Moral Compass of Atheists

There have been multiple times where I have run across people who are atheists in the religion thread and in other sites who have essentially said "If someone has to fear eternal damnantion to do good things they aren't really good." or the other common one "Why should you have to get the promise of heaven to do good works."

Now, to memory, all these people didn't believe in an afterlife or a soul. Essentially completely in disbelief of the supernatural. So if I put myself in the shoes of someone with those belief's I come up with this scenario: If there is no God, no Hell, and no Heaven, or even any form of life after I die, what is the point of having any form of moral compass? I can do whatever I want as long as it benefits me more then it harms me throughout my life, since after I die I won't have to worry about anything.

There is also the fact that with these same belief that there is no afterlife, suicide is an extremely appealing option for people of high stress levels and depression. Heck I'd have probably done it as a child if I wasn't Catholic, either that or someone else would have died. The other possibility was that I'd do as I mentioned in the scenario which is simply do whatever I found convenient, if that meant manipulating people into doing what I want then that's what would happen. Fortunately it didn't, but it was a plausible scenario.

I simply do not understand where a moral compass is if an individual does not believe in an afterlife of one form or another. So for any in that situation please enlighten me to your reasoning. And even if you aren't in that same situation, if you think you figured out their reasoning, please tell me anyway. Could be useful for an extra view.

My reply to your initial query is that we all have an internal moral compass, which is something Christian theology teaches in that humans have an understanding of good and evil.

Anyways, here's my view on morality and the moral compass within each of us.

I think there are two primary motivational forces in man, one of which is love, and the other is a visceral fear that one's own existence is without meaning.

Love stems from an embracement of one's own existence through self-awareness, and self-awareness is the ultimate truth because its the one thing we can be 100% certain of. From there it follows that a person would conclude that if they exist and experience stuff then there is meaning either causing or at the very least within their lives, which leads them to love, which is the motivation behind all good.

The nihilistic fear that one's own existence has no meaning is the most irrational thought ever and directly contradicts the ultimate truth, which is why I would call the thought that one's existence is meaningless the ultimate lie. From the ultimate lie/fear, springs insecurity, self-doubt, and self-loathing, which from then motivates arrogance so people can try and escape this fear with an inflated image of themselves, and arrogance/pride is ultimately what motivates and allows people to justify all evil.

This is heavily reflected in Christian theology, as God introduces himself to Noah as "I am that I am" (a statement of self-awareness which is the ultimate truth), Jesus saying that his greatest commandment is to act out of love (which is the motivation behind all moral action), and Jesus saying to be humble and Christian theology teaching that pride is the father of all sin.

You don't have to believe in God to feel that internal conflict between both of those primary emotional drives within yourself and choose which one to act on. Nobody has a perfect understanding of morality, since none of us are omniscient or logically perfect, but what everyone can do is choose to act out of love and do what logically makes sense from there.

I've seen plenty of atheists be moral human beings an embrace morality through love and empathy, and I've also seen religious people driven to immorality by arrogant feelings of superiority based on the fact that they're believers. At the same time, I've also seen plenty of religious people who embrace love and moral behavior not because of fear of punishment and hope for a reward (particularly me since I believe everyone goes to heaven), and I've seen plenty of atheists take their lack of belief in a God to the point of moral nihilism.

Even if I were an atheist, I'd still believe in objective morality, because all motivation towards morality springs from a feeling driven by the ultimate truth while all motivation towards immorality springs from feelings driven by the ultimate lie, at least from the way I understand it.

I believe in an afterlife, that is, that your "soul" continues to exist. Is there a heaven and a hell? No, not IMO.

As for a moral compass, IMO, if we're going to be honest, I think a person is a psychopath if they refrain from behavior like murder , etc. only because an invisible deity told them to. On top of that, I''d find them mentally ill. An invisible being should not dictate your life.

I don't need the bait of a reward in the afterlife or the fear of eternal damnation to know that I should treat others as I'd want to be treated myself. Where did I get this from? Not entirely sure, maybe my parents, maybe society, maybe I was just born/wired to be kind and helpful. Can't say with 100% certainty.

