Atheist morality

Originally posted by Regret
Intuitive is still developed in the individual, not attributed to something external and independent of humanity

So do you also beleive that intuition cannot be attributed to genetics? To the subconcious?

You know the subconcious is a realm of the mind that we have no direct access to.....it is the part of our mind we are unaware of. I beleive it is highly possible that many parts of our morality may come from this part of our brain.

Do you ever feel that sometimes u KNOW the answer to something...or you have this feeling about something, but you don't understand why. Nothing in your memories can be attributed to this certain feeling, this kind of instinct, you just have this "knowledge" from out of no where.

I beleive that intuitive feeling to come from either the subconcious parts of our mind, or possible genetic mental attributes.

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
So do you also beleive that intuition cannot be attributed to genetics? To the subconcious?

You know the subconcious is a realm of the mind that we have no direct access to.....it is the part of our mind we are unaware of. I beleive it is highly possible that many parts of our morality may come from this part of our brain.

Do you ever feel that sometimes u KNOW the answer to something...or you have this feeling about something, but you don't understand why. Nothing in your memories can be attributed to this certain feeling, this kind of instinct, you just have this "knowledge" from out of no where.

I beleive that intuitive feeling to come from either the subconcious parts of our mind, or possible genetic mental attributes.

The response to this is no. I do not believe that there is "genetic" morality. As far as subconscious, it is a hypothetical that may not exist. Physiologically, I do not believe there is anything in your brain telling you anything other than the four F's:

Feed
Fight
Flee
Fornicate

Everything else is learned, but we have been directed to avoid the debate over learned or not.

😆 thats a grreat synopsis, but those can lead to some basic morals.

Most animals aren't cannibalistic, even though members of your own species are often the closest food source and removing them increases local competition (but decreases the special compitition as well).

Animals just don't mate with the first thing that crosses their path, they choose, indicatign some sort of biological selection...a preference possibly based on some sort of baisc moral code.

Originally posted by Alliance
😆 thats a grreat synopsis, but those can lead to some basic morals.

I agree that genetics can lead to the development of morals. But, it is a development, it is not the genetics popping out morals. It takes reasoning outside of the genetics, although maybe based upon the genetics, to come to a form of morality.

Originally posted by Eis
Because we are taught from a young age that hurting other people is bad.

Humans are basically SOCIAL creatures; we’re herd-animals if you like. We survive through cooperation so we might as well instinctively feel it’s a bad idea to hurt “the good hunter”…

Originally posted by Regret
The response to this is no. I do not believe that there is "genetic" morality. As far as subconscious, it is a hypothetical that may not exist. Physiologically, I do not believe there is anything in your brain telling you anything other than the four F's:

Feed
Fight
Flee
Fornicate

Everything else is learned, but we have been directed to avoid the debate over learned or not.

Do you know about Maslow’s pyramid of needs? Our basic human needs are shelter, food, and water and warmth. Sex does not become an issue until those needs are met. Once they are we move onto security, love, companionship and social bonds… etc etc etc… ending with the need for self-knowledge and self-fulfilment. I could argue the case, that we learn through interactions and relations that to get our needs met, we need to act and behave accordingly.

Which, btw, and staying on topic, means that atheists can have and learn morals just like anyone else.

Maslows data sucks. His methodology sucked. His subject samples were too small to make the generalizations he made. Also, he chose his subjects based on ambiguous and inconsistent measures of "psychological health" that he came up with. Maslow himself agreed that his methods did not measure up to scientific standards. Most aspects of Maslow's research and theories have no respectable support.

But then that's just the general Psychological community's opinion of Maslow.

Regret> I see you only stating your opinion. Do you have any facts?

Originally posted by The Omega
Regret> I see you only stating your opinion. Do you have any facts?

Wabha and Bridwell (1976) found little evidence for the ordering of needs that Maslow selected or whether in fact a strict hierarchy exists at all.

M. A. Wahba & L. G. Bridwell. Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15, 212-240. (1976).

Facts:

His subject samples were too small to make the generalizations he made. this is due to statistical standards accepted by the APA

Also, he chose his subjects based on ambiguous and inconsistent measures of "psychological health" that he came up with. simple fact

for reference that supports these claims refer to all articles published by Abraham Maslow on the subject of self actualization.

The history of psychology books used in the majority of university level courses will also support my statements as well. For a reference to a history book that I know corroborates my statements refer to:

A History of Modern Psychology (with InfoTrac)
8th Edition
Duane P. Schultz - University of South Florida
Sydney Ellen Schultz - University of South Florida
0534557759

552 pages Case Bound 7 3/8 X 9 1/4

© 2004

I no longer have the book, but I know for a fact that they agree with my opinion of Maslow's research.

Originally posted by Regret
Wabha and Bridwell (1976) found little evidence for the ordering of needs that Maslow selected or whether in fact a strict hierarchy exists at all.

Oh, I agree with you (and Wabha and Bridwell) that our needs may not be as hierarchically ordered as Maslow suggest. However, do you not think it might be pretty difficult to obtain self-enlightenment if you’re nearly starving to death?
Social and psychological studies and research must be among the hardest subjects to test in real life.

