Can atheists be moral?
Note: atheists world view in this post refers to naturalism
I think that every human being can be moral, nice, good, pleasant without necessarily believe in the existence of God, nor being religious.
How do I know this? It can be easily proven scientifically with empirical data and observation. Even if you’re not a scientist, you can observe that easily through your life experience. You can verify this on your own every day. Find someone that you think is a good person, and ask him/her if they believe in God. Depending on where you live, you would likely to find that many of them are atheists.
It is undeniable fact that non-religious people are generally nice and law abiding citizens. They love their family, they love their country, they love and help others. Some won’t even hurt a fly, won’t hurt animal. They are loving, caring, and so on.
So, yes atheists can be moral. Anyone can be moral, good, nice, etc regardless their belief or lack of.
But the question is, can atheists justify their morality based on their world view? Is it rational for atheists to be moral despite what they believe and claim about the world?
When atheists are being nice, good, moral … are they being consistent with their claimed world view?
It’s easier to discuss this using a specific example. An atheist once asked me why do I think he is being irrational that he would die for his wife that he loves so much? By asking that, he implies he believes that loving his wife to the point where he would die for her is good and moral. And I agree, it is very moral and very good!
I explained to him that the materialistic explanation of love is that it’s caused by chemical reaction (hormone). Nothing more to it. It feels real, but underneath, it’s really just an effect of chemical reaction. Much like the effect of drugs.
So, why would anyone knowingly die for another human being (e.g.: his wife) for an illusion caused by chemical reaction no matter how real it feels?
If love is just an illusion, a more rational option for him is to not die for his wife. It’s irrational and illogical to sacrifice your only chance of enjoying life based on the effect of chemical reaction.
That would be a more consistent behavior instead of taking the bullet for his wife and let her escape. After all, there are many women in the world, he has more chance to find another wife and live for many more years.
I have previously blogged on this topic. http://timcooley.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/morality-did-not-come-from-god-or-the-bible/ Regards, Tim
Tim Cooley
December 24, 2009 at 4:37 am
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the comment. I’m not sure how your post is any relevant to my post.
From your post: “It is a highly repeated and an invincibly ignorant claim, that atheists are immoral.”
I’m actually agreeing with you. I argue that everyone can be moral despite their belief or lack of. It would be very hard to deny this fact.
What I’m arguing here is that being moral is currently inconsistent with atheistic world view.
xxx
December 24, 2009 at 5:04 am
“What I’m arguing here is that being moral is currently inconsistent with atheistic world view.”
What is an atheistic worldview? Atheism is simply a lack of belief of god(s) – it has nothing to do with morality. I made an argument that morality came from social rules which work for the benefit of all. If you are talking about Social Darwinism, we can both agree that it is a horrible thing and we wouldn’t want earth to go in that direction. Atheism is not social darwinism, it is merely a position on whether god exists. So in no way does Atheism promote social darwinism. Humans, unlike many other animals, are smart enough to know that “surival of the fittest” does not work for the benefit of everyone in a society. We are mature enough to know what is “right and wrong”, there is no indicator that we will revert to some barbaric immorality just because we don’t believe in God, Allah, Zeus or Santa Claus.
Tim Cooley
December 24, 2009 at 5:32 am
I’m talking about materialism and naturalism which seem to be synonym with atheism. I know they are not the same, but materialism and naturalism seem to be part of atheists world view. Please correct me if this is not true. Thanks.
xxx
December 24, 2009 at 5:45 am
Spirituality has nothing to do with morality. We as a species know that fellow H sapiens have feelings too, and we should do upon others as we expect them to do upon us. This is the morality that has been accumulated over our history. Feelings has nothing to do with whether we have a soul or not, or anything like that. It is not by spiritual or supernatural means that morality is founded, therefore why should you believe that atheism is inconsistent with morality?
But as I said, atheism is only a position on the existence of gods. There are many spiritual atheists, agonistic atheists, etc. Regards.
Tim Cooley
December 24, 2009 at 6:05 am
Spiritual atheists? OK, that’s interesting. You’re probably right, I will amend my post to specify that I’m talking about naturalistic atheists.
I will address other things may be sometime on my future blog post(s).
Thanks again for commenting
xxx
December 24, 2009 at 6:10 am