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So where do you get your morality from if you’re an atheist?

Anyone ever get this silly question when a believer finds out you don’t drink the cool-aide? Some people can be, depending on how rural the scenery it seems, downright shocked we exist and that they are actually speaking to one.
I have different responses to the question posed in these situations depending on my mood.... but I’m curious to hear what you guys say when you encounter a question like ...”Where do you get your morals if you have no god?”

TheHitch 4 Sep 29
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95 comments

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1

I think most of us on this side of the world get our morality from the Judeo-Christian heritage.

I think this underestimates our instinct and how that causes us to translate morality. It seems to me that when religion conflicts with our knowledge of good and instinctual morality-that is usually when most people decide to reject it-if their confident people, the ones without confidence will continue being religious.

Looking at videos of other primates, dogs, cats, and other warm blooded vertebrates, I think it is hard coded into the genetic material in most people. There are mutations, of course.

The traditional concept of man was a savage learning to control his/her urges over time for the sake of the tribe. Another concept (Julian Jaynes, Owen Barfield) is that there was really was a golden age in which humanity live peacefully in a kind of collective unconscious that was destroyed with the growth of individual consciousness. If true, then we really did have the virtue of morality in us. My comment about our Judeo-Christianity is about how our morality was shaped in our part of the earth in comparatively recent times.

@brentan The point still stands that there are plenty of things the Bible says are the right things to do that people reject as immoral. How could this be if the morality comes from Christianity?

@JeffMurray I said it comes from the Judeo-Christian heritage.

@brentan Put whatever qualifiers on it you want, whatever part of it you are trying to attribute to Judeo-Christianity was still cherry picked using our ancestors' internal moral compasses...

@JeffMurray I certainly wouldn't argue with that!

11

From nature. We can see the foundations of moral behavior in other animals. Empathy and reciprocity are evident in the behavior of primates, for example.

Long before God was invented, early hominids that empathized and cooperated with one another fared better than those who did not. Had the inclination to feel empathy and to engage in altruistic and cooperative behaviors not evolved in early pre-human species, we probably wouldn't be here.

All so-called divine codes of fundamental behavior were a little late to the party. We assert that it is better that we should not lie, cheat, steal or commit adultery not because some God said we shouldn't, but because we don't like it when somebody lies, cheats, steals or commits adultery at our expense!

9

Genetic traits and environment which includes culture, parents etc.

Exactly,and we did not choose either our genetically assigned Characteristics or our environment so what people think is their morality by choice is ridiculous.

@HarrySlick Thats a good point.

7

I have no idea what is keeping me from going through the neighborhood shooting people and yelling obscenities. I do not know why I am not the scourge of the country, since I am an atheist there is nothing to keep me from doing this. Perhaps it is because I am a human being with the knowledge that others have much to offer me and it is they who help give my life meaning.

7

I've never been asked that question. But the answer is my morality seems to be an innate part of my being. I know right from wrong. And I never do anything to anyone that I wouldn't want done to me.
So...do unto others.

That is honestly the answer they are fishing for. The next step in their argument is that "innate" thing is the image of god granted to you.

@TaylorWalston , and 'they' would be dead wrong 😀

@freeofgod agreed, just saying if you have not had those conversations you can step on that land mine easy.

7

@Fred_Snerd BEST KIND!!

6

Morality is a subjective term and is more about geography and unrealized brainwashing that you are subjected to from your culture

That’s a whole other argument. But I see you’re point. There is something to be said for the collective influences of different societies.

6

I have never encountered that. Only in the US do religious people ask this ever so stupid questions and have traveled quite a bit around the world.

Until I moved to OK I never had anyone grill me about my religion. Evangelical are hard core here. 😟

6

Why would morality come from an asshole god? If you do not want to be poked in the eye with a stick then do not poke others in the eye with a stick. This is an easy rule to follow and does not involve a sky daddy.

5

"As always (and as do you), from the shared beliefs within my community."

Thats a good one.

