Reconciling morality with atheism

[AChimp]

Morality is just a set of behaviours that have been deemed acceptable and desirable by social norms that have evolved over time. What is moral for one group of people may not be moral for another; the only reason for this is differences in how various cultures have developed.

Part of the influence on this is religion, but "what's good for society to keep running" is also a major player in defining morality (even then, religion is just a tool for enforcing a prescribed set of social rules). It's not beneficial for a society to let people run around killing each other, hence why everyone thinks that killing people is wrong and the people who don't agree are labelled psychopaths. Wrap killing another person in the blanket of "self-defence" and suddenly it becomes acceptable, if not necessarily desirable.

Step back a few thousand years to gladiatorial fights, and suddenly killing people under a much wider set of circumstances is completely acceptable. I'm sure that there were a lot of Romans who thought that gladiators fighting each other to the death was "wrong," but they were the small minority and obviously didn't have much influence for a long time.

One hundred years ago it was considered immoral for women to wear pants, but I see a lot of women wearing pants nowadays. Are our morals sliding backwards into debauchery or are they just evolving with time as popular opinion changes?

Where does a universal concept of right and wrong fit in with stuff like that? It doesn't because if you're an atheist you think the universe is just a giant machine running on a defined set of physical rules. You cannot rationally define the concept of "good" and "evil" because everyone would have a different opinion on what constitutes each based on any number of social factors.

The way I see it, the morals we have now won't be the same as the morals we'll have in 1000 years. You'll see similarities, but there will probably be some pretty big differences.

[Preechr]

All cultures have considered murder bad behavior, though many cultures have disagreed on what constitutes murder. Aboriginal tribes, much like your Romans or Old Dixie slave-owners, had a narrow view of what they considered real people, and most of these early societal types considered the murder of whatever they viewed as a real person less than moral. Roman Senators did not approve of the killing of another Senator with no just cause no more than did a slave-owner approve of the murder of another slave-owner. Slaves were considered to be property as were gladiators, not real people, like members of another tribe were considered to be more physical threats than fellow humans.

The examples you are giving highlight, as I said above, the evolution of our understanding of morality, not of morality itself. In 1,000 years, lying, cheating, stealing, rape and murder will still be immoral.

[Preechr]

I'm not getting the impression anybody is actually hitching their wagon to my moral star here...

Here's an example in the form of theft: We consider stealing morally incorrect, right? Not that I've stolen stuff, but I have gotten things for free before... In my opinion, unearned property has less value to me than that which I have worked hard for and thus earned. Property that I don't really value that much is more expendable than that for which I have sweated and/or bled.

Hyperbolic or not, I have been stolen from. On these occasions, I have noticed the property for which I had worked was quickly ruined upon it's theft. I think this indicates the lack of value placed on stolen goods by a thief as relative to the value placed on earned property by the person that actually earned it... ie: me.

Now, I could fill this example out a bit more, but that might get in the way of my larger goal here: Being called names. Gibbery Glibbity Goo, please SOMEBODY call me naive and/or retarded then add nothing at all to the discussion and run off to post recipes in Blabber.

[ScruU2wice]

Originally Posted by AChimp

Morality is just a set of behaviours that have been deemed acceptable and desirable by social norms that have evolved over time. What is moral for one group of people may not be moral for another; the only reason for this is differences in how various cultures have developed.

Part of the influence on this is religion, but "what's good for society to keep running" is also a major player in defining morality (even then, religion is just a tool for enforcing a prescribed set of social rules). It's not beneficial for a society to let people run around killing each other, hence why everyone thinks that killing people is wrong and the people who don't agree are labelled psychopaths. Wrap killing another person in the blanket of "self-defence" and suddenly it becomes acceptable, if not necessarily desirable.

I think I'm with achimp on this one. We all live in a society where we interact with people who interact with people who interact with people. What their morals are to a degree affect what your morals are, Religion is just another leaf in that tree. Religion is a set of moral guidelines which were the foundation of society at one point, and has been shaved down until now it's just a band in the rainbow.

For all the people saying religion has not affect their morality, it doesn't directly. But you guys haven't lived in an atheist society that has isolated itself from cultures with religion in them.

But at the same time it didn't start with religion, it was just solidified by it. I'm sure it was frowned upon to covet thy neighbors wife before the ten commandments, I know that there are things in religion that were responses to what was already happening in society.

I do believe though that some of the morals that have with stood time such as rape, murder, theft; have a little bit more lasting power than a 1000 years