Do atheists believe in the distinction between Good and Evil?

[Estro Felino]

The word atheist means to believe no deity exists. Or that there is no such a thing as God.
Ergo...it's human beings who create, make up such deities: it's all in their brain.
So men need to explain good, evil because there are things which exist in man's mind, regardless of any deity.

So, my question is addressed to atheists: are good and evil notions that exist regardless of God's existence?

 

[SalixIncendium]

Good and evil are social constructs. Why would a deity be necessary to make such a distinction?

 

[Tinker Grey]

Good and evil are contextual notions. Too, they are individual and relative notions.

A knife cut by a criminal is evil; a knife cut by a surgeon is good.

That most humans agree on most things is a function of humans evolving as a social species which, by definition, we cooperate and form societies as a means for the species's survival. We don't even choose to do it; we've evolved to do it and cannot not do it.

We should expect that some individuals of a species act outside the norm. Such things form a bell curve and, by definition, some individual behavior is going to fall on the tails of the curve--sinners and saints. But by and large human behavior falls around the mean (again, bell curve).

So yeah, for most humans atheist or not, X is good, Y is evil and a rare outlier disagrees.

 

[LuisDantas]

The word atheist means to believe no deity exists. Or that there is no such a thing as God.
Ergo...it's human beings who create, make up such deities: it's all in their brain.
So men need to explain good, evil because there are things which exist in man's mind, regardless of any deity.

So, my question is addressed to atheists: are good and evil notions that exist regardless of God's existence?

If anything, they are better understood without deities getting in the way.

 

[Estro Felino]

If anything, they are better understood without deities getting in the way.

Interesting.
So atheists could explain them even better than theists, right?

 

[wellwisher]

Good and Evil exist because of law; tree of knowledge of good and evil. Law defines what is not acceptable and what is acceptable, with fear and punishment used to help people avoid the evil defined by law.

For example, in the US, which has 50 states, marijuana laws differ from state to state. It is evil in some states and not evil in others depending on the state's laws. Evil is not innate but conditioned by law and its choice of enforcement.

The PC crowd may define prayer in schools as illegal and therefore evil, with punishment like suspension for daring to break the law. In this case, the true evil comes from those who are intolerant. But this will be called good, by the law. Law of man often conflict with laws of God. Laws of God; universal, defines fundamental principles of good and evil. Victimizing others for a victimless crime is worse than the victimless crime, even if the former is legal and called good, and the later is called evil; illegal.

Atheism actually have created more evil than religion since the laws of religion are older and come from a simpler time, so there are fewer laws. Atheism is more modern and through government and separation of church and state, non religions have added orders of magnitude of more laws of good and evil, thereby amplifying evil and good.

Addendum:
When the brain writes to memory, emotional tags are added to sensory content. Our memory has both feelings and content. Law is a unique form of memory that games the natural brain, in that it adds two conflicting emotional tags, one for good and one for evil. Law is like a two sided coin where both sides are implied by one thing. The natural brain will only add one tag at a time; good or evil. But law adds two tags, one for good and one for evil. The result is the unnatural induction of conflicting feelings.

As an example, if you are in a love/hate relationship, you cannot just come or go to end the circumstance. If you just loved or you just hated, then you would stay or leave; done. But with love-hate, you are attracted and repelled at the same time; stuck in orbit, unable to fully leave or fully stay.

In the case good and evil, the conflicting feelings creates a similar state of suspension; Jesus between two thieves. The good and evil defined by law are both thieves, in the sense that good comes with evil; one coin and two connected tags that conflict.

One solution is to repress the dark side; evil implied by law, and live by the good. However, since good and evil are two sides of the same coin, the repressed evil is still there but made unconscious; shadow side of the personality. The shadow side is sort of like an OAI; organic artificial intelligence. I call it the Satan subroutine. The brain can support virtual consciousness beyond the ego such as in multiple personality disorders, with the Satan subroutine a collective disorder; collective laws.

The Preacher may repress his dark side connected to bible law, only to become compelled to break the very laws he teaches. If his repression is strong, the OAI subroutine can become active, hoping to lower the potential by becoming conscious. This OAI subroutine is how evil seems to become innate after training.

Doing away with law and forgiveness of sin, was designed to help us stop adding conflicting emotional tags, thereby restoring the brain to one tag per memory, so we can come or go and not just orbit via OAI obsession. The latter can happen culture wide; OAI networking into social conflict and war.

 

[Twilight Hue]

The word atheist means to believe no deity exists. Or that there is no such a thing as God.
Ergo...it's human beings who create, make up such deities: it's all in their brain.
So men need to explain good, evil because there are things which exist in man's mind, regardless of any deity.

So, my question is addressed to atheists: are good and evil notions that exist regardless of God's existence?

Good and evil will always be in the eyes of its beholder.

In reality, there is no such thing.

