Questions

[Justtristo]

Hello. This is my first official post (besides my introduction post ), so I apologize if I have asked something that another thread has answered.

I just became an Atheist maybe six months ago. Anyway, I have a friend who is devoutly Christian, and he has asked me some of the following questions, which I haven't been able to answer. I am hoping to find those answers here.

1.) If someone is an Atheist and believes in materialism, how do they account for thought? Is human thought just a chemical reaction?

Human thought is totally material, an interaction of brain neurons and chemicals.

2.) If someone is an Atheist how do they define morality? Christianity's moral system is irrelevant to an Atheist, so how do they define what is right and wrong? Is there even a difference between right and wrong to an Atheist? If there is no creator of the universe, then there is no truth, so there can be no right and wrong for an Atheist, which means that an Atheist believes that cold blooded murder is just fine.

Morality is nothing more than social rules human societies live by, they developed out of the inbuilt altruistic behavior humans have for family and friends as human societies became increasingly complex after the invention of agriculture. Throughout human history, different societies have had broadly similar moral values (the so called golden rule being one of them).

However are are differences in moral values between different societies, which can be attributed to totally natural causes. Anyway if Christians want to say Atheists are immoral, just reading from the scriptures (I recommend the New Testament rather than the Old) about things which are said about the following;

1. Obeying all governments (even very unjust ones)
2. Very hostile attitude towards Jews who rejected Jesus, Hitler did use the bible to partly justify the holocaust and it was a end result of centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.
3. Tolerance of slavery and slaves being expected to obey their masters.
4. Sexism, with women expected to be submissive to husbands, remain quiet in church, not allowed to have positions of authority over men.
5. Homophobia (Paul's letters contain numerous homophobic remarks)

These are all positions I as an 'immoral atheist' oppose and all faithful Christians have to support. Not to mention the not so good-two shoes behavior of Jesus (calling non-Jews Dogs and cursing trees for not bearing fruit) who is supposed to be the shining example Christians have to follow in living their lives.