Where do atheists get their morality from?

[Red Celt]

I thought the following library of essays might be of general interest to readers of this thread.

Infidels.org: (Modern Library)

As moral. As moral as theists, based on theistic morals? Where else might atheists get this standard of morality? From society, perhaps, which borrows almost exclusively from Christianity. Sure you can abide by Christianity's morals, and many atheists do. But by definition of evolution you have no objective morals. You are simply imitating culture to be accepted by culture. In the process, you validate Christian ethics as the most acceptable, tossing out one or two (such as adultery, abortion) to suit your own personal whims. Perhaps by 'having morals' you mean being generally good to other human beings. Yet according to evolution there is no good, just survival. Your 'good' is done out of self-interest. If you truly were altruistic, you'd contradict survival of the fittest. Why should anyone be impressed you can imitate out of self-interest? A monkey can do that. Moral atheism is an oxymoron unless the atheist defines a moral his own way. In such a case, what good is a subjective moral? Why should anyone be impressed that you can create your own idea of right and wrong? A monkey can do that too. Without altruism, ethics is just an act.

Stand back, please, people...

(beats Undeceived to death with a copy of The Selfish Gene)

Well, as an atheist, I have no morals, right?

Perhaps I should just have told him to read the fucking book, so that he could perhaps understand why social animals benefit from altruism. Morality pre-dated Christianity... so if anyone copied pre-existing morality, it would be the Christians. Yeah? Yeah.

[Undeceived]

As moral. As moral as theists, based on theistic morals? Where else might atheists get this standard of morality? From society, perhaps, which borrows almost exclusively from Christianity. Sure you can abide by Christianity's morals, and many atheists do. But by definition of evolution you have no objective morals. You are simply imitating culture to be accepted by culture. In the process, you validate Christian ethics as the most acceptable, tossing out one or two (such as adultery, abortion) to suit your own personal whims. Perhaps by 'having morals' you mean being generally good to other human beings. Yet according to evolution there is no good, just survival. Your 'good' is done out of self-interest. If you truly were altruistic, you'd contradict survival of the fittest. Why should anyone be impressed you can imitate out of self-interest? A monkey can do that. Moral atheism is an oxymoron unless the atheist defines a moral his own way. In such a case, what good is a subjective moral? Why should anyone be impressed that you can create your own idea of right and wrong? A monkey can do that too. Without altruism, ethics is just an act.

Stand back, please, people...

(beats Undeceived to death with a copy of The Selfish Gene)

Well, as an atheist, I have no morals, right?

Perhaps I should just have told him to read the fucking book, so that he could perhaps understand why social animals benefit from altruism.

In The Selfish Gene Dawkins gave two reasons for apparently altruistic actions: 1) the person I help has my genes, or 2) the person I help will reciprocate. Well, say I give up my bus seat to an old lady. She neither has my genes, nor is she likely to pay me back. Not only that, but she's rather weak and probably the last person on the bus I'd like to reproduce for humankind. Or take me sending food rations to children in Africa. They neither have my genes nor are they capable of sending me anything in return. If you wish to make the case for altruistic actions helping society as a whole, even evolutionists stop short of that argument. Internal natural selection forbids my helping weaker individuals at the expense of myself. You're right, other humans benefit from my altruistic actions... but my DNA carrying the altruism gene will not be passed to my children.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

I thought the following library of essays might be of general interest to readers of this thread.

Infidels.org: (Modern Library)

As moral. As moral as theists, based on theistic morals? Where else might atheists get this standard of morality? From society, perhaps, which borrows almost exclusively from Christianity. Sure you can abide by Christianity's morals, and many atheists do. But by definition of evolution you have no objective morals. You are simply imitating culture to be accepted by culture. In the process, you validate Christian ethics as the most acceptable, tossing out one or two (such as adultery, abortion) to suit your own personal whims. Perhaps by 'having morals' you mean being generally good to other human beings. Yet according to evolution there is no good, just survival. Your 'good' is done out of self-interest. If you truly were altruistic, you'd contradict survival of the fittest. Why should anyone be impressed you can imitate out of self-interest? A monkey can do that. Moral atheism is an oxymoron unless the atheist defines a moral his own way. In such a case, what good is a subjective moral? Why should anyone be impressed that you can create your own idea of right and wrong? A monkey can do that too. Without altruism, ethics is just an act.

