Atheism and Moral Values

[Urbane Guerrilla]

One property of religion is it increases motivation to adhere to moral behavior -- though I can think of one exception right off the bat, LaVeyan Satanism. Moral behavior may be understood from a utilitarian standpoint as reasoned survival behavior, sometimes very closely reasoned survival behavior. Consistency in morality over time and over many places demonstrates a constancy in what is needed to survive and live well in an Earthlike environment.

[DanaC]

.....I'm not sure, but I think UG and I just agreed on something. Surely that's some kind of mistake right?

[Undertoad]

But I don't think atheists have any good reason for being good.

But you think that because you've never had to spend time being one and developing your own moral code. You've been handed one. Those of us who have had to develop our own moral code, man we know where it comes from: we think about stuff. But mostly we get it from our culture, as PH put so beautifully. And so do all Christians. They don't get it from the bible, or they would be slaveowners, and protest the eating of shrimp, or at least act more according to the teachings of Christ.

Back to Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development:

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
- 1. Obedience and punishment orientation (How can I avoid punishment?)
- 2. Self-interest orientation (What's in it for me?)

Level 2 (Conventional)
- 3. Interpersonal accord and conformity (Social norms)(The good boy/good girl attitude)
- 4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation (Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
- 5. Social contract orientation
- 6. Universal ethical principles (Principled conscience)

How does religion get to #5 and 6? Maybe it's because I never spent any time being a believer, but I can't see it. It sure fulfills 1 and 2 perfectly. Of course it has to because it had to address a simpler people, spread through a simpler culture, developed in a time when there was no printing press, no understanding of the physical laws of the world, barely any education, and the average person died at age 35 without any leisure time to spend considering morality and ethics.

[Flint]

I often wonder whether people who insist that we need a giant cosmic axe hanging over our heads to keep us from going hog wild--raping, pillaging, and blowing up our neighbor's house with dynamite, are just naturally "bad" people. Why would the default mode be assumed to be "bad" behavior, unless they've taken a look inside themselves, and that's what they see?

If the only thing keeping you from robbing the 7-11 and using the proceeds to do coke off of hooker's asses, is that you are afraid that an angry man in the sky is watching you (he sees you when you're sleeping!) and will punish you for your actions, then you are basically ƒucked in the head. Please steer clear of me and my family.

I much prefer, and I think society benefits more greatly from, people who have a natural inclination towards "good" behavior, i.e. what their parents taught them, what they can absorb from the structure of society that surrounds them, without having to be threatened/coerced into "good" behavior by external forces. . . . If you can't find it within yourself to be a good person, then you aren't trying very hard.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Flint

I often wonder whether people who insist that we need a giant cosmic axe hanging over our heads to keep us from going hog wild--raping, pillaging, and blowing up our neighbor's house with dynamite, are just naturally "bad" people. Why would the default mode be assumed to be "bad" behavior, unless they've taken a look inside themselves, and that's what they see?

Absolutely. The biggest bible thumper I know personally, extols endlessly how bad he was before he was "reborn". He doesn't understand he was (is) not normal.

If you can't find it within yourself to be a good person, then you aren't trying very hard.

It doesn't take very many people "not trying" to totally fuck up the domestic peace and tranquility. Anything that helps change the behavior of that minority is good.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

But you think that because you've never had to spend time being one and developing your own moral code.

This is an interesting point. What's worth bearing in mind when the arguments start between the faithful and the faithless, is that many (most?) atheists start out as 'believers' because unless they come from an ardently atheistic household, they are surrounded by religion, even if of a secular nature. It's near impossible for Ruminator to understand my perspective because he's never been a non-believer (I am assuming). I suspect I find it easier to relate to his perspective because I was a believer before I became an atheist.

[Pie]

I'm from one of those rare, ardent-atheist households (I'm 3rd generation). I've been exposed to plenty of religious thought, mostly through catholic schooling.

I never saw anything there that passed occam's razor or the sniff test. :p

[Flint]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It doesn't take very many people "not trying" to totally fuck up the domestic peace and tranquility. Anything that helps change the behavior of that minority is good.

Agreed. Of course, you've also got Jews and Muslims blowing each other up, in the news every day. How could they be so horribly misunderstanding the "good" message of religion? Why isn't religion helping to change their behavior for the better?

