Posted on 01/27/2005 9:08:45 AM PST by Zyke
If christians use God's laws as a moral compass, what do atheists use to guide their moral belief? How do they know what is right and wrong? Why do they follow any laws at all?
I am just seeking some knowledge to help me understand.
Exactly...what is supposed to happen, will happen.
Zyke: "It seems self governing is not innate though. Right and wrong is learned. Just like fear is learned. Since we are born without fear or knowing whats right and wrong. We have to weigh the balance, but against what."
Well, one thing you have overlooked is fundamental. Why do we even categorize some things as "right" and "wrong" from the git-go??
I would propose that we are made in the image of God and hence have inherent (albeit imperfect) attributes as a result. Consider this an aspect of common grace.
How do they know what is right and wrong?
That is a statement about history, but not a statement about morality. The question remains, how do you choose good if you do not recognise it innately? Is everyone trapped in what they are taught as children?
Religion resulted from mans first feeble attempts to control and understand the world around him. The basic premise is that God controls the world and that if you please him, he will in turn do good things for you. The rules (morals) were to obey and serve God and his representatives.
As religions became more sophisticated they developed societal rules that helped reinforce the religion and society and made them stronger. Those rules became morals, the rules that didn't work were dropped by the wayside.
Morals are simply a balancing act between immediate gratification and long term happiness. Once that simple fact is understood, living a moral, joyful life is as easy as floating down the river. It probably doesn't appeal to Christians who enjoy beating themselves up and resisting temptation and repenting after they sin, though.
Or more precisely: "whatever"
LeGrande: "Those rules became morals, the rules that didn't work were dropped by the wayside."
So how do you explain the Biblical command to "love your enemy"? That rule doesn't seem to "work" from a common sense or practical point of view. It is a radical idea and one that I feel cannot be explained by experience alone. Hence, I must disagree with your assessment that religion is a compilation of "helpful hints to live by".
There are many examples of atheists forming societies. large societies. The USSR was one. China another. Buddhism is a religious society and atheist.
Right, whatever happens, is supposed to happen.
I think religions really started from mans attempt to control and understand the world around him...and then a shaman realising that their was something to be gained by convincing others that you knew stuff that they didn't know.
You carried it too far.
With nothing out there and no meaning, it is simply "whatever."
No supposed to it at all.
God forbid. I believe we have already made the choice but we don't always recognize it immediately even though we are acting it out. In my worldview it is grace that guides our morality in the absence of commandments (well, it guides some of us, LOL).
Some of the difficulty with the initial question is the stark difference between individual and group morality. A moral choice that is workable for an individual can be disastrous for a community. So we have to step beyond personal desire. For Christians, this means a degree of submission that is sometimes painful. For atheists, I would think that it would require a continuous reassessment of former choices.
Ultimately, everyone hangs their hat somewhere. Believers look to God, unbelievers look to utility or self interest or atheistic philosophy.
Yes, well, actually I was referring to Plato largely in his role of recording for us what Socrates did and said.
Kant, Aristotle, Plato, enlightened self-interest. There are a lot of different non-religious sources that I can draw on to learn right from wrong. Some of the greatest thinkers, politicians and statesmen that the world has ever produced wrote volumes on how to live an ethical life and they never mentioned God.
Is the majority of these populations truly atheists, or just the leaders/state belief? A belief in God, really doesn't go against the teachings of Buddha.
?? So it depends on the definition of whatever?
Agreed, and most secularist and leftists seem completely oblivious to this fact. They often promote Judeo-Christian ethics in substance (not just on the individual, but also on the state level) but would be loath to admit it. I think that there is a lot of ethical agreement generally in society, but the origins and methods of attaining them are at odds.
It's the same essential Judeo-Christian morality, but the right tends to exhort morality on the individual level, appealing to religion and self-restraint, discussing morality directly.
The left tends to reference roughly the same morality, but mocks religion and self-restraint and morality as concepts, and enforces morals via the state (via income redistribution, political correctness, etc.), and refuses to admit it.
Yep.
I guess I should have said...what happens, is what is supposed to happen.
Judging from the reinstatement of the Church in Russia, it seems the atheists had only temporary control. In China there is a large population of theists, although the godless communists still have power. The Buddhists, I don't know, except their cosmology doesn't seem to involve a Creator.
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