Where are the Morals?

[genkaus]

You start off fine, but then devolve to typical religitard stupidity pretty quickly.

In the article I will discuss, why an atheist who adopted a moral way of living is more vulnerable to immorality compared to a religious person.

Evidence indicates the opposite.

For me there is no difference between any religious person who does not follow his religious laws and rituals and an atheist.

There is a big difference - the former accepts religious laws as correct in principle but doesn't practice it, the latter realizes that they are bullshit in principle and in practice.

Secondly, I would keep myself refrain from going into intricate details of morality and keep my focus purely on the reasons why a person can be moral or immoral.

So, you want to talk about morality without establishing it first - seems like a fine basis for moving the goalposts.

Now the question is why rational beings (humans) should live a moral life. Short answer to that is because humans are dependent beings.

The shorter answer is "we can think".

A person cannot be tailor, engineer, doctor, teacher, etc., at the same time.

More importantly, the capacity to think means that now he requires a conceptual guide for his actions.

Why be good? Because being good--living virtuously--is the only way to a fulfilled, self-actualized life.

The corollary would be that if being "good" according to your moral values (meaning, consistently following its tenets) does not result in a fulfilled, self-actualized life then there is something fundamentally wrong with your system.

Morals develop through the needs and the fulfilment of those necessities, in human life.

Remember this for future reference - If morals develop through the needs and their fulfillment, then an objective and rational analysis of those needs and an understanding of ways to fulfill it is sufficient for a moral code. One does not need to look elsewhere for morality.

I can say moral is the innate quality of each person.

You'd be wrong. While a person's needs may be innate, the fulfillment depends on external factors and thus the resulting morality cannot be innate.

Human nature, in favourable circumstances, is also clearly constructed for icy selfishness cruel exploitation, uncontrollable rage and a range of other less desirable traits. So the dilemma is this: How do we choose between good and bad instincts?

By use of reason. By, like I said before, an objective and rational analysis of needs and an understanding of ways to fulfill them. The instincts that serve the purpose are good and those that do not are bad.




Until now, you were doing okay. From here onwards, you start spewing typical uneducated religious bullshit.

Although atheism fails to answer this dilemma,

It never attempts to answer this dilemma, so it'd be surprising for it to succeed.

it sternly criticise morals based on religion by undermining the fact that religion is the only institute in the entire human history that successfully delivered and implemented efficient rules for a moral life.

That's because its not a fact - it isn't the only institute and the rules it delivered are inefficient and irrational.

Some have argued that a morality based on obedience to a divine will is ‘infantile’ (Patrick Nowell-Smith 1966); others see it as ‘prehuman’ (Erich Fromm) or ‘bad faith’ (Simone de Beauvoir), or as promoting a ‘loss of self’ (Karl Marx).

Correctly so - and those are the charitable opinions.

However, these condemnations do not have any validation because atheism is only a belief in the non-existence of God, which instinctively eradicate any moral rules given by God.

Not instinctively - rationally.

Conversely, atheism has nothing to offer to fill this moral gap.

That's because it never promised such a thing to begin with.

Maximum it says:

"Obey your evolutionary instincts,"
"Respect your brain chemistry," or
"Follow your mental wirings"

That would be an invalid conclusion.

By Logic Atheism gives no ground for morality.

Nor should it.

In atheism when you look at the bottom of the universe there is no good there is no evil there is no justice and DNA is just is and we dance to its music.

Actually, in atheism, when you look at the bottom of the universe, all you can say is "can't see a god, so religious morality is bullshit". Things like good, evil and justice are still out there and atheism says nothing of them.

By definition, this undermines all morality.

No - just your supposedly "god-given" morality. Other types of moralities are still standing.

The message one may draw from this knowledge is this: You have a limited number of days, hours, and minutes. Therefore, you should strive to fill each of those days, hours, and minutes with meaning. You should strive to fill them with learning and gaining comfort, joy, and pleasure as much as you can.

That is not a valid conclusion.

Therefore, living in an Ethical and rationally governed society would afford everyone the best chance of achieving any rational plan of life, including immoral ones.

