The moral argument is often used to counter atheism because you have no higher power dictating what is right and wrong what is morality?
Morality simply comes from personal experiences for example a poor person who a person who had to have a back alley abortion to keep financially stable is probably more likely to be pro choice than a rich person who has never been in a place to have an abortion.
Example 1: Food
Religions are divided on what you can eat.Hindus and Buddhist are usually vegetarian. Jews and Muslims usually agree to not eat pork. Christian’s usually agree to eat anything they want except things like house pets like cats or dogs. Most of the western world cringes when they see some Asian cultures eat dogs and cats. A lot of Hindus think cows are sacred animals pretty much everyone in the western world eats cows regularly. A lot of atheist that live in a culture of a religion are impacted by the mortality of their religion. Like for example thinking that eating dogs and cats is immoral.
Example 2: sexual Relationships
The morality of sexual relationships in Islam is very controversial a lot of people in the western world look at Muhammads marriage to Ayesha at 9 or men being allowed to have 4 wives or Muslim men marrying children and cringe at it. A lot of Christian’s believe that monogamy is moral while polygamy is immoral. It is no secret with conspiracy theorist like Alex Jones that a lot of Christian’s especially evangelicals are zealously against pedophilia. A lot of old kings regularly married young women pedophilia wasn’t really seen as immoral and outlawed until the the late 19th century when it was shown it has a detrimental effect on the mental health of children. The LGBTQ community has been famously oppressed by religious groups especially abrahamic religion. They were often stoned and treated like how we treat pedophiles in the world today. A lot of ancient cultures allowed and even encouraged homosexual relationships such as Greeks and Roman’s. A lot of Christian’s sects can’t even agree on sexual immorality between a man and a woman some Christian’s believe sex is only moral when intended for reproduction most Christian’s agree that anything goes as long as the couple is married
Example 3: basic morality like murder is wrong
People try to justify murder all the time by saying that I did it in the name of God or that person was an asshole or that person was an apostate. You definitely don’t need god to say murder is wrong it would simply be an evolutionary trait to not kill something that looks like you. You can also see murder is wrong by observing the effects of murder it is the same thing with rape. It is also a lot easier to kill something that you have no attachment to most of the time you will kill a stranger over your brother this is and example of how morality forms
Example 4: The golden rule
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.This is an example of how morality forms you shouldn’t to something to someone else that you wouldn’t want done to you this is why murder and rape and wrong.
There are very simple steps to how morality can form without God.
1) does it hurt others
2) would I like it if it was done to me
3) how will this affect my health
4) has it shown to have positive effects
In a godless world is murder technically inherently wrong? No nothing is inherently wrong when no rules are put in place however we can figure out if it is wrong over time by the effects it has on the world.
In a world without God Stalin ,Mao, and Hitler get the same fate as the kind rich man who donated his life savings and was violently murdered in his home. Is this fucked up? yes but that doesn’t make atheism any less credible. However this doesn’t mean that your religion can get away with endorsing murder,rape,pedophilia, incest and other acts that we have demonstrated to have negative effects on the world. A believer Saying your an atheist so you have no basis for your morality and can’t criticize the morality of my religion is like saying. This is a street basketball game with no referee therefore I have the right to punch you in the balls in order to make a layup. Technically is it inherently wrong to do that? No but everyone would immediately call a foul if that ever happened because of basic morality. We already know that life is unfair some people don’t even make it out of the womb while other live to 120 years old. Some people are 7ft 6 while other are 3ft tall. Some people are born billionaires while others live off quarters in a third world country. Some people have jet black hair when they’re 93 like Ronald Regan while some people some people lose their hair when their a child.some people have a 50 inch vertical while others have no legs some people can lift 1000 lbs while other have no arms. Some people have 20/20 vision until their 80 while others are blind at birth. I wish I could go to a basketball court and break the rim the Rim like Shaquille O’Neal but I’m 5,10 170 lbs and can even dunk on a 9ft net. Not to mention if atheism is true some beings spend their life as a black ant in the jungle while some humans live in billion dollar mansions in luxury. This is not what the world would turn out like with an omnibenevolent god. Thinking people will go insane under atheism is like thinking kids will commit mass genocide if their parents left them.
Lets take ur golden rule: if its ok with me to be k1lled, can i go around k1lling ppl? Lets assume that the k1lling will be done painlessly, according to ur golden rule, it won’t hurt others (painless death), wouldnt mind it, won’t negatively impact my health, and k1lling has shown to have positive effects (killing a criminal on the spot).
Its not that ppl will go insane without religion, its that nothing is morally preventing them from doing so without it, now ur gonna say well religious ppl did so and so and k1lled many ppl etc. but u clearly fail to differentiate between what religion says and what religious ppl do bcz there is a distinction, Quran says do not steal an orphan’s food, however if a muslim does it then the muslim person is to blame not the religion.
Could u please provide actual evidence that morality is purely from personal experience? And if it is then it would 100% be subjective. U believing that r4pe is immoral is just as arbitrary as chocolate being ur favorite flavor of ice cream. That would make any moral claim u make about any action meaningless bcz someone could just say well thats ur opinion. The exact equivalent of trying to say that chocolate is the best ice cream flavor, well yeah to u not necessarily to anyone else.
If it is purely due to personal experience then think of this example, u have never heard anything about torture, and u see a psycho torture a baby and slowly k1lling it, will ur lack of experience with the idea of torture make u literally go “oh well whats that its new” or “hey do not do that to the kid” *followed by an attempt to stop the psycho?
You’re on the mark then off the mark.
You’re right that moral intuitions are personal. Then you go on to assert some things are wrong (murder, rape, etc.) and some things are right (the Golden Rule) because…because…why? Because of a reason you find compelling. That makes them right and wrong…to you. They are not intrinsically right or wrong.
The good news, in my opinion, is that we’ve evolved as social creatures living in a physical universe that we experience through similar brains that give rise to relatively homogenous thoughts on preferred communal approaches to living our most agreeable lives. So, by and large, we tend to get along by being reasonably helpful toward one another and not running around raping, murdering, stealing and generally committing mayhem because most of us don’t want to live in mayhem and don’t want others to live in mayhem.
Out of curiosity, what form of secular moral ontology do you subscribe to? Which form of normative ethical theory? Sam Harris’ book, the moral landscape lays a solid framework for objective morals based on well being. It does have inherent flaws but he addresses the criticisms to his theory as well. It’s a fun read.