Does Atheism Lead to Nihilism?

[Simon Moon]

All the arguments based on "it is not really in our best interest to be selfish" only provides subjective morality and not any objective framework that goes beyond a certain sets of conditions.

As several of us have explained to you, the objective framework is that we all live in the same physical universe, with the same bodies and brains. What prevents me from having well being or helps me have well being will almost surely be the same thing for you.

Depending on the society we live in, you can get wide variations of opinion between the "morality" of a host of actions.

And those things can be judged to be moral or immoral. If certain society's moral behaviors has the intent to lead to harm the well being of certain groups, then I would deem their behavior as immoral. Just because a society decides female genital mutilation is moral, does not make it so. You know how you can tell? Ask the victim!

When your holy book condoned slavery, was it moral?

How do you define "good" as in someone as a "good person"? In other contexts, we define something is "good" by how well it achieves its purpose. With naturalism, people have no intrinsic purpose--they are an assembly of atoms that experienced an unlikely chain of events. Morality becomes a matter of opinion and is relative and/or subjective. You can't leap from the "is" to the "ought".

We are a collection of atoms with consciousness that is able to decide our own meaning.

In our evolution, was it always wrong to murder, rape or steal? Animals do these acts every single day without being "evil".

We are a social species. Murder, rape and stealing are a detriment to the survival of social species. Our survival strategy is not the same as lions.

Did the unlikely leap to self-awareness suddenly endow us with a moral framework when a moment before it had not (or not to the same extent)? Would this not be proof of the subjective nature of morality.

Do you really think that humans are the only species with self-awareness and morality?

Bonobo chimps, our closest relative has a pretty complex morality. Here are just a few of their behaviors that sound a lot like morality to me:

Share food with others, even when in short supply.
Adopt children when their mother dies.
Protect other members of their group, even at the risk of their own lives.
Show remorse if they do something wrong, show sadness if a member of their group dies.
Punish violent members of their group, including rapists. Yes, I said rapists. Female Bonobos give consent when they choose to have sex. If a male has sex with them without her consent, they get punished.

The list goes on...

Some of you have mentioned societal goals (or any goals) that can help get from the is to the ought. What if someone does not want those goals--has no desire to do what others consider "good"?

They get punished. Or at least, there's the threat of punishment.

Yes, it sucks that bad people sometimes get away with being bad moral actors. Grow up an get used to it.

There is no objective grounds for saying that person is "bad". Of course everything goes smoother when everyone cooperated and does not kill, harm or steal. But that does not define what is good and thereby create an "ought".

If they intentionally harm the well being of others (kill, rape, steal), they are bad.

For these reason, atheism seems to me to lead you to moral anti-realism (moral nihilism).

No matter how many times you repeat this, it doesn't become more true.

However, we all ACT like there is objective morality. Baby studies indicate that we are born with a rudimentary moral sense. Why do people engage in self-sacrifice for others (even to the point of death)--sometimes for people he/she has not met? This is certainly not biological evolution speaking.

It is certainly (at least to a large extent) biological evolution.

If our ancestors did not evolve a moral sense (altruism, kin selection, reciprocity) we wouldn't have survived as a species.

Lions, tigers, sharks, pythons do not need altruism, kin selection, reciprocity to survive. Humans, chimps, dolphins, gorillas, do.

If there really is objective morality, it did not come by naturalistic means.

The physical laws of the universe, the fact that we all have (more or less) the same bodies and brains, the fact that what is harmful to my well being is almost assuredly the same type of things that will harm your well being, sounds pretty close to objective.