 

[Sand Dancer]

The word atheist means to believe no deity exists. Or that there is no such a thing as God.
Ergo...it's human beings who create, make up such deities: it's all in their brain.
So men need to explain good, evil because there are things which exist in man's mind, regardless of any deity.

So, my question is addressed to atheists: are good and evil notions that exist regardless of God's existence?

The Abrahamic religions seem to try to enforce good and evil from without, and not letting us use our conscience and judgement on our own from inside. Sometimes the religious laws were good for that time and place, but they don't translate well to other locations and times in history.

 

[Father Heathen]

Interesting.
So atheists could explain them even better than theists, right?

Secular morality tends to be based on reason and compassion, whereas religious morality tends to be arbitrary, unsubstantiated, irrational, unjust, etc.

So yes.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Evil is just an emotive word so people can place others in a suitable box.

 

[ChristineM]

The word atheist means to believe no deity exists. Or that there is no such a thing as God.
Ergo...it's human beings who create, make up such deities: it's all in their brain.
So men need to explain good, evil because there are things which exist in man's mind, regardless of any deity.

So, my question is addressed to atheists: are good and evil notions that exist regardless of God's existence?

Evil is a religious label but i know what you mean. Of course atheists have understanding of good and bad, we are social humans after all.

The idea of good and bad (evil) were around long before the idea of a god, without such destination social animals would not be social so no tribes, no civilizations in which the idea of gods can develop

 

[osgart]

Sometimes I use the word evil it seems to others that it signifies some mysterious force. Evil to me is simply malevolent, and abusive intentions that form unjust actions that cause damage and loss to innocent victims. It involves hatred, and can involve immoral gain.

 

[LuisDantas]

Interesting.
So atheists could explain them even better than theists, right?

We can indeed. Much of the state-of-the-art of ethics comes from atheistic thinkers.

It is a difficult subject matter, though. Not least because one of the main characteristics of ethics is that it must attempt to build ever more ambitious models and criteria in order to widen its scope and its depth.

Perhaps more significant in a practical, everyday sense is that it is very noticeable that theists tend to be far more vulnerable to rather obvious ethical mistakes than atheists. Theists sometimes use scriptures and dogma to attempt to validate what is patently immoral. Atheists can't very well do that, at least not to any comparable extent.

 

[Estro Felino]

Evil is just an emotive word so people can place others in a suitable box.

Well...people who do evil things feel guilty after that.
Feeling guilty is a good indicator that evil exists.

 

[Estro Felino]

We can indeed. Much of the state-of-the-art of ethics comes from atheistic thinkers.

It is a difficult subject matter, though. Not least because one of the main characteristics of ethics is that it must attempt to build ever more ambitious models and criteria in order to widen its scope and its depth.

Perhaps more significant in a practical, everyday sense is that it is very noticeable that theists tend to be far more vulnerable to rather obvious ethical mistakes than atheists. Theists sometimes use scriptures and dogma to attempt to validate what is patently immoral. Atheists can't very well do that, at least not to any comparable extent.

Are there universal definitions of good and evil?

Or they change according to the person?

 

[Mock Turtle]

Well...people who do evil things feel guilty after that.
Feeling guilty is a good indicator that evil exists.

Not really, given that very very bad behaviour might suffice. Evil tend to have some other connotation - as to a person being evil, for example - and often just isn't useful. Especially if one wants to rehabilitate them and prevent them from committing future crimes, for example.

 

[Estro Felino]

Not really, given that very very bad behaviour might suffice. Evil tend to have some other connotation - as to a person being evil, for example - and often just isn't useful. Especially if one wants to rehabilitate them and prevent them from committing future crimes, for example.

War, for example.
It's the most useless thing in the world, yet evil people wage wars against others.
But the most evil aspect is that they send others to die in war.

 

[LuisDantas]

Are there universal definitions of good and evil?

Or they change according to the person?

Yes. To both.

In a nutshell, morality has to take circunstances into consideration, and those circunstances include the abilities and emotional and intellectual maturity of the people involved.

Or you might say (correctly) that there is no reaul "universal" good and evil because there is no "universal circunstance". How well people can blunt the edge of what they go through is a necessary circunstance to take into account before making moral decisions.

There are also environmental circunstances, including technological, ecological and economic circunstances.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

We can indeed. Much of the state-of-the-art of ethics comes from atheistic thinkers.

It is a difficult subject matter, though. Not least because one of the main characteristics of ethics is that it must attempt to build ever more ambitious models and criteria in order to widen its scope and its depth.

Perhaps more significant in a practical, everyday sense is that it is very noticeable that theists tend to be far more vulnerable to rather obvious ethical mistakes than atheists. Theists sometimes use scriptures and dogma to attempt to validate what is patently immoral. Atheists can't very well do that, at least not to any comparable extent.

Well, yes, they can. They just use philosophy for that.

 

[LuisDantas]

Well, yes, they can. They just use philosophy for that.

That would be lazy or worse, though. And it could not come with the claim of "divine obedience".