Morality Without God

[Artto]

Everyone's heard the old "atheists don't have morals" argument. I've had it presented to me on a number of occasions, and have seen other atheists respond to it.
I'm afraid that a lot of the times the counter-arguments were not completely adequate. A lot of the times the response goes something along the lines of "I do good because it makes me feel good". Unfortunately, that still leaves the theist with the "god put morals in your heart" argument.

To explain why doing good makes us feel good, and why we deem something as "good" we need to contemplate our evolutionary history (yeah I know, some people don't believe evolution happens, but you can't really argue with those icon_razz.gif).

Humans are a social animal, which means that we need to work together to survive. When it comes to social animals, the main evolutionary advantage is working well together. That means: no killing of the members of your own tribe, no causing of disagreements (e.g. stealing) and usually some kind of obedience to authority.
Another trait that helps a group function better is empathy - empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another and feeling as they feel. It is also an important source of our moral sense. This is why psychopaths don't have a problem killing or harming another person.
Now remember, these rules only apply within your "tribe", and that is why we see people killing other people so much - as horrible as it sounds, people have less of a problem killing a person they don't consider to be a part of their "tribe". Fortunately, as society develops, the "tribe" expands to a larger part of humanity, and ideally, to the whole of humanity.
We can see examples of what people consider their "tribe" in criminal organizations - people that are a part of a gang won't have much trouble killing a member of a rival gang. On the other part of the spectrum, we have animal rights activists - they expand the "tribe" to animals, usually mammals. I would guess what contributes to that is a stronger sense of empathy, while in the case of criminal organizations, some sort of suppression of empathy would have to play a role.
When it comes to the more complex morals, like "homosexuality is wrong", it usually comes down to obedience to authority - for example, a priest.

I have explained my position in debates with theists before, and haven't heard much of a counter-argument. Those same people didn't stop citing morality as evidence for a god. I guess it's an important part of their arsenal icon_smile.gif


Any thought, ideas and criticism are more than welcome.  

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

Somewhat primitive sorts of morality can be observed in non-human animals, too. When I took evolutionary psych in college, the teacher recounted some stories that had been recorded, of things like a dog braving a busy street to try to rescue another dog that had been hit by a car... squirrels standing guard for each other as they gathered nuts... that sort of thing. Cooperation between individuals increases the chance that both will survive, and so it's not abnormal for animal groups to evolve this kind of tit-for-tat morality, where they'll behave altruistically until the risk of being hurt outweighs the benefit of cooperation.

Someone who really wants to believe that "God caused it" will still attribute this animal behaviour to him... but yeah, it is totally explainable without resorting to adding in divine characters to the mix.  

[=X-Sparker + AquaKiller=]

I think your argument is very sound. Now all you have to do is get a famous university to do research to prove it and write a paper about it and publish it. =)

 

[MyBrotherJake]

Just ask the theist to imagine, just for the sake of argument, that suddenly a piece of evidence was found that made it absolutely certain that there was no God - Now would the theist really feel that it was ok to to Rape/Murder/Pillage - of course not - even in this 'hypothetical' world the theist would still feel these actions were immoral  

[Meirelle]

MyBrotherJake

Just ask the theist to imagine, just for the sake of argument, that suddenly a piece of evidence was found that made it absolutely certain that there was no God - Now would the theist really feel that it was ok to to Rape/Murder/Pillage - of course not - even in this 'hypothetical' world the theist would still feel these actions were immoral

Seriously, if the only reason someone doesn't rape people is because a book tells them they'll go to heaven if they don't... well... I wouldn't trust my nieces in the care of that person... :/

OFF TOPIC: What happened here? I come back from a Gaia hiatus, and the guild is dead. crying R.I.P. GAU.