Atheism and Morality

None of us actually have miniature angels/devils on our shoulders telling us what to do. Our morality is determined by our decisions and our experience. If we rely on a book to tell us what to do, our sense of morality can sometimes lose touch with reality. Most atheists (and people in general) follow the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Atheism is not without morality and still believes in the simple principles of: Do not murder. Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not cheat. These are rules every human being can live by, and are rules commonly found in the major religions.

Non-atheists, especially right wing Christians, have a tendency to cloud the issue of morality and claim that atheists don't have any morals. That would be incorrect. Morals are not forced upon us by religion. We learn morals from experience interacting with others.

Many atheists hold reason, logic and empathy in high esteem, arguing that morality is meaningless if a person lacks reason and empathy for their fellow man. For example, the Bible doesn't say anything about abortion, but it does say "Thou shalt not kill." A Christian with a warped sense of morals could use that as justification to murder an abortionist or bomb an abortion clinic, and there have been numerous such attacks in the United States.

Some Americans blame growing crime, rudeness and a growing lack of morality on atheism. However atheist/non-religious people makes up a very small percentage of the American population (less than 10%). If there is a loss of moral fibre in the United States it is not due to atheism, it is due to the lack of parental guidance in a society that has become too self-absorbed. Children these days are being taught to ignore the feelings of others in favour of their own immediate wants. Christians would be well-advised to take a page from their own book: �For the love of money is the root of all evil.� [Timothy 6:10]

The Bible, and the Quran for that matter, does have some interesting rules about morality. Some of them good, but the Bible also endorses things like slave ownership, killing people who work on the Sabbath, stoning homosexuals/disobedient children to death and a variety of other ideas of questionable morality. [See various entries in Exodus and Leviticus.] Evidently one can't take everything the Bible says literally, it is 1500 years out of date and was written by 40 different individuals who couldn't agree on a name so they just called it "Book".

Thus you understand why atheists don't take the Bible or any other religious material seriously. There is a moral disconnect in the Bible and many atheists know the moral ambiguities of the Bible very well, and because they can read it without the bias of faith they can point out its faults.

Some people like to point out the good work some religious charities do, but ask yourself: Would you still be doing charity work even if your religion didn't tell you to do it? People do good things because they want to, not because a book said they should.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.