I'm concerned with the now/my life; not what may or may not happen to me after I'm dead.

Let me ask this to the OP: is there anything truly unforgivable? Under God, I mean, is there any act you could commit that if you seek forgiveness for...he'd tell you to f*ck off?

If the answer is "no" then do you not run into the same problem? Since you can be shitty all your life and then on your deathbed ask for forgiveness.

I was utilizing the thinking that there was no God in the very scenario I put out. So my scenario remains a reasonable reaction if that thinking were the truth. No God or afterlife, no supernatural, then there is no real moral code, and thus selfishness is the only thing for a person to have.

As for the conundrum with Heaven, if it were the most perfect place ever, then God would be there, problem solved. So being worthy of such a thing would still be a goal, it's just that being especially worthy also requires that they're doing it out of graciousness. Which is significantly better then out of fear.

If someone believes heaven is the most perfect place, why not kill yourself? I know suicide is a sin, but see my questions about forgiveness.

If I was told there was 100% proof there was no God and absolutely zero existence once you die? I still wouldn't go all kill happy, because...well, isn't that even more of a reason not to? Since this is the only life you get, it would make it even more of a travesty to take a life.

There is in fact a movie on netflix right now about this with Robert Redford, a scientist who proves there is an afterlife and there is a rash of suicides.

Originally posted by Surtur
Let me ask this to the OP: is there anything truly unforgivable? Under God, I mean, is there any act you could commit that if you seek forgiveness for...he'd tell you to f*ck off?

If the answer is "no" then do you not run into the same problem? Since you can be shitty all your life and then on your deathbed ask for forgiveness.

Do you come back to this notion that morality exists even though nothing supernatural does? That means morality is a matter of science, thus making it something we can change to fit our needs. And thus, common logic says, a psychopath who can hide it is the real one who succeeds.

Originally posted by Emperordmb
My reply to your initial query is that we all have an internal moral compass, which is something Christian theology teaches in that humans have an understanding of good and evil.

Anyways, here's my view on morality and the moral compass within each of us.

I think there are two primary motivational forces in man, one of which is love, and the other is a visceral fear that one's own existence is without meaning.

Love stems from an embracement of one's own existence through self-awareness, and self-awareness is the ultimate truth because its the one thing we can be 100% certain of. From there it follows that a person would conclude that if they exist and experience stuff then there is meaning either causing or at the very least within their lives, which leads them to love, which is the motivation behind all good.

The nihilistic fear that one's own existence has no meaning is the most irrational thought ever and directly contradicts the ultimate truth, which is why I would call the thought that one's existence is meaningless the ultimate lie. From the ultimate lie/fear, springs insecurity, self-doubt, and self-loathing, which from then motivates arrogance so people can try and escape this fear with an inflated image of themselves, and arrogance/pride is ultimately what motivates and allows people to justify all evil.

This is heavily reflected in Christian theology, as God introduces himself to Noah as "I am that I am" (a statement of self-awareness which is the ultimate truth), Jesus saying that his greatest commandment is to act out of love (which is the motivation behind all moral action), and Jesus saying to be humble and Christian theology teaching that pride is the father of all sin.

You don't have to believe in God to feel that internal conflict between both of those primary emotional drives within yourself and choose which one to act on. Nobody has a perfect understanding of morality, since none of us are omniscient or logically perfect, but what everyone can do is choose to act out of love and do what logically makes sense from there.

I've seen plenty of atheists be moral human beings an embrace morality through love and empathy, and I've also seen religious people driven to immorality by arrogant feelings of superiority based on the fact that they're believers. At the same time, I've also seen plenty of religious people who embrace love and moral behavior not because of fear of punishment and hope for a reward (particularly me since I believe everyone goes to heaven), and I've seen plenty of atheists take their lack of belief in a God to the point of moral nihilism.

Even if I were an atheist, I'd still believe in objective morality, because all motivation towards morality springs from a feeling driven by the ultimate truth while all motivation towards immorality springs from feelings driven by the ultimate lie, at least from the way I understand it.