@Desertcactus Well, only because, I'd like to believe, it's true. 🙂

5

Why do I need a god to have morals. The god in the Bible has killed thousands and thousands, breaking one of that gods commandments, not sure I can be more moral than that... 🤷♂️

5

Common sense. Which is also, funny enough, the thing that keeps me from being religious lol

try science too ? It will eventually get rid of religion too.

@Mcflewster to me listening to science IS common sense

@redhog Sorry I am being pedantic. Common sense is within science in the sense that we need to use all our senses to do science including speculation and a lot of people do use this "collective wisdom" which would be my name for it. However common sense in my view contains a lot of unsure things too, like "old wives tales' and it really depends upon some untested past experiences so is not methodical . Science is methodical, starts by researching and testing past experiences of the widest number of people and goes automatically through a lot of reviews by peers and other checks and balances. You too can do a smaller version of Real [the big world] Science

5

My standard answer is “from rational thought.” It tends to annoy the Bible thumpers to no end that I can think through the idea that harming or killing someone is bad.

5

I have heard this sooooo many times. Once at a party in my own home--my response to him is that if a skygod is the only thing preventing him raping and killing, then he should rethink that shit. Myself, I have self control, dude. Why would I want to hurt anyone else?

believe it or not that is encoded in the Bible; Christians are Esau, who needs red stew, and it isnt well people who need a physician, but the sick

5

I have rarely been asked this, and in most every case declined to answer. Someone who would ask this question is likely to be unable to understand my answer. No need to waste time, and even worse, get a jesus lecture.

Sounds like the sarcastic version of what you think would be "well, its instinctual to intelligent life forms...would you like to meet some?" Lol

5

From my culture: = extended family, school, the military..... and the history of my European heritage.

5

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

It has severed me well and there's no comeback from it. Some have tried to say it's from the bible but... wrong.

Leelu Level 7 Sep 29, 2020

Bible is about brainwashing and fear.

5

Treating others how I want to be treated.

was brought up that way to respect and treat people the way you wanted to be treated

5

oh, i dunno, empathy, The Golden Rule, stuff like that...?

Then, you DO know! Cool!

5

From the garlic that I use when I roast the babies. Everybody knows that garlic contains an extra something that both kills germs and gives morals, because "that something" kills the demons that try to infect us with bad thoughts.

You roast babies with garlic?! Nooo.. I use thyme and dill... 😂😂

@Cutiebeauty You can add in other herbs and spices, but the garlic is what keeps us moral. I wonder about you now 😛 hehehe

@PadraicM look below.. That's where I get my Morality, Prepackaged.. ☺

I use Mrs Dash seasoning to cover all the bases, but then, I shop at WalMart, so clearly I lack class! 😏

5

So where do you get your morality from if you’re an atheist?

Amazon.Com

I buy a few boxes per year..

5

I think this quote by Nigella Lawson encapsulates my views perfectly....

“I was brought up an atheist and have always remained so, but at no time was I ever led to believe that morality was unimportant or that good and bad did not exist. I believe passionately in the need to distinguish between right and wrong and am somewhat confounded by being told I need God, Jesus, or a clergyman to help me to do so”.

5

The long answer, involves hard wired empathy, reason, cultural experience, etc.

The short answer. "From the same sources you do, except I don't try to give mine extra authority or claim they are free from being questioned, because I cherry picked them from a supernatural book. Mine are open to questions."

5

My morals make sense to me. I don’t steal, because I work hard for everything that I own, and don’t think it’s right just to take something from someone. I don’t cheat on my partners, because I love them, and that love means that I want them them be happy and I’ve never had a partner that was happy for me to be with other people. (But I do warn them if I’m unhappy I reserve the right to leave.)
I try and keep the laws of the land, because they are supposed to be agreed on by the people, and so it seems like the right thing to do, because those standards are what I expect from others. Sometimes I have made mistakes, I’m human.

4

My parents, both Protestants (who actually met in church), taught me right and wrong, not because gawd would strike me dead if I did wrong, but because they knew the different between right an wrong.They were both nurses. I think you need empathy and compassion to be a nurse and I think that those attributes contribute to that sense of moral values.

4

my brain

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