moralityAs an atheist, and I suspect like most atheists, I’ve met people who are convinced that I can’t be moral without fear of a Hell. And this is in the Northeast - I guess the fact that they don’t come out and say so is something. I’m a volunteer EMT and consider myself quite moral - something can be the right thing to do, and necessary for meaningful human interaction, without being afraid.
I’m no Richard Dawkins - my (non-)beliefs just don’t define who I am, so I typically don’t bring it up unless the situation arises. After a few weeks, people are hard-pressed to consider me immoral
What do other people do in this situation? I’m not ashamed of ‘staying in the closet’ but I feel like there may be another way.
This answer isn’t meant sarcastically, but the obvious answer is “Act morally.”
The whole notion that religious is the wellspring of morality is, of course, a canard, as any child-raping priest proves. But aside from that, modern religious people, of course, get their morality from just about anywhere but the Bible. If they didn’t, they’d be stoning people for gathering sticks on the sabbath and adultery. News flash for anyone who claims that the bible is their source of morality: the punishment for violating any the commandments is the same – death! So unless you really believe that all of those things should be punishable by execution, you don’t get your morality straight out of the bible either!
Just like we atheists don’t. And we like it much better that way.
Anyone who assumes that because you don’t believe in a god (and therefore hell) that you are immoral or, at least, not incentivised to be moral is, surely, themselves immoral.
This is because anyone who has honestly considered the question and certainly anyone who is genuinely concerned about morality would know that this claim is quite mistaken, misleading and can promote bigotry and that anyone who is or aspires to be moral would not ask such a question.
To ask such a question displays either intellectual ignorance or worse, hypocrisy or deliberate deception, both, given the topic matter, are not the behaviour of anyone who is really concerned with morality. Asking such a question refutes the questioners presumed and implied moral superiority, actually indicating the opposite.
In other words do not be defensive but be reactively (they did start it) offensive and point out, in your own words, the weakness and hypocrisy of the implications of their question.
I feel as an Atheist that I am more moral than most religious types. I am a good and decent human, I think about others before I act. I dont partake in any crime, I love my wife and children, I give to secular charity (Red Cross). and I do all this knowing there are no gods to punish me, I know if I killed a human and was not caught that I would never have to answer for my crime. I find the whole idea of sinning all week and then going to confession and sinning the next week is just galling to me. Santa said “be good for goodness sake” wise man
I was in the uncomfortable position of needing to defend my beliefs and my source of morality.
I had to ask permission to marry my wife whose father is a protestant minister from a very religious and conservative country. During our very long and probing discussion he asked about my beliefs and why I had rejected religion. I hadn’t thought about in a long time but the answer popped into my head. I could not find a religion that met my standards of morality. To my surprise I found he agreed with me on many points.
I am now happily married and my father-in-law has become a good friend and staunch supporter.
Without getting too analytical (what is “moral”, define “morality”, et cetera…) about it, just keep doing what you’re doing and be who you are. People will start associating you with being moral, then later on if/when they find out you’re atheist, it will hopefully give you a stronger argument against whatever they might throw out there at you pertaining to the standard questions like (“How can you have morals without a god… blah, blah, blah
It seems to be working so far for me… although I have a few atheist friends that I can talk to from time to time, so that helps blow off some steam.
While I agree it’s unfortunate that some people will assume immorality on the basis of one’s religious association or lack thereof, I’m not sure that you can do anything other than be who you are. If you act morally, ethically, then those who see that will recognize it, whether or not they know your religious preferences. Claiming to be X or Y does not mean one is, after all, particularly where ethics are concerned. It’s a slow process, as with all stereotypes that need breaking, and not everyone will be willing to change their minds.
If you don’t define yourself around your non-belief, then why should you encourage others to do so? It seems more useful to be defined by your own actions than any labels.
If just seeing you acting morally doesn’t convince someone you’re moral, ask them whether obviously immoral acts (killing sprees, rape, etc.) would become moral if God made it so. Some people will bite the bullet and tell you they would, but more often than not this opens people’s eyes to the possibility that religion isn’t necessarily a better source of morality than yours.
I think the “you aren’t moral” argument is merely an attempt for the religious to claim the high ground. An attempt to elevate themselves, and their views, above you.
What bugs me is when people do “moral” things for the wrong reasons. My wife’s friend wants to babysit for us so that she’ll receive “blessings”… is that really nice? I’d prefer that she did it because of our friendship and because we’re good people she would like to help, as we have helped her based on friendship alone.
There is very little difference between “God fearing” and realizing that your future will be the result of your past actions, as well as the actions of others. It may sound self serving to say “I don’t break laws because I don’t want to go to jail”, vs “I don’t sin because I don’t want to go to hell”, but the actual (desired) behavior is the same - you behave in a way that positively affects, or at least isn’t toxic to others.
Expounding on that, you might decide that committing a violent act would make you feel horrible, and that consequence is more severe than the night you’d spend in lockup.
It gets sketchy when you bring the word ‘moral’ into it. Above and beyond the common good, pockets of people all over the world accept many varying things as ‘moral’. I consider myself to be a very ethical person, but members of certain religions might find me to be quite immoral. For instance, I strongly support the use of contraceptives and educating the public on reproductive health. Yet, If I give you my word that I’ll do something, you can count on it being done.
I content myself with the realization that morality from a list of rules that god gave is no morality at all, so even if I don’t have satisfying answers for religious nuts regarding morality, I can assert that they don’t have these answers either and that we need to look further.
Since no-one has mentioned it yet and also because it is very helpful in “looking further”, I have to plug Sam Harris’ “The Moral Landscape”. Its been criticized by almost everyone as being flawed, but these people miss the point of the book (disclaimer: I’m still reading it… :) ). It states over and over again that it is only “starting a conversation” about objective morality and so far doesn’t claim to provide all the answers. It also avoids the extreme left & right positions (“no such thing as objective morality” & “morality comes from god”). Morality is a very deep topic and we’ve hardly scratched the surface of it, but this book seems like a brilliant place to kick off further thought.
One possible approach would be to demonstrate that being (e.g.) Christian or any kind of religious is not a requisite to acting morally.
The fact of the matter is, a sense of morals has evolved in humans, naturally; and this happened many thousands of years before religions were “invented.”
On the other hand, not every human acts on his moral principles all the time. This applies to atheists, but also to religious folk. Catholic clerics aren’t looking too good in the moral department at the moment. There is in fact no decent evidence for the hypothesis that religious people on average act more morally than atheists.
I’m not entirely sure I have to prove to anyone that I’m a moral person. If a theist wants to claim that atheists are immoral without a supernatural dictator, it is up to them to prove that that is the case, not vice versa. I see no reason why I should act in a particularly different way just to convince someone that I’m moral. Keep on living a normal life, act as you would normally, and people can decide for themselves whether you’re moral or not.
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