was surprised by the number of answers that invoked evolution such as:

"When you see a person who is in need you have a strong desire to help them because that desire to be good has been instilled in your brain over thousands and thousands of years of evolution."

What doesn't make sense in the evolution argument is this: The mindless process of evolution doesn't care about the individual, only about survival of genes. So if evolution is responsible for anything, it is responsible for our desire to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others. Throw ourselves at the enemy so to speak. But as a rational being, I would ask myself if I really want to sacrifice my life in any particular situation. And by doing so, I am putting the evolution-inspired desire of self sacrifice to a rational test. If I am going to do that, then why not fight the evolution-inspired desire (for self sacrifice) and just rely on my rational test?

Answer 7

morality is culturally relative.....what's considered moral in one culture may be considered highly immoral in other cultures.....morals are also shaped to an extent by individual perceptions, so there's no fully definitive description, even within cultures.....my own morals would take much to long to list out here, but I generally conform to the cultural norms associated with western nations, along with some far eastern philosophical influences

Answer 8

Natural human empathetic response is constant and cultureless. Any society knows murder and torture is harmful to the fabric of civilization. To think that humans need to look to ancient babblings induced by narcotics to be moral is an insult to the human race. Morality sure isn't to be found in any book that advocates decapitation and stoning to death non-virgin child brides.

Answer 9

My morality came in a bubble from high above one day. Morality is for the elite few like me and immorality is for the rest.

Answer 10

Morality is based on what society deems what is right and what is wrong. What was right in the past has now been deemed wrong; but also what was wrong is now acceptable.

edit:
There is a difference between moral philosophy and divine command theory.

moral philosophy basically says that you do the right thing because it is the right thing to do; where as divine command theory is you MUST do good otherwise god will be angry with you.