Fascinating response. It kind of reminded me a little bit of deism and skepticism, about the self awareness part that is.

Let me speak for myself:

I'm an agnostic who was a "Westerner Muslim" for the majority of their youth. During this period I did consider myself to be fairly moral, and I did abstain from immoral actions mostly out of the fear of punishment.

At the age of 15 or 16 I began taking upper-level history classes and I became exposed to alt-right speakers like Stephen Molyneux who helped me understand the history of religion and just how good it is at deluding people and civilizations. Eventually I denounced all religion and turned to agnosticism .

While I did retain most of my morality at first simply because I was used to it, I'm 18 now and can safely say that I'm a borderline sociopath (Like Dooku for you SW users 😉 ). I say borderline because I still have a tinge of altruism left in me that just refuses to leave. I'd say I'm amoral overall.

After reading a few books on the subject, I'm still unsure as to whether humans are born as altruistic beings, hence I'm unsure as to what drives humans to be moral.

One theory could be that environmental factors at an early age (and in the womb) could have increased emotional intelligence over time.

We all know that women are more emotional than men due to estrogen, and that men suppress their feelings due to testosterone. I'd definitely say hormones have something to do with it.

So yeah, I'd say it's something to do with brain development which has something to do with environmental factors when developing ; stressful environments could lead to a suppression in the emotional development in the brain. Maybe it's genetic.

Anyway, to answer OP, Atheism by itself shouldn't make people immoral or amoral. It depends on the person's emotional intelligence.

To quote True Detective - "If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of shit"

and then came season 2 shit

Originally posted by BackFire
To quote True Detective - "If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of shit"

But really with out that, The Points of Good & Evil are just Opinion. And why should one person's opinion matter to another?

we should prevent that...but how? maybe we can invent rules that have nothing to do with a threat of punishment from some parental sky fairy. we can call them "laws"...or something like that.

Originally posted by Bashar Teg
:edit:.:

:gesundheit:

Originally posted by Bashar Teg
and then came season 2 shit

Never even finished it.

Hear there might be a season 3 coming.

Originally posted by Petrus
There have been multiple times where I have run across people who are atheists in the religion thread and in other sites who have essentially said "If someone has to fear eternal damnantion to do good things they aren't really good." or the other common one "Why should you have to get the promise of heaven to do good works."

Now, to memory, all these people didn't believe in an afterlife or a soul. Essentially completely in disbelief of the supernatural. So if I put myself in the shoes of someone with those belief's I come up with this scenario: If there is no God, no Hell, and no Heaven, or even any form of life after I die, what is the point of having any form of moral compass? I can do whatever I want as long as it benefits me more then it harms me throughout my life, since after I die I won't have to worry about anything.

There is also the fact that with these same belief that there is no afterlife, suicide is an extremely appealing option for people of high stress levels and depression. Heck I'd have probably done it as a child if I wasn't Catholic, either that or someone else would have died. The other possibility was that I'd do as I mentioned in the scenario which is simply do whatever I found convenient, if that meant manipulating people into doing what I want then that's what would happen. Fortunately it didn't, but it was a plausible scenario.

I simply do not understand where a moral compass is if an individual does not believe in an afterlife of one form or another. So for any in that situation please enlighten me to your reasoning. And even if you aren't in that same situation, if you think you figured out their reasoning, please tell me anyway. Could be useful for an extra view.

A religious doctrine that codifies, justifies, and threatens punishment for malfeasance is a useful tool for maintaining control and order in a disparate and large group. There are other uses for an established religion with canonical ideals and tenets of course; providing a lens for behaviour and shackles for disobedience is just one.

Any moral compass is explained away as a means to have a society/tribe fit to survive over time. Animals have such instincts, only men are so full of themselves to even consider individual survival and pleasure are actual absolute goals.

So we (religious or not) have morality because we are beasts.

Originally posted by Kurk
I'm 18 now and can safely say that I'm a borderline sociopath (Like Dooku for you SW users 😉 ). I say borderline because I still have a tinge of altruism left in me that just refuses to leave. I'd say I'm amoral overall.

He actually wants to become Dooku, so I'm not surprised.