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Does atheism scare you?

Nimos

Well-Known Member
I have seen a lot of debate between atheism and religion, whether that is about the truth of it, morally and so forth.

However have noticed that in some of them, especially when it comes to the question of morality, that its not uncommon that an argument like "Without God there is no moral justification" or "without God nothing would prevent people from just doing whatever they want", just to clarify, I don't believe those people using these types of arguments (at least not the majority of them) make the claim that atheists can't be moral. But rather that this is an argument for the likelihood of God. Meant in such way, that atheists might claim that they don't believe in a God, but without one, there is no explanation or reason for objective morality, therefore God offers the best explanation, atheists just won't or are to ignorant to see the evidence. This post is not meant to be about morality, but rather how people view atheism.

So to those of you which are religious and believe in objective morality, would you be afraid of becoming an atheist, meaning that you fear you might lose some moral "control", or what to say?

If you for whatever reason, do not believe in objective morality as a religious person, I would also be very interested to hear, why that is the case?

(If you want a quick introduction to what Im talking about, this is a debate between William Lane Craig and Shelly Kagan, where William present the argument. Hopefully it should start the correct place at 22.45 and end roughly around 26.30 depending on how much you care to watch.)

 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
If we think of the Ancient Age, the greatest philosophers were atheists. Claudius Caecus used to say that Homo faber Fortunae suae, which means that man is able through his free will to determine his fate.
From this determinism (and refusal of fatalism) comes the necessity to create an ethical order based upon virtue. As Stoicism teaches: from sacrifice comes happiness.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I have seen a lot of debate between atheism and religion, whether that is about the truth of it, morally and so forth.

However have noticed that in some of them, especially when it comes to the question of morality, that its not uncommon that an argument like "Without God there is no moral justification" or "without God nothing would prevent people from just doing whatever they want", just to clarify, I don't believe those people using these types of arguments (at least not the majority of them) make the claim that atheists can't be moral. But rather that this is an argument for the likelihood of God. Meant in such way, that atheists might claim that they don't believe in a God, but without one, there is no explanation or reason for objective morality, therefore God offers the best explanation, atheists just won't or are to ignorant to see the evidence. This post is not meant to be about morality, but rather how people view atheism.

So to those of you which are religious and believe in objective morality, would you be afraid of becoming an atheist, meaning that you fear you might lose some moral "control", or what to say?

If you for whatever reason, do not believe in objective morality as a religious person, I would also be very interested to hear, why that is the case?

(If you want a quick introduction to what Im talking about, this is a debate between William Lane Craig and Shelly Kagan, where William present the argument. Hopefully it should start the correct place at 22.45 and end roughly around 26.30 depending on how much you care to watch.)


Well, I am religious, but I don't believe in God as a source for objective morality and I don't believe in objective morality. And I am also an atheist, so I don't fear losing moral "control".

As for not believing in objective morality or God as a source for objective morality, there is no way to do that with reason, logic or evidence/truth, so I stopped doing morality in that sense and do my subjective, individual morality.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Morality is a mammalian trait, it has been the basis for civilisation from the beginning of humanity, not religious althought religion has hijacked it, claims it as their own and uses it to paint non believers as evil.

As an atheist i am not scared of religion/religious but i am wary. I have been hurt either mentally or physically 4 times in my life, each time by good moral christians.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Morality is a mammalian trait, it has been the basis for civilisation from the beginning of humanity, not religious althought religion has hijacked it, claims it as their own and uses it to paint non believers as evil.

As an atheist i am not scared of religion/religious but i am wary. I have been hurt either mentally or physically 4 times in my life, each time by good moral christians.

I am religious and don't use my religion to paint non believers as evil.

I have also been hurt by good rational reasonable humans, though not religious humans.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I'm an atheist who accepts that there is objective morality. It's solely up to us to be moral. There's no authority of morality who determines who is morally acceptable and who isn't. There is no natural moral law existing in nature. Rather objective morality is something that just happens to be. Because of objective morality worthwhile societies can be built.

I don't see why this would scare people. Perhaps what scares people is that evil also exists, and the freedom to choose it or not.

Moral responsibility rests with the person themselves and not anybody else. I think a lot of people desire to be moral. And a lot of people have sub optimal morals too.

If there was a God this earthly situation isn't a morally acceptable situation. Life isn't the goal of existence. We are along for the ride.

The only religious bone I have is that life is no incident, or accident and that it might be eternally existent.

Moral control can only rest with the person. There's no other agent for it.

Aside from objective morality there are also relative moralities that people have. Relative in the sense that they are individual moralities that are not shared by everybody.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a guidebook to life to avoid immoral harms?

The existence of virtues and platonic love sometimes makes me wonder if there are eternal angels. The existence of vice might mean that there are eternal demons out there.