I have a theory. When a moral code is presented as an absolute, without the requisite logical arguments, people aren't given the opportunity to understand why they are being asked to behave a certain way. When an inflexible "source" of all knowledge is cited, people do not have to look within themselves and take a personal stake in their own behavior.

I accept that there are certain people, so messed up, that they can't hold it together without being coerced into a strict code of behavior; however, if they don't understand the reasoning behind that code, then how reliable is it? When presented with a situation for which there isn't a hard rule, they defualt to...what? Someone who has never put one second of thought into having personal reasons for "good" behavior is almost guaranteed to go apeshit sooner or later.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's why Mama's got that castiron frying pan.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

That's why Mama's got that castiron frying pan.

You're a funny guy, Bruce.

But I ask again, which came first: The chicken (Mama's fryin' pan), or the egg (religion-based moral codes)?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Flint

I have a theory. When a moral code is presented as an absolute, without the requisite logical arguments, people aren't given the opportunity to understand why they are being asked to behave a certain way. When an inflexible "source" of all knowledge is cited, people do not have to look within themselves and take a personal stake in their own behavior.

I find this extremely interesting and now that I think about it, this same concept can apply to areas besides religion, specifically law and government. I really wonder if this "us versus them", "civilized versus uncivilized", "moral versus immoral" mindset is the result of some discreet social conditioning. What about our society actually makes us think that if we didn't have certain components, we would be going complete batshit insane? Do we really look so lowly upon ourselves as a species that we need to be constantly kept in check so we don't go off raping and killing each other?

In prehistoric times, before religion, law, and government, we obviously weren't living a chaotic lifestyle of rape, murder, and pillaging. That would be completely unsustainable and with the population levels so low, humans would have been wiped out within a few centuries.


I think this topic could be a very good social experiment using a survey of children. The reason we use children is because they have been exposed and conditioned the same way we have but they are simply more extreme and more to the point. A person simply would have to go into a classroom and shortly discuss how we (the children, teacher, and surveyor) are good people and the surveyor would like to know what keeps us from being bad people and record the results. I think the results and reasoning behind those answers could be very interesting and may solidify or add to Flint's theory. To further expand this, go to different areas in the United States and world and contrast the different answers as well.

[Pico and ME]

Do we really look so lowly upon ourselves as a species that we need to be constantly kept in check so we don't go off raping and killing each other?

In prehistoric times, before religion, law, and government, we obviously weren't living a chaotic lifestyle of rape, murder, and pillaging. That would be completely unsustainable and with the population levels so low, humans would have been wiped out within a few centuries.

However, I would think that prehistoric mans behavior was more 'animistic' back then. I would gather that small groups would raid other small groups for their women and resources whenever they came upon them. Once the smaller groups became larger and larger, there needed to be more control over this tendency and if a group had enough resources then they had the power to enforce that.

Moral codes were created for group survival.

[piercehawkeye45]

Animalistic or Animistic?

This is the point I am trying to make. Do we have any evidence that supports our thought that we just raped and pillaged back then? While many human groups did migrate, many had to have been sedentary or else agriculture would never have evolved as a technique. And also, studies of recent hunter gatherer societies have shown a very low level of violence, backing up the theory that low violence was needed to not completely wipe each other out.

Even though there is a lack of evidence to support either side, I think the "rape and pillage" theory is complete bullshit.

[Phage0070]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

While many human groups did migrate, many had to have been sedentary or else agriculture would never have evolved as a technique. And also, studies of recent hunter gatherer societies have shown a very low level of violence, backing up the theory that low violence was needed to not completely wipe each other out.

This does not logically follow. Of course societies have a low level of violence; society was formed to prevent things such as violent interactions and would suppress such tendencies. You cannot look at a set of sorted data and conclude that sorting was not necessary because your data set is sorted already.

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

Animalistic or Animistic?

Thats funny, I meant animalistic but spell check corrected my misspelling to animistic, which isn't really part of my philosophy.

I don't see why small groups of people wouldn't raid another small group for their resources. It wasn't just "raping' and 'pillaging", it was a matter of the struggle for survival when competing with other groups. I'm sure it wasn't all violent either. Some groups probably joined together as another means for survival.