Quote:
Originally posted by IROC
I think it is short-sighted to think that people that don't share your religious beliefs are somehow incapable of ethical or moral behavior. Is that essentially what is being said? If so, then I vehemently disagree. Ethics and morality existed long before religions existed.
How does one acount for a moral and ethical atheist? Why are prison populations curiously short on atheists? Why are divorce rates highest among born-again Christians? If religion is the basis of morality, why aren't religious adherents the pillars of society?
Mike
|
I'm not suggesting that atheists cannot be unethical, at least not directly. I'm asking what would be the motivation for a true atheist to behave ethically. I see a number of responses that I reject. The one that probably holds some water is the "habit" of "convention" argument. That is, this (moral behavior) is typical behavior for humans that atheists see around them, and which they very likely learned at a very young age. So, 'habit' may be pointed to as a reason for why atheists' behaviors seem to fall within the boundaries of ethical behavior.
I'm going to have to consult my texts first if I am going to have to explain why morality cannot satisfactorily be explained by sociology and anthropology. Some folks think it's a sort of ingrained social morae behavior thingie that is mandated by the survival of the tribe. That's a satisfactory explanation, if you don't look into it very far. If you do, you find that this feeling we have of "right" and "wrong" cannot have sociology and tribal survival as its sole genesis. It has to come from somewhere else.
So that's what I'm saying. If we can agree that our sense of "right" and "wrong" cannot come from a sociological source, then can atheists give a satisfactory explanation of why they feel it, and why they behave morally?
No, I'm not saying atheists cannot be moral. I notice there are a good number of atheists, and that they do seem to behave morally for the most part. My question is "Why?" Atheists almost always think their personal level of intelligence is comparatively HIGH. To say the least. Well, that should certainly be high enough to agree that one could make WAY more money and have WAY more things and do WAY more travelling if ethics were entirely optional. The objective benefits of unethical behavior simply outweigh the objective benefits of ethical behavior, if you believe there are no consequences outside this life.