That question is about as valid as "if space aliens don't exist, then why do some people write with their left hand?" The question fallaciously assumes there's a prima facie problem with the concept of atheist morality. There isn't, as will be explained, infra. But if you are already a "fundamentalist" Christian, the I guess you are already predisposed to take whatever you find in life to be "good" and insist that it surely cannot be explained any other way than "god".If atheism is true, in other words, if God does not exist, then what reason is there to be a moral person?
The question also assumes we cannot be reasonable to act in accord with our own moral principles in daily life unless we have a specific motive or "reason" in mind for doing so at the time of the moral act. That's also false; most people do not conform to their own moral code merely because they can tell how it implies or doesn't imply "god". Human beings, as mammals, more often simply "react" automatically to the world based on their genetic predispositions coupled with some degree of environmental conditioning. If a Christian wipes their ass due to a presupposition that such act is more cleanly, do you suppose they do so in deliberate conscious intent to glorify Jesus?
I can imagine the desperate apologists saying "yes", in their determined effort to look more spiritually mature than other Christians, as if they'd never dare so much as blink their eyes without asking permission from Jesus first, horrified at the thought that any little action done in presumption might offend infinite holiness.
Well fuck them, I'm talking about how you really are in daily life, I'm not talking about how clever defense attorneys can word your campaign speech so that you look better than you really are. You do not go around consciously crediting Jesus with all your acts in daily life somebody could label "morally good". Do you thank Jesus every time your child craps their diaper without expelling their guts? I'm guessing "no".
That's easy for atheists to answer in a way that makes supernatural explanations completely unnecessary:Why do what’s morally right?
a) because the atheist was raised to believe the moral act they are engaging in is the "right" one;
b) because they don't want to go to jail
c) because they want to impress other people like friends, followers or family
d) because they notice that the"moral" response from them will bring greater security and peace to their lives than the "immoral" response, and they naturally prefer stability and comfort above turmoil.
If you meant that there is no ultimate purpose to life, then you are correct. Yes, it doesn't "ultimately" mater. Your problem is that lack of "ultimate" purpose doesn't mean the atheist's sense of purpose is illogical, irrational or misguided. There is such a thing as "temporal" purpose, and this is quite sufficient to provide rational warrant to the person engaging in the act. What fool would say my temporal purpose in telling my friend about traffic backup on the freeway is irrational because I didn't intend to achieve some eternal goal therein?If God doesn’t exist, then if you live your life good or bad, it doesn’t matter.
Lower mammals like cats and dogs obviously aren't motivated to do what they do out of a sense of trying to please "god". Do you really think the only reason Rover wished to scare away the bear in your front yard is because he intended to lay up for himself treasures in heaven, with moth and rust doth not corrupt?
The lower mammals simply respond to their environment in a way that they think will prioritize comfort and security. There is nothing irrational about the higher order mammal called "human" being motivated by the exact same animal instinct. The moral motive that says "I wish to save that drowning child from further misery and death" is not rendered illogical, irrational or unreasonable merely because the motive doesn't link back to "god". The temporal purpose is quite sufficient to make such an atheist reasonable.
Furthermore, since "god" is an incoherent concept anyway (i.e., the objection that all traditional religious language is meaningless) means the atheist who has her own reason to choose the moral reaction she engages in, at least doesn't have a problem of "incoherence", and that makes her moral motivation to be somewhat more reasonable than yours.
Furthermore, the bible supports the temporal-purpose model of justifying morality. The bible approves of teaching children morality by physically abusing them (Proverbs 22:15), and that this refers to something more traumatic than "tapping them on the butt with a small stick" is justly inferred from ancient Israel's belief that children were routinely "deserving" of brutal fates where infliction of such horror would achieve Israel's larger goals...like burning tweens to death for sex before marriage (Lev. 21:9), burning them to death because their dad stole something (Joshua 7:15), or generally regarding the death of baby boys as promoting a greater good than trying to parent them (Numbers 31:15) or causing them to suffer death for things their great-great-great grandfathers did some 450 years previous (1st Samuel 15:2-3)...to say nothing of the fact that their own god, despite being omnipotent (i.e., he could achieve his larger goals in perhaps millions of different ways, he is not "required" to limit himself to particular acts), nevertheless apparently thought that torturing a baby for 7 days before killing it was "better" than just killing it immediately (2nd Samuel 12:15-18, the child didn't die from this traumatic painful divinely inflicted sickness until "seven days later", and its obvious that the baby was not personally guilty of the sin that caused the sadistic god to react this way).
