Atheism and moral compass (not a religious thread)

I'm actually not opposed to the death penalty in a single case. Life in Prison. I think with that sentence the prisoner should get to opt for the death penalty because Life in Prison ( for some people ) could be considered a fate worse than death. It's like 40 years of torture that doesn't end until you're dead. In that case I'd support the death penalty.


Now onto your questions

What keeps you Moral and ethical compass in check?


As an atheist I view the life we're living here and now as "All you get". To me, that gives it a much deeper meaning than if this life is just the "test run". It means we're here for a fleeting moment and then we're gone. I know some people see this as a hopeless situation, but to me it makes the value of human life indescribably more valuable.

My moral compass comes from a mix of things ( as does everyone's ). What I've learned from my parents and family, What I've learned on my own either through experience or reading about things, and just how I feel on certain issues. It's a complex system that we all develop based on any number of factors.

The most important rule for me is "Don't hurt others, and don't let yourself be hurt"

It's a simple enough rule. Basically the idea that I won't hurt you and you shouldn't hurt me. If we all followed that simple rule the world would be so much better.

Now expanding upon it a bit there is also a segment between the lines about doing whatever you can to stop others from being hurt when you have the power to do so.

 

I get my moral compass from my personal ethics, along with the ethics of society at large. My personal philosophy is to not hurt anyone. I also am a Humanist, and my ethics also come from the notion that every person has a potential to do good. The Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism are also something I take to heart. Basically, if it doesn't follow the golden rule of treating others how you would like to be treated, it is something I probably won't subscribe to. I actually don't think the Abrahamic Holy Books are the best places to derive morality from either, as they are all books written by men thousands of years ago in a society much different from ours today. So yes, consequences legal and societal are what keep me from doing something bad. Many people who know me well have told me that I have a very strong moral compass, even stronger than people who claim to be religious around here.

 

I think what most people... religious ones missing one big effing point. All religions are about making us a better human being... not best <insert religious sect here>.

If you bury your head into your so called holy books and forget other's humanity because they can't or don't live up to your standarts I think you should put your hat in front and do a very very serious thinking.

No one should rub their faithfullness or lack of it into others face. Being kind, civil and open minded is not about that.

On matter of believing... I believe in God because I felt him... a presence. Most people "believe" because they are told so I think. So for me religious text have tips in them but as they are written down by men there is a huge probabilty that they are tempered.

Think like afterlife, angels or God are something I opt to believe until they are proven non exist... I do the same for aliens as well or ghost or anything we simply just can't 100% prove in either way.

 

I dont believe in what conventionally and widespread-ly taught as GOD
Now days religions are far misinterpreted and missing the bigger picture which "in my opinion" is peace and love for all mankind

I'm not atheist either because i do believe in higher power but it aint "those" god... so i'm kind of in between?? i dont know, i havent decide it for myself yet

So far the only thing tat sort of act as my "Moral Compass" is my Ethic (Personal, Professional, etc), Common Sense and Logic

Same simple rule applies in physic, actions equal to reactions in opposite direction. I have to treat people as the way i wanted myself to be treated. Simple right??

For the death penalty topic, i'm not against it. Some people whose crime are too worse to be forgiven deserve to die. But killing him instantly is not the option. They need to suffer for what they've done. I'd prefer Life Sentence in Isolation. Death is the easiest way out and i believe they dont deserve it

that's just my opinion
arfff

 

You only live once. That one life is all I have; if I screw up, then I have nowhere else to go. All the more reason not to do bad things. Do things that won't make the world hate me, and maybe I'll be rewarded with happiness.
(I just dumped my thoughts all over the table. Hope you can make sense of them.)

 

I think it's a mixture of the golden rule, human nature, how I was raised, and fear of wrong-doing, among other things. To try to be brief, humans are generally not disagreeable. Sure, we have selfish tendencies, but if we all acted on those selfish tendencies, there would be chaos -- thus it's actually in our self interest to cooperate with others and respect their self and property. Similarly, that is why we create and empower government to punish people who get out of line. That is what I believe to be the human nature part. Also, that's part of the golden rule. We do to others what we would like done to ourself. We don't steal (and outlaw it) because we don't want to be stolen from. However, in general, I try to do nice things for people and treat them well. Why? I don't know! It could be how I was raised, or maybe humans get some level of dopamine response when doing kind things to others (maybe a relic of our need to cooperate?). I think everyone deserves respect, but if you ask why, I'm not sure. I think it's pretty complicated. I don't think people need to fear a god or expect a reward from him to be good people. I think it's in our nature...

