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Why 'should' atheists be moral?
#21
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
They can(and do), but.......boxes and bricks, like I said.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#22
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
There is no independent reason to be moral, as a neutral universe doesn't care about us, our actions or what may be "good" or "bad".

From a human's perspective, most people have empathy. That allows you to have a feel for what it's like for other people to experience the results of your actions. Seeing someone suffer usually makes you feel bad, as you can reason that you would not like to suffer either. So at a basic level each person defines their own morals by what they think is and isn't acceptable to do to others based on the feelings the actions would provoke in them.

And as has been mentioned the side effects of being nice often make you feel good, and we understand that cooperation leads to a more pleasurable society for everyone.

But to answer why should we be moral: Because we care about other people. So we impose that "should" on ourselves. But the thing is, "being moral" isn't a consistent set of behaviours to be followed. Each person defines what is and isn't moral, so by definition they have decided what they should and shouldn't do. It's a tautology. From humanities viewpoint, we should be moral because it helps us all and we generally want a good society rather than chaos. We want health and happiness rather than harm and sadness. From a universal point of view, "should" has no meaning. We're all a bunch of atoms and stuff, doing what atoms do.

Of course you have unusual people like sociopaths who feel no empathy and as such will have trouble creating morals. The reason for them to be moral in a very broad sense is so they don't get punished by the law. But in a sense thats not being moral, it's following a code.

To me, morality is just about harm versus benefit for each action. This analysis will vary from person to person. Any other definition of moral makes no sense to me. Following a list of rules given to you is not being moral, it's been obedient. It's being amoral.

Religious types say they get their morality from the bible but they lie (mostly). Firstly because morality isn't about determining what is good if you're just doing what you're told without question. Secondly, all but most extreme religious types do not do what the bible says, instead they apply their own moral judgement to it and then decide to do it or not. So in fact they have used their own morality, and just used the bible as justification. If you define morality as what God says is moral, then it's pointless to say it has any value, and again Christians don't follow it anyway.
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#23
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
(November 28, 2014 at 1:27 pm)vincent150 Wrote:
(November 28, 2014 at 1:20 pm)Exian Wrote:


I agree we are the way we are because we evolved as social creatures but now we are intelligent enough to realise that why do we not go back to every man himself.

'Can we avoid being moral as individuals'. Yes is the answer. I know it is wrong and immoral to steal. However, I can make my life better if I do it. The question is why 'should' I not steal it?

"Can a murderous psychopath make a conscience decision to be moral?" I think this is irrelevant to the debate. Like I said I'm assuming everyone agrees on what is moral and people 'purposely' going out of their way to do something immoral for the benefit of themselves.

You can make the decision to steal, and maybe you'll get away with it, and maybe you won't feel guilty, and maybe some key components of our ingenuity and our progress was made in reaction to immoral people, making them beneficial to society after all, which may account for their persistance along with a few bad seeds not being a threat to the overall persistance of our species, but I doubt you'd get away with it, and I doubt you wouldn't have a negative emotional reaction to it, and I doubt you would cause a rethinking in society. The most intangible aspect about this scenario would be your guilty conscience (or the lack of). I suspect that evolved in the same way sexual selection has. Which would mean one reason we shouldn't act immorally is because we will feel bad. Sad Is that avoidable?
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#24
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
(November 28, 2014 at 1:52 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Some would say that this answers the question quite handily. If you accept that it;s okay to steal, you;ve accepted that it's okay to be stolen from.

This does not answer the question. In general, we live in a society where people do not steal from each other. Humans think of it as immoral to steal and most of us therefore choose not to steal. You could however be one of a few people who do steal. This could benefit your life and should not make the chances of something being stolen from you any higher. Why not choose to be immoral and do this.
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#25
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
For the third time, boxes and bricks Vincent.

I think what may be happening here, is that you're conflating two different issues. One, why something is or isn't immoral. I leave that up to the individual to decide. The consequences of actions based upon those personal decisions, however, is another matter.... and is handled separately, by law.

If you want to hold some position that others may describe as immoral, be my guest, if you want to know some reason not to act on a particular item - the first thing I'll ask is whether or not you're cool with being incarcerated. If so, have at it, and we'll have at it as well. That's kind of how this all goes down, you know? If there are no boxes and bricks involved I'll ask you if your conscience is clear on that count, no reason required. If no boxes, no bricks, -and you can sleep at night. Play ball...amiright?

-Would any invocation of a god make the situation any different (as per the atheism/theism bit)? I fail to see how or why.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#26
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
(November 28, 2014 at 1:55 pm)robvalue Wrote: There is no independent reason to be moral, as a neutral universe doesn't care about us, our actions or what may be "good" or "bad".

From a human's perspective, most people have empathy. That allows you to have a feel for what it's like for other people to experience the results of your actions. Seeing someone suffer usually makes you feel bad, as you can reason that you would not like to suffer either. So at a basic level each person defines their own morals by what they think is and isn't acceptable to do to others based on the feelings the actions would provoke in them.

And as has been mentioned the side effects of being nice often make you feel good, and we understand that cooperation leads to a more pleasurable society for everyone.

But to answer why should we be moral: Because we care about other people. So we impose that "should" on ourselves. But the thing is, "being moral" isn't a consistent set of behaviours to be followed. Each person defines what is and isn't moral, so by definition they have decided what they should and shouldn't do. It's a tautology. From humanities viewpoint, we should be moral because it helps us all and we generally want a good society rather than chaos. We want health and happiness rather than harm and sadness. From a universal point of view, "should" has no meaning. We're all a bunch of atoms and stuff, doing what atoms do.

