Atheist morality

Originally posted by Regret
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.

Humanism is not necessarily the statement that Humans ARE moral without religion.

It is the more the position that they should be.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Humanism is not necessarily the statement that Humans ARE moral without religion.

It is the more the position that they should be.

Yes, I understand this. I don't see a reason for the should be.

The problem I have with that is that I personally would not be moral without a good reason to be. Without some reason, either escaping something or gaining something, I do not see a need for morals. I might seem to behave in a moral manner, but would it be what we are referring to as morality? I do not believe so. I do not believe that, without some reason to behave well, people really are dignified or of worth. I believe that people that state they would behave otherwise are full of crap. I don't believe that man would be moral without the rules that exist. He may not kill or steal, but not doing things we consider bad by our estimation of morality does not necessitate morals. I believe that that is why, if religion is only man made, religion exists, to give man a reason to behave with dignity, to give man a reason to believe he is of worth. This is my personal opinion. God help us if I decide the atheist is right 😉 lol

Again, you do seem to skate around the point there.

When I say 'should', I am talking about right.

Humanists say that believing as they do is the right way to be, as opposed to those who do not, who are in various ways wrong.

So it is all very well for you to say you would not be moral without a 'good reason'. A Humanist would say that if you do not recognise that morality is its own good reason, then you are simply in error.

It is nothing to do with what humans tend to be, or how people may on average turn out. It is about what people should be, what it is right for them to be. And the point being that people should be like this without needing any recourse to spiritual justification, like religion.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Again, you do seem to skate around the point there.

When I say 'should', I am talking about right.

Humanists say that believing as they do is the right way to be, as opposed to those who do not, who are in various ways wrong.

So it is all very well for you to say you would not be moral without a 'good reason'. A Humanist would say that if you do not recognise that morality is its own good reason, then you are simply in error.

It is nothing to do with what humans tend to be, or how people may on average turn out. It is about what people should be, what it is right for them to be. And the point being that people should be like this without needing any recourse to spiritual justification, like religion.

I believe I am missing your point in some way. I just stated that my opinion was that the optimism of a development of morality is not necessarily accurate. If you are arguing that it is possible, I'll concede that, but if you are arguing that it is necessarily probable, I disagree.

To my understanding humanism asserts that knowledge of right and wrong is based on our our understanding of our individual and joint interests, rather than stemming from a transcendental or arbitrarily local source. This to me, does not necessitate what we refer to as morality occurring. This is optimism that morality would develop, but not stating that it will.

'Transcendental' is a very vague term.

But again, you are talking a lot about where the morality comes from. That's not the point. The point is meant to be the desirability of having them.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
'Transcendental' is a very vague term.

But again, you are talking a lot about where the morality comes from. That's not the point. The point is meant to be the desirability of having them.

Agreed, that is why I made that other thread, I don't think I am the proper person to comment in this forum, and I do not have the knowledge to properly debate this aspect of the topic. Also, I am probably not as interested in this topic as I thought I was, the other thread is a better area for me. Perhaps it is not quite proper either, if there were a science forum I think my views on morality and where it came from would fit best there.