The point of the above was that if your god approves of physically abusing children in order to set them on the correct moral path, then your god also approves of the adult who grows up from that conditioning and therefore simply "reacts" in the way he was conditioned to. That is, your god doesn't think people are necessarily irrational for lacking a conscious justification at the time that they morally react to a situation. So if atheists just engage in moral acts without having a conscious justification for doing so in their heads at the time of the act, that doesn't render them "irrational".
Everyone ends up in the same place. Being a terrible person doesn’t have the same kind of negative consequences as on Christianity.
It doesn't have to. Unless you think the justice system god put in place in America (Romans 13) is unreasonable, then apparently god thinks it is rational and reasonable for those who don't believe in him, to be motivated to moral conduct solely by fear of jail. Indeed, jail is a "deterrent". If you think the only rational moral motive is the kind that acknowledges "god", then you necessarily think it irrational when the atheist's moral reaction arises from their fear of jail. Which would mean you disapprove of the moral system that God in Romans 13 takes responsibility for instituting. And you are saying the justice system's view that jail should be a deterrent, is unreasonable.
Why would god want fear of jail to be a sufficient motive for atheists to act morally, if it's also true that mere fear of jail isn't a sufficient reasonable justification for the moral act? If God could use fear of jail to scare people into morality, he could have made his own greater day of judgment equally scary to them. But no, that concept is hidden behind a tangled mess of theological disagreements created by fundamentalist inerrantists who individually regard their respective and contradictory interpretations as "clear". Apparently, there is no god behind this judgement day crap, it's just the way ancient leaders scared the gullible illiterate masses into conformity.
I’ve even heard Christians say that if they found out Christianity was false, then they’d consider doing really immoral things. It’s not like they’d go to Hell after they died, so why not sin all the time? Or at the very least sin as much as possible.
I would accuse Frank Turek of this type of immaturity. He is always berating the atheist worldview as leaving the atheist no reasonable justification for acting morally. He thus unwittingly admits that if he himself were an atheist, he wouldn't be the type that just has a natural inborn humanistic compassion for their fellow woman, he would be more like the drunk teenager-type who thinks the lack of ultimate authority in the cosmos implies nothing more than life being little more than a ceaseless party, taking stupid dares, and a few too many beer-pongs. I really have to wonder about the level of actual maturity in grown men whose basis for morality is nothing more than a belief in an incoherent concept. The adult whose humane compassion arises from completely naturalistic origins has greater innate maturity than the 40 year old adolescent who is ripe and ready to start acting like a toddler the very second they find out there might not ever be any "ultimate" accountability.
Probably because most apologists recognize how weak it is to argue that "we all know child rape is wrong, and the best explanation for this is an incoherent form of life beaming his instructions down into our hearts from the sky".Unfortunately, this isn’t a topic that receives a whole lot of attention in the apologetics world.
How many times do parents intend for their children to use the fear of negative consequences as a sufficient motive to be morally good? Are such parents all irrational because they don't give the child a lecture about the invisible Jesus every time the child disobeys? Obviously not.Christians just kind of assume that this is a legitimate way to reason. And it's a stance that I took not too long ago.That’s why I’ve invited an expert on moral motivation and Theism to the podcast, namely, Dr. Anne Jeffrey, to help us think through this question philosophically. Are negative consequences a good reason to act morally?
No, your god takes credit for instituting America's justice system (Romans 13), so apparently god agrees with us atheists, namely, that it is reasonable if a person's sole motive for acting morally is limited to "fear of jail" or some other equally non-ultimate basis. God would hardly make jail the deterrent to crime that it is, if he thought our being deterred solely by fear of jail was an irrational unreasonable thing. he could have also made his own will equally as known to criminals as he made known to them the fate they will endure if they commit crimes. So God has only himself to blame if criminals refuse to credit their good behavior to mere fear of jail. If God can make the fear of jail an empirically undeniable threat, why didn't he make fear of his own Judgement Day an equally empirically undeniable threat?Shouldn’t we do what’s right simply because it’s right, not because of the good or bad consequences we might receive?
Gee, is the proof of god's judgment day equally as compelling as the proof that jail awaits the criminal in modern America? FUCK YOU.
I guess everybody has their own ideas about complexity. IMO, the difficulty level of your arguments, including those heard in the podcast, supra, was "LOL".This may shock you, but the difficulty level for this podcast is advanced. That’s how deep we look at this question.
Thanks for testifying that the knowledge in the Christians you aim your apologetics stuff toward, is at the level of "God loves everybody, see John 3:16".So settle in and get ready to look at this issue at a depth you probably didn’t know existed.
What's next boss? Proving evolution false by pinning little cloth animals to a giant picture of Noah's Ark?
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