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Atheism 101: Can you be moral without God?

This is one of the questions atheists get asked all the time. Some people seem to think that without a divine authority to spell out a moral code, there's nothing to keep atheists from deciding it's morally acceptable to do anything they think they can get away with. Perhaps it would even be true if atheists, like children, acted without thinking about consequences. We are not, as a rule though, thoughtless people. We are aware of the consequences of our choice in a society that often looks down on those who do not profess a theistic faith and most of the folks I know who became atheists did so only after a lot of thought and, for want of a better word, soul-searching. We tend to put a lot of thought into our ideas about morality too. That's why you'll find the numbers of atheists in prison to be proportionally far below our representation in the general population...
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Permalink Reply by Alber Crombie on August 1, 2009 at 5:48am

"he's a very cruel, childish, narcissistic, impetuous character."

Your points bring to mind the blistering volley Dawkins laid out in his book "The God Delusion" regarding the Hebrew god.

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

Do you think Dawkins should have held back like that, or would it have been better for him to really make his opinions known on the subject. I laughed so hard when I first read that passage, and even now after the umpteenth time, it still lights me up.

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on July 31, 2009 at 9:38pm

Look, these articles are great, but do they really belong in AtheistNews ?

Permalink Reply by Hugh Kramer on July 31, 2009 at 9:53pm

I'm open to suggestion, felch. Is there a more appropriate forum that has as many members?

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on July 31, 2009 at 11:42pm

I'm not Felch, but one option would be your personal blog on A|N. They appear on the "front page" until enough other blog posts occur to move them off the screen, then remain on your personal page unless you remove them. Then you have 'editorial management' of the post, which for most people means that anyone on A|N can say whatever they want. The other advantage of posting as a personal blog post is that all of your posts are collected on one spot (on your blog list), so that whoever wants to read other posts that you have written has one place to look.

Most of the time, if I have something that I want to expose all of A|N to, I post it as a blog. If it pertains to a particicular topic that is of interest to me, then I post in a discussion group for that topic. For example, if I post on gay penguins, I do it either in the gay group or the animal lovers group. If I want to post on race or ethnicity, then I use that group.

The other place could be in one of the fora (is that pleural for forum?). Again, if it seems appropriate to you for whatever category you are posting in. One advantage of the forum is that whenever someone comments on a topic, it moves to the top of the list, so active topics stay active, while others go dormant until someone is looking through them and has 2 cents to add, or some really cool insight. It's really you who decide what you want to post and where. I just hope that you continue doing it.

Some other helpful person may have better ideas.

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on August 1, 2009 at 6:35am

Well, there's a plethora of groups - you can keyword search, a lot are very active and you may want to sign up to a few.. But if you want a longer term conversation, the forum atheism category is pretty good. There are some threads there that have celebrated a birthday. Things in blogs tend to get buried more easily - especially here where we just want the news fix.

Permalink Reply by John Smith on August 1, 2009 at 2:34am

Religion and morality are completely seperate things. I do agree that the bible has some good morals such as don't steal, treat others as you want to be treated, etc. However, it also has alot of extremely bad things in it, such as treating women as less than equal, rape, killing your children and other people in the name of god, etc. I think those who have no religion have more morals, and better morals than most of those with religion. Especially the christians of old. Todays christians are not very christian, most of them do not know the tenents of their religion or what makes them different from other sects of christianity. I find the things that christians do, have done, and are willing to do in the name of god. From my experience as well as in theory, Atheists are better people because we lack belief in a higher power. Not only that, when we do the right thing, it is not because we fear eternal damnation, but simply because it IS THE RIGHT THING!