 

Im not an atheist but would like to reply to the thread
I am a religous person and practising but recently I questioned everything and started doing things that meant more than following out of habit
I believe in God and pray to Him all the time
I believe in karma and how everything you give out to the world, intention included, will come back to you
I believe in love
I believe in being a good person to my self and others

I didn't learn all this from my family or society but from self discovery and thorough questioning and derived an ethical moral system that suited me and my well being

 

For me I do not need a fairytale book to tell me how I must live. And I certainly do not need it to tell me how to be and how not to act. I know right from wrong without the need of paper telling me so. My morals come from past experiences and learned behaviours. Learned form watching other people, or how people react to actions I take. I do not need a book to tell me for example, that murder is wrong, or that we should all love and respect each other.
Most of my family are/was Roman Catholic, but I was lucky to have not been christened. When I was a kid, I neither believed or disbelieved in god or any higher power. But as I got older, I came to see how religion gave me more questions than it answered. And also the immorality or religion as a whole and how contradictory the bible is. I think the first time I actually openly questioned religion and atheism was when I was 11. I was abused and I often thought "what 'good' god would allow children to suffer? And I still ask that question. But I would not put myself as 100% atheist. I am somewhere between agnostic and atheist. Mainly due to the inability to prove there is no god and there is one.
To me I just ask, if there is a god what kind of god is he/she/it that he/she/it that can allow the suffering of children that we see today? What god would 'create' creatures whose only life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children? What 'god' would do that?
And it is them questions that lead to my morals, my standard for how I view people and my love for them.

 

I believe that what goes around comes back around. now there is no religious value to this but the basic belief that you should treat people like how you want to be treated and if you are going to ill treat someone, how can you expect someone to treat you well?
When it comes to life sentences going by religious books isn't it wrong to take someone's life because that job is god's and not our's? Life imprisonment however is sure a better solution to people who are not so dangerous that their very existence could be a threat to someone ....
On a different note I believe that religion was meant to be a fusion of morality governance n idealistic view, the problem that arises is that there is no place for science or anything scientific n there is a lot of monopoly , to make things worse there is not much room for change...I believe it arose out of mans futile dream to control society and maintain order...the truth of life is that entropy can never be zero.
Then again it depends about which religion you speak of ...nevertheless there is lot to learn from every religion, even for an atheist.
An atheist is one who believes that god doesn't exist but it doesn't stop him from being human? I believe that morals are what make humans human....
I should tell you I am spiritual and I love theology....

 

My-own-way religious pixie here.

First things first, I don't think it is at all surprising that non-belief is especially common in the LGBT+ community since organized religious groups often politically discriminate against them. Which is terrible snce it undermines their chance to explore their own spirituality for those that want to.

To answer the question. I don't have the obvious negative attitude to religion that many do, but I don't need religion to be a good person either. My love is for Creation, not Creator. Like Sirius Black said: "We've all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on."
It's hard but we do have the power to make the world a better place. We don't necessarily need anything lse but our hearts.

 

I don't believe in a deity, nor do I belief in 'morals' and 'ethics' as some sort of independent concepts. Rather I see them as cultural constructs. Existence is utterly pointless, without meaning or value - so I'm free to establish whatever point, purpose and meaning I want to apply to it.

In my experience a combination of cost-benefit analysis (which would include being aware of the consequences of wrongdoing.), social or family conditioning, and enlightened self-interest provides the basis for pretty much everything I do. With a dash of 'how I feel at the time'.

I generally try to get along with people because the results are usually more pleasant and it's usually more effective in terms of getting things accomplished. If that approach proves to be ineffective with some, then I'll take a different approach.

Re the issue of life in prison vs the death penalty. My first question would be: What exactly are we trying to accomplish here? And is the proposed or current action the most effective way of achieving that goal? Does the goal itself suffer from inherent contradictions or unintended consequences that incur unacceptable 'costs' or disadvantages? Etc.