Originally posted by The Omega
Social and psychological studies and research must be among the hardest subjects to test in real life.

Originally posted by The Omega
Humans are basically SOCIAL creatures; we’re herd-animals if you like. We survive through cooperation so we might as well instinctively feel it’s a bad idea to hurt “the good hunter”…

Yes !👆

Human Beings are social creatures...therefore it is our natural instinct to try and work together with other human beings. Any desire to harm another human being for any other reason than survival (i.e. killing for pleasure, revenge, etc) goes against our natural desire as a human being to benefit from socialization with another human being.

This is why I beleive that our morality is just as intuitive as it is subjective.

Originally posted by The Omega
Oh, I agree with you (and Wabha and Bridwell) that our needs may not be as hierarchically ordered as Maslow suggest. However, do you not think it might be pretty difficult to obtain self-enlightenment if you’re nearly starving to death?

I do believe that it would be. My personal objections with Maslow are mainly based in my school of Psychological thought. I do not believe that the majority of psychology does proper psychological study. They do some research, they get a result, and then they paint a pretty picture around the facts when a simple description of the behavior they observed is sufficient. With Maslow, his methods don't even stand up to the majority of non-behavioral or physiological psychology (By this I refer to behavior analysis and physiological, cognitive-behavioral is not what I am referring to) standards for painting the picture he did. His methods are more unstable than even they can swallow.

Originally posted by The Omega
Social and psychological studies and research must be among the hardest subjects to test in real life.

I firmly agree with this statement. The issue that exists is that they are only documenting behavior. They document a behavior and then jump to a complex explanation can be explained simply by reference to the observable data at hand. They rely on unobservable, unprovable, internal constructs to explain a behavior that could just be as simple as it appears.

Originally posted by Alliance
Thats why I don't consider it a real science.

I would refer you to the work done in behavior analysis. Many areas of psychology, IMO, are not science, and give many of us a bad name. Also, a study of physiological psychology would also show some very strong scientific work. So, when claiming that psychology is not a real science, at least qualify it by referring to us.

Originally posted by Lord Urizen
Yes !👆

Human Beings are social creatures...therefore it is our natural instinct to try and work together with other human beings. Any desire to harm another human being for any other reason than survival (i.e. killing for pleasure, revenge, etc) goes against our natural desire as a human being to benefit from socialization with another human being.

This is why I beleive that our morality is just as intuitive as it is subjective.

Morality may be intuitive, but not built in. We still learn to work together. We learn the morality of it through experience. A toddler will do something slightly harmful, and the other person will appear sad, the toddler then learns not to do it. Not built in, but learned in response to the action.

Would you say a basic moral constuct is built in.

Atheist morality is much different than Atheist mortality, or is that immortality..........

I'm going to start a new thread with the subject "How is morality developed, or is it innate?" in the philosophy forum.

Let's discuss this there.

ok

*runs to philosphy forum*

OK...takes a nap 😂

Originally posted by Regret
I agree it is possible.

I think that the discussion has evolved from just "Do atheists have morals?" to include the question "If so where do they come from?"

I have difficulty understanding where, independent of humanity, morals could come from that would not include something not unlike the idea of god. And my term god refers to anything that fits the parameters of the definition of God, minus the being/man type terms, especially definitions two or four.

god

NOUN:

God
1)
a) A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b) The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
2) A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
3) An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
4) One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god.
5) A very handsome man.
6) A powerful ruler or despot.

Well, this all seems rather basic. I can assume you have not had much contact with Humanism.

Atheist morality can be souced simply into the nature of the universe, or as represented by a philisophical truth to be discovered.

Heck, you could think aliens invented it and the position would still hold.

But the absolute still has merit as a possibility. Objective morality existing in the universe, but not sourced from any spurious idea of God (which calls into question its objectivity anyway), nor simply a result of the way Humans develop. This is where alien consideration would be important, because true objective morals would be true for all sentient life.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Well, this all seems rather basic. I can assume you have not had much contact with Humanism.

Atheist morality can be souced simply into the nature of the universe, or as represented by a philisophical truth to be discovered.

Heck, you could think aliens invented it and the position would still hold.

But the absolute still has merit as a possibility. Objective morality existing in the universe, but not sourced from any spurious idea of God (which calls into question its objectivity anyway), nor simply a result of the way Humans develop. This is where alien consideration would be important, because true objective morals would be true for all sentient life.

I personally do not believe that humanism is a credible stance. People lie, cheat, and steal. I do not believe that man would be moral without some religious motivation, unless of course man learned his morality.

I do believe atheists can be moral. Something somewhere could have input morality into the atheist. I believe I am more interested in how morals develop, or from where they originate, than whether atheists get morals from somewhere independent of humanity. As such I will be responding to morality issues on the thread I mentioned above.

I again say that morality is a learned process. Now I know many good Christians, but when push comes to shove, I've seen Christians that act like pure evil........Then again people will say, "Well, they really weren't real Christians anyway."...........Then there are atheists who are always condemned that don't need to please a god and yet still stand strong in their belief of what is right.

Believing in a god does not make one moral. Morals existed before the Book/books.