Moral standards

[Ravenshire]

My initial reaction to this thread:
Oh, for fucks sake. Not another one of these "you can't be moral without the help of my personal deity" ass-cracks. Why do they seem to find this particular argument so compelling?

My reaction after reading it:
Oh, for fucks sake. Another one of these "you can't be moral without the help of my personal deity" ass-cracks. Why do they seem to find this particular argument so compelling?

Seriously, our morality (yours, mine, pretty much everyone's) comes from their empathy for their fellows and the society they live in. If I lose my empathy, the society I live in will usually suffice to maintain my morality. If my society fails, my empathy will carry me along. If both fail, well that's why some assholes are in prison.

You don't get your morals from a book or from some magic sky-fairy father figure. You get them from the exact same places everyone else gets them from. Deny it all you like, but there a morally upright people from all faiths and no faith, in all walks of life that give lie to your claim that morality comes only from the realm of the supernatural.

This is a misunderstanding of what I am saying. I never said that a person cannot be moral without believing in God. I am asking on what grounds does an atheist stand when demanding that someone act morally towards them or any other human being. There is no consistent moral standard, and when there is disagreement as to what is moral, the "evolved morals within everyone" falls apart.

Of course an atheist can be a moral person. Anyone can practice morality. The question is, where did that morality come from and how does it play out when the shit hits the fan?

Societal mores are all we have. They come from our empathy and our societies, as I have already stated. I stand on the ground that you bloody well conform to the mores of the society you live in else someone's gonna toss your ass in jail. I think I already went over this...

You claim that you're not claiming that our morality comes from some sky-dwelling overlord, but your arguments sound just like every christer I've heard making the absolute moral authority claim.

Morality is subjective and, over the long term, transient. There are no absolute mores either handed down from on high or derived from society.