Of course you have unusual people like sociopaths who feel no empathy and as such will have trouble creating morals. The reason for them to be moral in a very broad sense is so they don't get punished by the law. But in a sense thats not being moral, it's following a code.

To me, morality is just about harm versus benefit for each action.

Thanks robvalue, I think this has been by far the best answer so far. So this empathy I think is one of the evolutionary reason why we are moral which I mention in my first post.

It seems as though having empathy can be seen as a disadvantage to people then. If it wasn't for having empathy you would have no problem doing things to benefit your life which would make the lives of others worse. As an individual (not for society as whole) can you think of empathy as a side-affect of evolution which you would be better without.

You talk about sociopaths who have no empathy so create their own morals and people having different definitions of what is moral to them. Do you not think it happens that there are people who agree on what should be moral but are choosing to be immoral anyway for their own benefit, therefore purposely knowing they are doing wrong.
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#27
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
(November 28, 2014 at 2:02 pm)vincent150 Wrote:
(November 28, 2014 at 1:52 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Some would say that this answers the question quite handily. If you accept that it;s okay to steal, you;ve accepted that it's okay to be stolen from.

This does not answer the question. In general, we live in a society where people do not steal from each other. Humans think of it as immoral to steal and most of us therefore choose not to steal. You could however be one of a few people who do steal. This could benefit your life and should not make the chances of something being stolen from you any higher. Why not choose to be immoral and do this.

You seem to be whittling this down to the individual's opinion or reason. I don't think you'll have your satisfactory answers until you ask this question 7 billion times.

My answer: Because I would feel guilty. I would feel bad for the victim. I'd rather feel good. I'd rather be trustworthy and surround myself with trustworthy people. That's 1 down.
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#28
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
(November 28, 2014 at 1:53 pm)vincent150 Wrote:
(November 28, 2014 at 1:46 pm)Esquilax Wrote: You can't just expect everyone else to sign that agreement while you go "but I'm the exception."

This is exactly what I'm asking, why should someone not let themselves be the exception? Yes, it would ruin society if everyone said this but if you know everybody else isn't going to say this, which is how it is in out society, you can benefit from being the exception. Religious people would say they wouldn't do this because of God, what is the reason an atheist can give for not doing it.

Do you care about people at all? If so, there's your answer. If not... well, you've already baselessly locked us out of using pragmatic concerns, so...

This is such a weird, inconsistent question you have. Theists might say not to be immoral because god, but I don't see you asking them the same questions you're asking me when I give you a secular reason not to be immoral.

Oh, I shouldn't be immoral because of god? Why not? Why shouldn't I just be an exception to that if I know nobody else will, so it benefits me?

... Well, why aren't you asking that to them, Vincent? Why are you pretending that "because god" is an actual answer to the question you're asking me? It's not; the same question applies to the theists. And they can't use hell as an answer to that question either, because you've discounted prison as a reason I can use, so obviously you're not content with simply referring to the consequences of an action as a reason.

Ultimately neither side has an objective sure shot answer to this question, but at least the atheist side appeals to things we know actually exists. And might I say, the inconsistency of your questioning, the focus on just pushing it on atheism, is very suspicious.
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#29
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
Thank you Smile I added a bit more to my post to address the hypocrisy of religious morality.

Yes, I think a society as a whole can come to a decent agreement about what is and isn't moral as people tend to find many of the same things helpful or harmful. An individual may agree with a particular moral of the society, say not stealing, and think it is wrong to steal, but do it anyway because they weigh their benefit as more important to them than the morality. They may know it is wrong, and may well feel bad, but have given in to selfish desires.

An individual making a decision is a very complex process and morality is one of but not the only factor.

In a way, the thief has performed a kind of morality check. He has determined the benefit of him having the thing he stole outweighs, in his opinion, the harm he knows he has done. He may later re-evaluate this analysis and decide in fact he had it wrong, and feel vey guilty. Different morals will often be in conflict, so we live life in a grey area. For example, the thief may be stealing bread because he is starving. He may then view the wrongness of theft to be less than stealing for the sake of it.

If religious people are argueing about morals, another good thing is to point out that a black and white view of morlality is next to useless. The harm and benefit of each action varies greatly with context, and you often have to choose between two harmful actions. A checklist does not help you here.
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Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

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#30
RE: Why 'should' atheists be moral?
(November 28, 2014 at 2:09 pm)Rhythm Wrote: For the third time, boxes and bricks Vincent.

I think what may be happening here, is that you're conflating two different issues. One, why something is or isn't immoral. I leave that up to the individual to decide. The consequences of actions based upon those personal decisions, however, is another matter.... and is handled separately, by law.

If you want to hold some position that others may describe as immoral, be my guest, if you want to know some reason not to act on a particular item - the first thing I'll ask is whether or not you're cool with being incarcerated. If so, have at it, and we'll have at it as well. That's kind of how this all goes down, you know? If there are no boxes and bricks involved I'll ask you if your conscience is clear on that count, no reason required. If no boxes, no bricks, -and you can sleep at night. Play ball...amiright?

-Would any invocation of a god make the situation any different (as per the atheism/theism bit)? I fail to see how or why.

When you say boxes and bricks do you just mean fear of being caught and going to prison? This may be something I'm not understanding?

The only difference being an atheist or not is here is that theists have their reason for not immoral being God. Atheists don't so this question is therefore just for atheists. Apart from that it makes no difference.

Whether something is or isn't moral is not the question at all. Like I've said this is something someone agrees is immoral but chooses to do anyway. I think most people who steal know what they're doing is wrong but are choosing to do it anyway.

You mention whether you're conscience would be clear and I think that is the main issue. Most people would not steal something because they would feel guilty even if they got away with it. However, if you would not feel guilty is there a reason to not steal something?
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