\[I’m atheist\] Morality is often used as a case for theism. But atheist (maybe subjective) morality is more authentic. I am doing the right thing TO DO THE RIGHT THING because it’s the right thing and not because a book said that a god said it’s the right thing. Morality to me means that I’m imagining what the other person is experiencing and I’m thinking about what I would want done to me if I were in their position. Not in a “I should help them because I might want them to help me tomorrow” way. In a “I should help them because they need help and their experience is just as important/real/objective as mine” way. Religon does not provide morality “Do the right thing because God said” is not morality. It’s law. The same as “Do the right thing because our elected officials passed it into law” is morality. One of my biggest problems with Christianity is that it only recognizes humans as moral patients and not the animals that clearly have conscious experiences. Also my biggest problem with most modern atheists is that it confuses ethics and morality.
Religious morality is not real morality
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Greetings,
« To do the right thing […] because it is the right think » is circular thinking. The claim is repeated with an argumentative connector. It is irrational thinking. No proof has been provided.
Human wants do not define the goal of things’ existence. They are subjective and often inconsistent with time. Making objective things up does not make them true.
Empathy is not a standard of ethics. The most empathetic people can be the most cruel, because they know exactly where putting the knife will hurt you the most precisely because of their ability to empathize. In reality when standards of ethics are based on the will of the subject or the rulers of a society, then what is good literally becomes whatever one happens to want, and given human nature, such utilitarianism just becomes an excuse to rationalize the Triumph of the Will.
It is wonderful that Christ has revealed some of the finer, harder moral truths that even the wisest among us have trouble understanding, and this makes it easier for even the least intelligent among us to know what he ought and ought not do. After all, we are actually really really bad at empathizing with others so that we can “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
Your personal ethics are derived from the teachings of world religions being diffused and suffused in the fabric of our cultures and we unconsciously act upon them. Its now natural to abhor theft, hypocrisy, ruthlessness and so on and think you can be a great person all by yourself with no need of any religion. But that’s using something and then not giving credit to the actual source.
Religious metaphysics is not metaphysics. I think this is the issue. As mired as that is.
Christianity employs metaphysics to understand its foundational concepts, like free will and sin. But metaphysical understanding is obviously something prior to a religion with priests and rituals and calendars and everything else.
The will to power is metaphysics. Faith and philosophy both offer cosmological ideas as products these days. Because to offer outright nativistic metaphysics would not accomplish their goals. There is nothing purely reasonable about having to live with people with different beliefs.
This is why I also believe religious morality isn’t morality. It’s delivered along with the ontological side of things. And it’s simply unreasonable in so many cases that it has lost all credibility.
Anybody that has read something titled “Ethics” knows it is a roadblock. Any religious morality is just endless waffling.
The mistake here is to ignore the viewpoint of religious believers who maintain that God commands us to do what is intrinsically good, based on His moral essence. It isn’t good merely because God commands it.
There are several principal problems with saying that we can invent a code of ethics on our own, which is another assume error here. Although I am a believer in natural law theory, and I deny the alternative theory that a moral action or law is only right because God commands it, people have long had trouble coming up with a set of moral absolutes by human reason alone that most people would accept. Another problem is that atheists and agnostics, after they get done denying that God exists, normally erect a system of moral relativism or subjectivism. (Admittedly, Ayn Rand and her fellow Objectivists are a key exception to this generalization). So then, skeptics normally end up saying, “Anything goes,” which simply doesn’t work in any practical terms. Suppose a racist says, “Oppressing black people because of their skin color is right.” Presumably all skeptical liberals would heatedly denounce that moral claim, but they can’t refute it based on any kind of system of moral relativism or subjectivism. Other problems with inventing these laws on our own are that people may nominally upheld these moral laws, but if it is convenient, they don’t follow them consistently because they don’t fear being punished by God in the afterlife. From a Christian viewpoint, the Holy Spirit helps believers to obey God’s moral law better. Without supernatural help, it’s hard to obey any kind of detailed set of moral absolutes. So then it’s one thing to know what is right, but it’s another thing to do what’s right when our self-interest, laziness, fear, or other factors intrude.
Let’s illustrate, ever so briefly, why moral relativism and subjectivism produces results that even moral relativism and subjectivists can’t accept. It appears that the main goal of moral subjectivism and relativism has been to get rid of Christian sexual morality, not realizing that (self-refuting) claims like “all is relative” and “there are no absolutes” are philosophical “shotguns” when they need a “rifle” to blow out the seventh commandment (“Thou shalt not commit adultery”) only.