But an all pervasive, infinite God and grande old eternal judge is entirely made up. Heaven and hell rests within everybody's choice of morals. There's no such place as hell.

Who knows perhaps evil will one day be realized and reckoned to be defeated. I don't know. It's a useless and damaging thing that exists.
 

SA Huguenot

Well-Known Member
Oh how nice for atheists to have such collective amnesia.
When atheism is unleashed on the populace, such as the Communist party's 1917 Russian revolution, or the Chinese Sedong communist government, or the Veitnam communist, or Pol Pot, of Fidel Castro, the East block etc. Millions of people will die!
and the first that will be killed will be the Christian.
In atheism there is no place for theists, but hatred and extermination of any morality.
Perhaps the atheist should remember how the soviets, and Bolshevics killed of more than 60 million people.
or how the Kmer rouge took 3 million lives, or the communist atheist Mosambique a million.

The 20th century is a lesson to the world on what atheism could achieve, sweet nothing.
And do not even try to claim that the communists were not atheists.
they took their lessons from Marks, and Engels.
an utopia where no religion exists, for in the atheists' mind, religion was the "opeum of the mind of the Masses"!

And any person thinking that the human somehow posesses a moral standard, and no religion is needed to be the guideline for morality, that is a myth.
to the Atheist there is no reason on self moral compass, for why should there be?

if we are mere animals, why think it is wrong to rape, murder, steal etc?
It is the nature of man to greed, lust, and to feed.
The Moral law is the one which is in the concience of Man, and if he so desires to feed these vices, why should he have any guidelines not to do so?
Is it wrong, asks the atheist, if a person sees a woman and abducts her, rapes her and kills her?
perhaps, but being an animal, it is his nature to do so, and he can never be held accountable for his nature.
If another atheist thinks it is wrong, why would he think so?
Because of some moral law, that is unwritten?
Who decides about this law?
the atheist?
Well, they could not get it right in 150 years, and they still dont.
They want to tell us that man is good and without religion, man will still be good.
and viola! We are back with the atheist practices of the 20th century.

And guess what, the Biblical moral laws are the one which is perhaps the oldest, and still used as a guideline.

Oh yes, I fear atheism. For their mocking of a believer, in the media, learning institutions, and all the organisations where they ensure their atheist brothers and sisters are getting the employment on the grounds of not being religious.
I fear atheism for the ruthless governments they create, in Mosambique, South Africa, Venezuella, Cuba, the old USSR, Korea, Veitnam, Cambodia, China and so on.
Any atheist thinking they are an example of high morality should first tell me to what authority they ascribe their Moral Law.
Mine comes from a Creator who I will have to answer for my deeds.
And therefore, I am bound to the ultimate accountability.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
I see no evidence at all for objective morality. Even if it exists, I see no means at all to objectively access it, so even if it does exist it might as well not.

That being said, we can have a kind of pseudo-objective morality by trying to minimise suffering and maximise well-being - although that obviously suffers from being rather vague.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Absolute morality gave us witch burnings and
the inquisition.
Also....
9/11, slavery, manifest destiny, Hitler, honor
killings, murdering abortion doctors, etc, etc.

A problem with absolute morality is that it's not
absolute, ie, not handed to us by some infallible
omniscient deity. It's made up independently by
various groups who aren't even aware they've
made it up.
 

SA Huguenot

Well-Known Member
Absolute morality gave us witch burnings and
the inquisition.
To which Martin Luther replied and called those who committed these atrocities as devils posing in the cloak of vicars of Christ.
He on many occasions called the people who murdered Christians for believing in Jesus as their saviour, "Godless men".
In that time I do not think the word Atheist was used as it is now.
be as it may, Martin Luther called the inqusitionist atheists.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
In atheism there is no place for theists, but hatred and extermination of any morality.

This is simply untrue. Atheism is the lack of believe in god(s). It says nothing at all about morality one way or another.

The atrocities you cite were due to other ideologies. I could list religiously motivated atrocities if you want - that actually did appear to be motivated by the relevant religion.

And any person thinking that the human somehow posesses a moral standard, and no religion is needed to be the guideline for morality, that is a myth.
to the Atheist there is no reason on self moral compass, for why should there be?

Evolution of our social species. empathy, rationality. Do you have the first hint of any evidence that atheists are less moral than theists?
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
So to those of you which are religious and believe in objective morality, ..
Morality is controlled by the society and law. I was not very moral in my young age but since we have the new laws about molestation and rape in India, I would be very careful to not to indulge in it (if I was capable of it at my age).
 

SA Huguenot

Well-Known Member
Also....
9/11, slavery, manifest destiny, Hitler, honor
killings, murdering abortion doctors, etc, etc.

