RE: Where do atheists get their morality from?
August 30, 2012 at 11:51 pm
(This post was last modified: August 31, 2012 at 12:11 am by Cyberman.)
"Where do atheists get their morality from?"
Same place as you do. A combination of cultural upbringing, empathy for others, desire for societal acceptance and other similar factors. As any other social species, humans demonstrate tolerance for co-operative members of the group and abhorrence for those who abuse and manipulate the group. That's why we applaud someone for helping an old lady across the road and lock up someone who mugs that old lady for her pension. In less enlightened times, people who violated the social mores for personal gain would have been punished by death or banishment from the group. This still happens in what we in the so-called civilised world (and America) might consider less enlightened nations, and most notably in the animal kingdom among other social species.
Any good to you?
Same place as you do. A combination of cultural upbringing, empathy for others, desire for societal acceptance and other similar factors. As any other social species, humans demonstrate tolerance for co-operative members of the group and abhorrence for those who abuse and manipulate the group. That's why we applaud someone for helping an old lady across the road and lock up someone who mugs that old lady for her pension. In less enlightened times, people who violated the social mores for personal gain would have been punished by death or banishment from the group. This still happens in what we in the so-called civilised world (and America) might consider less enlightened nations, and most notably in the animal kingdom among other social species.
Any good to you?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'