Here are some standard moral absolutes that non-religious secular liberals should be able to agree to: “Racism is immoral in all places at all times.” “Rape is immoral in all places at all times.” “Suttee is immoral in all places at all times.” “Chinese foot-binding is immoral in all places at all times.” “Genocide is immoral in all places at all times.” So then, one culture can indeed be wrong morally: Would the existence of Apartheid in South Africa justify the existence of Jim Crow in the American South? Indeed, feminism decrees a system of cross-cultural moral absolutes, although apparently many liberals never have fully realized that reality. To me, liberals when they say they are moral relativists, it’s mostly a ruse to attack Christian sexual morality. In other situations, they enthusiastically condemn, judge, marginalize, ridicule, cancel, de-platform, etc., those who break their moral strictures. The inconsistency is utterly glaring, but it seems that they don’t perceive it. A moral relativist or subjectivists has no authority to condemn anyone for anything. (Incidentally, that includes God for allowing the problem of evil: One has to admit that an objective evil exists before one could judge God for allowing it). Or, on another level, is allowing the poor to starve to death when one could easily prevent it ever “good”? What would socialists say about someone who thinks that’s fine and dandy to rob and starve the poor? Getting back to the first statement above, what white, who would say that racism is “sometimes” OK, state this publicly to a group of black people? No one is really a moral relativist when pressed, examined, and questioned. Atheists and agnostics have a hard time really proving why people should be nice to each other based on non-religious premises; feelings and motions simply aren’t enough by themselves.
Somethings only moral if it has a framework for morality and immorality,
Religions dont have that morality is just whatever god says it is
i think its more that you shouldnt have tobe threatened with eternal punishment to be moral.
> But atheist (maybe subjective) morality is more authentic. I am doing the right thing TO DO THE RIGHT THING because it’s the right thing and not because a book said that a god said it’s the right thing.
On what basis do you determine that what you’re doing is the “right” thing??
Since you believe humans are evolved from amoral animals in an amoral godless universe, where are you getting your ideas of “right” or “wrong” from?
Consider this:
Atheist Jim believes it’s the right thing to donate money to the orphans and does so frequently.
Atheist Bob believes it’s the “right” thing to steal from orphans and does so frequently.
What exactly makes atheist Jim more “righteous” than atheist Bob?
Why would Bob be “wrong” from an atheistic viewpoint? Animals steal from other animals in the wild. Since Bob and the orphans evolved from animal, they’re all animals (according to the atheist perspective). So why exactly is Bob “wrong”?
Drastic oversimplification. An atheist does something because they ‘feel like’ it, or the group consensus dictates it. What does ‘Because its right’ even mean? You can’t say ‘It’s right because it’s right.’(a word can not be in its own definition.) God is not merely the highest being in the hierarchy of beings, he exists all throughout the category and outside of it.God is a priori to the laws that bind the world together, Logic is in accordance with him, the Logos. Morality is no different inasmuch as it is simply that which flows from God, likes laws of nature, etc. That’s all it is, there is nothing else that’s ‘morality.’
>’Do the right thing because God says’ is not morality.
Have you considered that this might be an oversimplification of the religious position? Morality doesn’t need to be reduced to what God says.
Consider the idea that God created all human beings and all creatures. Assuming this is true – for the sake of argument – one could rightly say that we were all created equally by one transcendent source. That we are all endowed with consciousness by the Divine. As such, we should treat people and other living beings with dignity and respect, for we are all essentially one.
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morality is a vague term, everybody have their own concept of it
you effectively say that what’s moral is altruism and empathy
but as you call the religious morality “enforced laws”, i call your authentic morality “subjective desire”
when we come to desires and subjective values, one will value life as it is and anotherone will value end of suffering – how do they agree what is right?
we will be better of stopping treating such moral things as objective truths and focusing on actual desires and obligations we have – then we could negotiate and come to a stable compromise (or not)
> Also my biggest problem with most modern atheists is that it confuses ethics and morality.
How? Seems like a kind of random thing to say at the end.
> Morality to me means that I’m imagining what the other person is experiencing and I’m thinking about what I would want done to me if I were in their position.
One of the big issues with moral dilemmas is that a lot of the time you and other people want different things. Just imagining what you would want doesn’t really solve that.
> [I’m atheist] Morality is often used as a case for theism. But atheist (maybe subjective) morality is more authentic.
It’s nice opinion that you as an atheist think atheist morality is more authentic.
> I am doing the right thing TO DO THE RIGHT THING because it’s the right thing and not because a book said that a god said it’s the right thing.
How do you weight yours morally vs religious morality. Unless your going with I’m right because I says so.
> Morality to me means that I’m imagining what the other person is experiencing and I’m thinking about what I would want done to me if I were in their position.
Might want to look into Matthew (7:12): “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (aka golden rule). They had this moral value long before you thought about it or consider moral code you wish follow. It’s also possible you were Influence by Christian without knowing it.