A problem with absolute morality is that it's not
absolute, ie, not handed to us by some infallible
omniscient deity. It's made up independently by
various groups who aren't even aware they've
made it up.
Yes, who decides on Morality?
What is the rules.
If any person from whatever denomination, from Atheism, to Islam, to Christian to Buddism, claims morality, ...
can we get their "Sources" utilised by them to establish how they perceive morality, and scrutinise it?
I think any claim on reality is subjected to scrutiny before acceptance.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Also....
9/11, slavery, manifest destiny, Hitler, honor
killings, murdering abortion doctors, etc, etc.

A problem with absolute morality is that it's not
absolute, ie, not handed to us by some infallible
omniscient deity. It's made up independently by
various groups who aren't even aware they've
made it up.

Well, absolute morality is sometimes claimed to by natural and not supernatural.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Yes, who decides on Morality?
What is the rules.
If any person from whatever denomination, from Atheism, to Islam, to Christian to Buddism, claims morality, ...
can we get their "Sources" utilised by them to establish how they perceive morality, and scrutinise it?
I think any claim on reality is subjected to scrutiny before acceptance.

What is your standard for that? And what is reality?
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
To which Martin Luther replied and called those who committed these atrocities as devils posing in the cloak of vicars of Christ.
He on many occasions called the people who murdered Christians for believing in Jesus as their saviour, "Godless men".
In that time I do not think the word Atheist was used as it is now.
be as it may, Martin Luther called the inqusitionist atheists.

No true Scotsman. :rolleyes:

If the bible were taken as evidence, the god of the bible would be guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. Look, just as another example, at the lack of condemnation of slavery and how good Christians supported it in more recent times.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Well, absolute morality is sometimes claimed to by natural and not supernatural.
Certainly many animals (including us) have a sense of morality.
There are tendencies. But I don't see these as absolute or true.
Moreover, there's great variation on their emergence in various
individuals & cultures. We usually abhor murder, but some
cultures allow it, eg, honor killing, apostates. There is no value
that is universal.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I have seen a lot of debate between atheism and religion, whether that is about the truth of it, morally and so forth.

However have noticed that in some of them, especially when it comes to the question of morality, that its not uncommon that an argument like "Without God there is no moral justification" or "without God nothing would prevent people from just doing whatever they want", just to clarify, I don't believe those people using these types of arguments (at least not the majority of them) make the claim that atheists can't be moral. But rather that this is an argument for the likelihood of God. Meant in such way, that atheists might claim that they don't believe in a God, but without one, there is no explanation or reason for objective morality, therefore God offers the best explanation, atheists just won't or are to ignorant to see the evidence. This post is not meant to be about morality, but rather how people view atheism.

So to those of you which are religious and believe in objective morality, would you be afraid of becoming an atheist, meaning that you fear you might lose some moral "control", or what to say?

If you for whatever reason, do not believe in objective morality as a religious person, I would also be very interested to hear, why that is the case?

(If you want a quick introduction to what Im talking about, this is a debate between William Lane Craig and Shelly Kagan, where William present the argument. Hopefully it should start the correct place at 22.45 and end roughly around 26.30 depending on how much you care to watch.)

Morality is simply the ability for a group or community to live together amicably and peacefully with a minimum of conflict and dissent among peers sharing common values. It has nothing to do with a religion or a lack of religion in exclusive terms.
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
However have noticed that in some of them, especially when it comes to the question of morality, that its not uncommon that an argument like "Without God there is no moral justification" or "without God nothing would prevent people from just doing whatever they want", just to clarify, I don't believe those people using these types of arguments (at least not the majority of them) make the claim that atheists can't be moral. But rather that this is an argument for the likelihood of God.
I think a bad argument (Not your argument but the quoted argument) that is. A human trying to become perfect is at best a near miss, so morality is an intersection with God but not a proof of God. You could go the other way and argue against God with it, claiming there can be no perfection, but that would also be a bad argument.

People are not chess pieces. Imagine going through life making only diagonal motions. Could you? Of course you couldn't. That doesn't mean there is not something which can always move diagonally. There is, and its a chess piece called a bishop.

So to those of you which are religious and believe in objective morality, would you be afraid of becoming an atheist
In my opinion an atheist sometimes seeks God. I think that humans are incapable of perfection in a chaotic world, so objective morality is not possible for us. There never seems to be a safe path or simple instruction set for all situations in this chaotic world. We can attempt to get a little closer to perfection and to seek for an objective morality and try to aim for a peaceful world, and this is seeking God. An atheist may do this. It only takes effort.

Is it wrong for an atheist to try to be good? Of course it isn't. A person who tries to be good is trying to be good no matter what they think about abstract concepts.
 
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