Well done, fellow Christian!

Just keep hitting the "reset" button and repeat the same conversation over and over until we "win" when the hellbound heathen trash gets tired and goes home.

I mean, Sweet Jesus, how many times has this very argument been presented, debunked, represented, debunked again and presented again, practically word-for-freaking-word, over and over in just this thread alone?

Argumentum Ad Neuseum, definitely one of my favorite fallac... styles of theistic argument.

[Red Celt]

In The Selfish Gene Dawkins gave two reasons for apparently altruistic actions: 1) the person I help has my genes, or 2) the person I help will reciprocate. Well, say I give up my bus seat to an old lady. She neither has my genes, nor is she likely to pay me back. Not only that, but she's rather weak and probably the last person on the bus I'd like to reproduce for humankind. Or take me sending food rations to children in Africa. They neither have my genes nor are they capable of sending me anything in return. If you wish to make the case for altruistic actions helping society as a whole, even evolutionists stop short of that argument. Internal natural selection forbids my helping weaker individuals at the expense of myself. You're right, other humans benefit from my altruistic actions... but my DNA carrying the altruism gene will not be passed to my children.

I'm pretty sure that he also mentioned that these in-built empathies are contagious and can extend to people who are not genetically linked to us. Much as we feel empathy for cute "baby-faced" animals (like kittens) that are treated cruelly, but less empathetic for ugly animals (like prawns) receiving the same treatment.

You also completely missed the point that morality long predated Christianity. I mean... really long. So Christianity borrowed from earlier models, which borrowed from models even older... right back until pre-religious times.

[pocaracas]

As moral. As moral as theists, based on theistic morals? Where else might atheists get this standard of morality? From society, perhaps, which borrows almost exclusively from Christianity which borrows exclusively from society.

Fixed!

[Undeceived]

In The Selfish Gene Dawkins gave two reasons for apparently altruistic actions: 1) the person I help has my genes, or 2) the person I help will reciprocate. Well, say I give up my bus seat to an old lady. She neither has my genes, nor is she likely to pay me back. Not only that, but she's rather weak and probably the last person on the bus I'd like to reproduce for humankind. Or take me sending food rations to children in Africa. They neither have my genes nor are they capable of sending me anything in return. If you wish to make the case for altruistic actions helping society as a whole, even evolutionists stop short of that argument. Internal natural selection forbids my helping weaker individuals at the expense of myself. You're right, other humans benefit from my altruistic actions... but my DNA carrying the altruism gene will not be passed to my children.

I'm pretty sure that he also mentioned that these in-built empathies are contagious and can extend to people who are not genetically linked to us. Much as we feel empathy for cute "baby-faced" animals (like kittens) that are treated cruelly, but less empathetic for ugly animals (like prawns) receiving the same treatment.

So evolution made a mistake? It seems to me the more pitiable-looking humans are the ones we're most likely to help--and they have bad genes.

You also completely missed the point that morality long predated Christianity. I mean... really long. So Christianity borrowed from earlier models, which borrowed from models even older... right back until pre-religious times.

Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. According to the Old Testament God was with Adam and Eve and the Hebrew people since the beginning of time. The Ten Commandments have not changed, nor has the Spirit of the Law Jesus spoke about.
http://www.ucg.org/bible-study-lesson/bi...pirit-law/

[YahwehIsTheWay]

The Ten Commandments have not changed

Except for the Sabbath being moved to Sunday, in violation of commandment #4.