Todd

 

I don't believe I need a God to know right from wrong. I just use logic and experience; It's wrong to hurt someone (murder and rape, especially since I've seen the damage rape does). Ironically, plenty of Christians will defend crimes like murder and rape as long as the person prays and asks for forgiveness, which to me is pretty scary.

 

If you need to be threatened with going to hell by an omnipotent deity, I think you've misunderstood religion.

On the atheist morality. After living in several different countries for long periods of time I have come to the realization that morality is nothing more than a result of civilization; what's moral here, is definitely not moral somewhere else, etc. On the other hand, morality is what couldn't be written in law, so from my perspective is completely pointless. People will be jerks to you, you will be a jerk to someone, if you think otherwise your lying to yourself. So, my personal motto is to minimize damage.

 

I see nothing wrong with religion, it is just often misinterpreted and read too literally, rather than going beneath the surface and actually thinking about it. Also, many religions do go against LGBT, but sometimes, if you look closer they really don't.
I don't know what an agnostic is...but I don't believe in God. I just believe that everybody should love, respect, and be kind to people because that'll keep everyone happier and make the world a better place. What keeps my "moral compass" going, has been hearing of or having personal experiences...
We should be accepting no matter what the person looks, acts, or their ideas are...I've been bullied, I still am bullied terribly in school for choosing to act different than others, and refuse to participate in gossiping. The horrible feeling of constantly doubting if I'm worth it when they make fun of me is terrible. I don't want others to feel that way, ever.

Supporting LGBT, I support it because it's human rights, and it's wrong to deny somebody to be in love. I don't see why people do it.

I don't know, I guess all of that defines my moral compass

 

What? There are no consequences to soing bad things?? Go figure!

Seriously though, I just treat others as I would want them to treat me. I don't need an ancient book filled with murder, rape, pedophilia, sexism, homophobia, the list goes on and on.. to tell me what is right or wrong.:lol: If I did follow a religious scripture like the bible or the quran I highly doubt I'd be a better person than I am now.

 

Couldn't agree more

 

Yeah I believe in God but I don't do good because he wants me to I do it because I want too. I think when your intentions to do good come from the heart instead of just the bible it makes you a stronger christian in all honesty.

---------- Post added 25th May 2015 at 07:56 AM ----------

Seriously. What about the christian who supports gay rights, abortion rights, giving to the poor, is against violent crimes, priest abuse, stealing. As long as they do good and don't take away rights from others and believe in personal freedom how can you consider that person I really bad person. A loving God never wants a christians to do things in fear of hell but with the intentions of doing good. Thanks though for calling me a bad person technically.

 

First of, I thinks it's insulting to insinuate that we must have got a moral compass because we followed some ridiculous religion such as the very immoral abrahamic religions (you can see their track record throughout history). Also, the fact that we are atheists doesn't mean we are free to do as we please in this world as there are consequences to our actions.

I've actually posted before on this topic that secular morality is actually the only true form of morality and that religions are little more than moral pronouncements based on an assertion of authority. I quote below:

Morality is based on evaluation of ones actions in order to determin the most positive and beneficial course of action to ensure the well being of all involved. Going on the basic principles such as health is preferable to ill health, life is generally preferable to death, non pain is preferable to pain etc, you can evaluate the consequences of your actions and determin if they are moral or not.

As a social animal, humans generally have such principles naturally within us and an understanding that our survival is greatly improved by working and living together. Furthermore if we are going to live together and share space we need to realise that our actions have consequences and that our right to swing our arm at ends before it touches another.

Religions have no such means to make these determinations. They are essentially a set of proclamations on morality as outlined by their deity (which they asume exists with no supportive evidence) with no explanation as to why they are moral. I'm not implying modern religious people are immoral of course, but I would argue that their own morality is superior to that of their religion.

I mean, if you follow the morality of religious scripture then ideals such as slavery, mysoginy and stoning people (especially LGBTQA+ people)1 are acceptable. The reason we don't do these things anymore, is because we have evolved our own morality past the savage teachings of religion by exercising our own thought out moral compass. Of course, I'm not saying using this everyone will always make the most moral choice every time, after all we are only human, but at least it equips us to evaluate our actions based on reality and not some superstitios authority.

You can also see argue that the more civilised religions of today are only thatvway now, because they have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century by our more secular societies.

Happy days