Atheist moral code

[Void]

Having no morals is not necessarily better then having bad morals.

And you think atheists have no morals because...?

I could have been more specific here. I was pointing to the lack of a common moral. I'm sorry if that misunderstanding hurt your feelings.

Do I understand you correctly - you mean to say that atheists can't really accuse the religious of having bad morals because they themselves do not possess a common and unified moral code? That to me is several misunderstandings at once.

You do not understand me correctly. Basically I am talking about individuals here. In a thought example it could be an atheist with terrible morals, attacking the belief of a moral ideal of a theist, based on the questionable morals of the book. In a dispute where the theist is the one with the 'higher morals' this argument would cause the atheist fall on his face.

[Angrboda]

I posted this earlier today. It seems relevant.

Towards 1880, when the French professors endeavoured to formulate a secular morality, they said something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis, so we will do without it. However, if we are to have morality, a society and a law-abiding world, it is essential that certain values should be taken seriously; they must have an a priori existence ascribed to them. It must be considered obligatory a priori to be honest, not to lie, not to beat one’s wife, to bring up children and so forth; so we are going to do a little work on this subject, which will enable us to show that these values exist all the same, inscribed in an intelligible heaven although, of course, there is no God. In other words – and this is, I believe, the purport of all that we in France call radicalism – nothing will be changed if God does not exist; we shall rediscover the same norms of honesty, progress and humanity, and we shall have disposed of God as an out-of-date hypothesis which will die away quietly of itself.

Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is A Humanism

[Norman Humann]

And you think atheists have no morals because...?

I could have been more specific here. I was pointing to the lack of a common moral. I'm sorry if that misunderstanding hurt your feelings.

It didn't, no need to apologise.

I think that the moral code, though it did change since the bronze age, obviously is more or less universal for most human beings. Theists just like to claim that it comes from god.

[Esquilax]

An honest question, why not consider all other sentient species and existential threat to humanity. Is there a moral reason, based on natural selection, for not sending Von Neumann berserker machines out as a preemptive strike against potential threats.

Because you don't necessarily know that they do pose a threat, and won't know until further investigation is conducted. Preemptive strikes, by definition, happen before an empt has occurred, and in this case they'd be happening before we even know if one is possible.

Basically, you don't do that to other species for the same reason you shouldn't do it to other countries; there are ways of obtaining more information to determine what course of action is justified, and acting on vague suspicions is rarely a good justification for any course of action, much less a genocidal one.

[Thumpalumpacus]

When atheists attack these believers based on bad morals I sometimes feel like they are throwing dirt in their own eyes.

I think immoral behavior should be pointed out no matter the actor.

So, I'm wondering if there is some kind of moral code that all atheists would be bound by, which could justify these arguments. And if there is, where is it derived from?

Morality is relative and subjective. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, that just means it is is different for different people. That doesn't mean that those people cannot opine about the moral nature of an action, either. It just means that morality is relative and subjective.

When something offends my moral sensibility, I speak up. I know what my code is, and it is derived from my sense of empathy.

[CapnAwesome]

One key argument used by atheist to undermine religions is that many of them has books that clearly justifies rape, manslaughter and several other things that must be fundamentally evil.
In many cases this argument does not hit as hard as it should against individual believers, because they have found ways to interpret the scruptures so that these passages have other meanings, and the evil acts are not part of the individual belief.
When atheists attack these believers based on bad morals I sometimes feel like they are throwing dirt in their own eyes. Having no morals is not necessarily better then having bad morals. As far as I understand, atheism is based on a disbelief of gods, which don't automatically point in the direction of a moral code.
So, I'm wondering if there is some kind of moral code that all atheists would be bound by, which could justify these arguments. And if there is, where is it derived from?

Well some people believe there is a kind of natural morality. Think about this: at any given time and at any given decision there are outcomes that will either make the world better or make the world worse. If are faced with the choice of eating cupcakes or eating shit you don't say 'Well taste in food is a subjective thing, so it doesn't really matter whether or not I eat shit or eat cupcakes.' Of course that's not true, there is a right decision there and a wrong one. The same applies to moral decisions. If you are deciding whether or not to yell at your spouse or beat your kids, it's not a matter of subjectivity. There is a correct moral decision which brings more happiness to everyone involved. So there could very well be a moral code that derives from natural law. It's also important to separate from what people perceive as moral and what actually is moral. Even if a whole society says that it's okay to beat your wife and kids, it doesn't mean that beating your wife and kids is moral. All it does is add suffering to the world and doesn't result in anything positive. Even the one doing the beating is made to be less of a human and suffers for it.

Keep in mind, I'm only saying that there could very well be. I myself am a Nihilist, so I don't really think it matters whether or not there are morals.

[comet]

I just called someone a big fat slob

I need to go to church to remind my self not to be such an asshole.
God's got nothing to do with it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Basically, moral relativism.

Which is the factual state of affairs, even for you.

---

No, moral relativism is the statement that all moral codes are equally valid, which is a different thing?

Not necessarily. There are several different perspectives of moral relativism, and not all of them assign ethical values to their observations about morality, while others do.

[Void]

Well some people believe there is a kind of natural morality. Think about this: at any given time and at any given decision there are outcomes that will either make the world better or make the world worse. If are faced with the choice of eating cupcakes or eating shit you don't say 'Well taste in food is a subjective thing, so it doesn't really matter whether or not I eat shit or eat cupcakes.' Of course that's not true, there is a right decision there and a wrong one. The same applies to moral decisions. If you are deciding whether or not to yell at your spouse or beat your kids, it's not a matter of subjectivity. There is a correct moral decision which brings more happiness to everyone involved. So there could very well be a moral code that derives from natural law. It's also important to separate from what people perceive as moral and what actually is moral. Even if a whole society says that it's okay to beat your wife and kids, it doesn't mean that beating your wife and kids is moral. All it does is add suffering to the world and doesn't result in anything positive. Even the one doing the beating is made to be less of a human and suffers for it.

Keep in mind, I'm only saying that there could very well be. I myself am a Nihilist, so I don't really think it matters whether or not there are morals.

I think that you could very well be onto something there. But I don't think that necessarily the action that brings most happiness would always be the right one. That sounds pretty utilitaristic.

Still it seems like moral is a very subjective thing, differing from individual to individual. The question is if there are one or more universal sources from where morals could be extracted.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Still it seems like moral is a very subjective thing, differing from individual to individual. The question is if there are one or more universal sources from where morals could be extracted.

You seem to have answered your own question here. Universal means universal. Could two sources share one universe? And could one source present different moral values in different contexts?

I think you're overthinking this.