Exodus 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

The Sabbath is Saturday, not Sunday.

But hey, Jesus forgives us for that so it's all good.

---

[out of character/]

You didn't see me as I read Undeceived's last post. *Lingering face palm* "Aaaahhhh, the stupid! It's burning my braaaaiiiiinnnn!" *Logs on to YahwehIsTheWay to post "agreement" with him*

This is the only way I can cope. I don't see how you all do it.

[/out of character]

[pocaracas]

Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. According to the Old Testament God was with Adam and Eve and the Hebrew people since the beginning of time. The Ten Commandments have not changed, nor has the Spirit of the Law Jesus spoke about.
http://www.ucg.org/bible-study-lesson/bi...pirit-law/

Let's honor the memory of those people who went against all the established mumbo-jumbo and declared the Earth to be roughly 5 billion years old (on this side of the pond, that's 5 thousand million years old... a billion is a million million) and say: Forget about what you believe and study the world.... you just might come to the same conclusion as those people did.

[Whateverist]

So evolution made a mistake? It seems to me the more pitiable-looking humans are the ones we're most likely to help--and they have bad genes.

Without intentionality it doesn't make a lot of sense to speak of 'making a mistake". In fact, evolution doesn't do anything at all -intentionally or otherwise- because evolution isn't that kind of 'thing'. Evolution is merely a description of the manner in which living things change over time in response to the way genetic variation and the occasional mutation either improve or worsen the fit between an organism and its environment.

[liam]

Where else might atheists get this standard of morality?

Um...moral philosophers (the main source of ethics since socrates), any teleological end they choose, a utopian ideal, intuition, general reasoning and many other places. The church is by no accounts the only possible place for morality, perhaps not even an independent one.

From society, perhaps, which borrows almost exclusively from Christianity. Sure you can abide by Christianity's morals, and many atheists do. But by definition of evolution you have no objective morals. You are simply imitating culture to be accepted by culture.

Completely different to christianity, right? which didn't in any way adopt its entire code of ethics from the Torah, Zoroastrianism, Orphism and Aristotle?

In the process, you validate Christian ethics as the most acceptable, tossing out one or two (such as adultery, abortion) to suit your own personal whims. Perhaps by 'having morals' you mean being generally good to other human beings. Yet according to evolution there is no good, just survival. Your 'good' is done out of self-interest. If you truly were altruistic, you'd contradict survival of the fittest. Why should anyone be impressed you can imitate out of self-interest? A monkey can do that.

- They arent christian ethics.
- Not whims, reasons and perspectives, you're just making a biased argument now without any actual reason to suppose that atheists act on whim
- 'According to evolution', this is not the theory of everything for an atheist, supervenience can very simply explain away the idea of 'nothing but survival'
- You assume that rejecting god means everything is done out of self-interest, yet this is untrue. Furthermore, as this follows from the evolutionary you just defiled so horrendously, you would also be according to nothing but self-interest (represented primarily by a desire for heaven and unnecessary emotional comfort).
- You assume moral action is imitation, not true, AGAIN.

Moral atheism is an oxymoron unless the atheist defines a moral his own way. In such a case, what good is a subjective moral? Why should anyone be impressed that you can create your own idea of right and wrong? A monkey can do that too. Without altruism, ethics is just an act.

This is perhaps one of the most ignorant things I've ever read. Firstly, there is nothing oxymoronic about 'moral atheism', nor anything even remotely contradictory so you might want to go and revise exactly what is meant by these terms.
You're assuming that atheism and morals, when combined, only advocate subjective morality, which is again incorrect. Creating your own idea of morals is far superior to being completely and ignorantly accepting of a false morality arbitrated by an unprovable thing. Moral laws require constant revision and if you think you can live morally simply because of a belief in god or some ancient code of ethics then you're being dogmatic. In case you hadn't noticed, we are primates too and your assumption that altruism is impossible for atheists is (1) personally insulting, and (2) completely incorrect.