That's assuming that the ethics in question are themselves rational - otherwise, you cannot have an ethical and rationally governed society without major contradictions.

Transgressors are often actually socially and legally rather morally, prim apart from their own immoral behaviours. In effect, they are civil freeloaders, happy to endorse morality and law for others while selectively exempting themselves from them.

Except, in a rational and ethical society, you cannot endorse morality for others nor can you exempt yourself from the law.

People can and do have rational plan of life that include desires to achieve things that they morally ought to refrain from doing.

Only if the morality you refer to isn't rational.

Refer back again: "Morals develop through the needs and the fulfilment of those necessities."

A rational plan should obviously cater to those very needs and their fulfillment. Why, then, would it be contradictory to morality?

For example,

Joseph Stalin kill 42,672,000 people
Mao Zedong kill 37,828,000 people
Adolf Hitler kill 20,946,000 people
Chiang Kaikillshek kill 10,214,000 people
Vladimir Lenin kill 4,017,000 people
Hideki Tojo kill 3,990,000 people
Pol Pot kill 2,397,0003 people

Their rational plans of life-involved goals, such as genocide, were the integral part of their rational plan of life, and hence doing that had the highest value for them; but it does not follow that they morally ought to have pursued that end. So, insofar as Ethical Rational justification uses the motivation to realize rational plan of life, any rational plan of life, Ethical Rationalism would, at least in some instances, legitimize immoral rational plan of life.

Any evidence that their plans were rational? That their so-called values were logical? So far, all you've shown is that ethical rationalism would've indicated their goal to be irrational - not provided any justification for it.

In contrast to atheism, religion give definite laws for a moral life.

Just not a rational one.

The relationship between religion and morality is important for questions of practical moral decision.

Except, religious morality is not practical.

Religious ethicists have a long record of attempting to relate theory to practice in moral discussion.

And failing.

The ability of a moral system to provide practical guidance is especially important during times of extensive moral confusion.

And impractical moral systems, like religious morality should be rejected outright. Which is what atheism helps us do. Then we can look to other philosophies to provide a practical moral system.

Religious activity extends, of course, well beyond the range of specifically moral concerns. Religious scholars have typically insisted, however, that religious teachings provide the larger context in which the claims of morality find their proper place.

An unsubstantiated "larger context", which is simply an shoddy attempt to make their impractical morality seem practicable.

Compare religious teachings to the infinite stretch of time, and think that person will cease to exist, that he will be no more but an infinitesimal moment, a spark in the infinite blackness, a spark that flickers and dies forever.

And what good will that do?

Critics of religiously based moral perspectives undermine the fact that Religious teachings are narratively rich.

No, we don't deny that they are narratively rich - just that those narratives have any bearing on reality.

These narratives provide the believer with an expanded sense of what is morally possible: the belief in miracles and a Final Judgment, and a sense of access to divine sources of strength and blessing, can have an important impact on moral motivation.

The correct word would be an unrealistic sense. And unrealistic considerations have no place in developing a practical morality.

Atheism abandon the scriptures without providing any alternate model for moral code of conduct.

Correct. We find our alternate models elsewhere - some look to cultural norms and others to philosophies.

Hence, atheists are left with no other choice than to peek into religion in pursuit of moral guidance.

Nonsense - we have plenty of philosophies to choose from. Many of them predate your religious morality. Why the fuck would look we for guidance in something that we consider baseless and nonsensical?

There is no academy in the secular world that gives awareness on morals in a scientific way.

There are plenty of them - starting with different schools of philosophical thought and ending with political ideologies.

On the other hand, I believe that whole structure of morals in secularism is based on the religious teachings because only it is religion that had given knowledge on human values in a systematic manner and people have enjoyed the wisdom of morals based on religion throughout the human history.

Utter and total hogwash.

Religion simply issues moral commands without giving them any rhyme or reason. By their nature, they are arbitrary, absolutist and often unreasonable.

It has always fallen to philosophers to come up with systemic forms of moral systems which are often co-opted by religions.

Please listen to this inspiring talk by Alain De Botton (an atheist) on how religion is important for Atheism.

Does he repeat the same bullshit as you?