Welcome Charles.
I cannot say much other than what has already been said...
Atheism by definition is simply not believing in God. Its possible for an atheist to therefore believe in absolute morals...
I don't though. On the morality I do not know of any evidence of any absolute morals. However it seems quite clear and obvious to me that morality exists! Some people are nicer than others, some people care more than others, some people are less bad people than others...
There's this thing simply called empathy that helps us see right from wrong...the gold and rule that that Jesus guy was so fond of describes it. But empathy isn't even only in us humans and it was around a LONG while before Jesus.
Others thought of it before Jesus was said to. Confucius thought of it for example - he just put it in a slightly different way. Sometimes called the silver way; also moral but more conservative.
Rather than "Do on to others as you would have them do on to you" it is "Do NOT do on to others as you would NOT have them do on to you".
Anyway people cared and had empathy well before Jesus was supposed to have existed! And the fact is that morality exists because people care (some more than others) and empathy exists, thank goodness.
I find it quite profound actually that wonderful, bright, moral people can come simply out of a process of blind, yet totally natural selection and some mutation and a little bit of genetic drift (i.e evolution).
I find it awesome.
Anyway, again, welcome Charles.
EvF
I cannot say much other than what has already been said...
Atheism by definition is simply not believing in God. Its possible for an atheist to therefore believe in absolute morals...
I don't though. On the morality I do not know of any evidence of any absolute morals. However it seems quite clear and obvious to me that morality exists! Some people are nicer than others, some people care more than others, some people are less bad people than others...
There's this thing simply called empathy that helps us see right from wrong...the gold and rule that that Jesus guy was so fond of describes it. But empathy isn't even only in us humans and it was around a LONG while before Jesus.
Others thought of it before Jesus was said to. Confucius thought of it for example - he just put it in a slightly different way. Sometimes called the silver way; also moral but more conservative.
Rather than "Do on to others as you would have them do on to you" it is "Do NOT do on to others as you would NOT have them do on to you".
Anyway people cared and had empathy well before Jesus was supposed to have existed! And the fact is that morality exists because people care (some more than others) and empathy exists, thank goodness.
I find it quite profound actually that wonderful, bright, moral people can come simply out of a process of blind, yet totally natural selection and some mutation and a little bit of genetic drift (i.e evolution).
I find it awesome.
Anyway, again, welcome Charles.
EvF
