Morals Cannot Exist Without Religion?

Many of you have heard the study that found that Atheists were the group that Americans thought least shared their views for America of any other group.

Clearly in parts of America there is strong dislike towards Atheists. One reason I have commonly heard cited for this is that people believe that morals cannot exist without religion to back it up.

I believe this claim is blatently heinous. One terriffic set of examples to disprove this claim by theists that atheists are immoral are the works of Peter Singer. If you are unfamiliar with his work, he has published numerous books including: Practical Ethics in which he "analyzes in detail why and how beings' interests should be weighed. His principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment." (source) He is most famous for publishing Animal Liberation, which I have personally read, in which Singer goes beyond traditional Western morals to account for the prinicpal that we should take into account the suffering of all creatures that can suffer in our actions and not just those of humans. Singer is also a well-respected and influential atheist.

For anyone who has heard the claims by theists that morality is impossible without religion or who believes them themselves, how can you continue to defend this claim? Will you in the future, when you hear these claims, cite to others that they are false?

Gee, I wonder why fucking atheist countries are turning Christian.

Well, because Atheism has been deemed as the constituent for a decent Marxist/commie nation.
That's why some places were made atheist.
Fact be, Christian ideas make a better communist land.

The people noticed this and were all like, "Damn, I don't want to be an atheist because the government tells me to be."
I mean, really, if people decided to be what religion they were told to be, an ex-leader of China would still be considered God to them. Mind you, this shit was during the 20th century.

China to this day tries to decide how its people will handle religious issues.
However, people don't want to be atheists.

I often think the world's population of atheists are atheist without choice or have been social engineered to become.
But yet, oddly enough, with a belief in free will, they choose a religion that believes in free will.

They could have chosen Daoism, but perhaps they though, "Too much fatalism."

Atheism is stupid, anyway. It's illogical. If I were god, I wouldn't even bother with the atheists. I'd be too busy. Maybe if I was feeling cynical, I'd kill a few.

And I'm annoyed by the fucking foolish totseans that keep relating God to Christian ideals.
God is a monotheistic being, people.

Morals might be able to exist without religion, but not without philosophy.

[KikoSanchez]

The two largest and most influential schools of moral thought have nothing to do with god and so could be adopted by any atheist: deontology and utilitarianism. Christian moral philosophy falls under Divine Command Theory which is well known to be completely rebutted and flawed to no end. It also has some things in common with virtue theory, which is better founded. Nonetheless, morals take very little, not even necessarily rational thought, to take hold. At minimum, all it takes is a simple pattern of recognition and understanding that others suffer as you do.
Worst of all is that Christian/Muslim morality is acted on for the wrong reasons and they pick and choose what to follow throughout their respective bible, thus ignoring some things which they know would be deemed immoral. Quite a sham they have conceived.

[gmail]

Morality is simply a consequence of social groups. Ex: In the US we bury/cremate our dead. In other cultures cremating is considered an insult to the dead person and their family. In some other places they eat their dead. Eating people is illegal here, because we consider it immoral.

Ya dig?

[KikoSanchez]

Originally Posted by gmail

Morality is simply a consequence of social groups. Ex: In the US we bury/cremate our dead. In other cultures cremating is considered an insult to the dead person and their family. In some other places they eat their dead. Eating people is illegal here, because we consider it immoral.

Ya dig?

So then, we would have no basis to tell people in foreign societies that, for instance: slavery is immoral or burning mentally/physically challenged babies alive is immoral. We'd just have to say, well that is what is right for them.

This is the fucked upness of cultural relativism, ya dig?

/fixed/

[KikoSanchez]

Originally Posted by Charles Manson

Gee, I wonder why fucking atheist countries are turning Christian.

Source? If anything, Europe keeps growing more and more secular as does the US. But I think it is fairly natural if formerly (and traditionally) Christian states under the USSR may have rebirths of religious growth.

Originally Posted by Charles Manson

I often think the world's population of atheists are atheist without choice or have been social engineered to become.

If you mean many atheists are born into secular households, well sure. But almost all religious people are religious b/c of the same thing. Yet if you look at many atheist/agnostics atleast here in the states, many of them became as such by way of a conscious decision based on thinking for themselves. Finally, some people here are getting out of the dark ages and breaking out of their zeitgeist.

Originally Posted by Charles Manson

And I'm annoyed by the fucking foolish totseans that keep relating God to Christian ideals.
God is a monotheistic being, people.

Pics or I don't believe.

Originally Posted by Charles Manson

Morals might be able to exist without religion, but not without philosophy

A moral system MAY be based on philosophy, but morals NEED no such thing. As is why many people hold internally inconsistent moral beliefs (many times not conscious of what they are, ie no philosophy present) and simply state their 'reasoning' as "I follow the bible"../default.htm"I just do what is right". If being cognizant of a moral philosophy was necessary to act moral or immoral, I would propose that children could not conceive of acting moral or immoral, as their reasons or lack thereof for their actions are rarely ever on a conscious level/never verbally reasoned out or stated. Still, they can understand empathy and see that when a fellow child is hit, it hurts them. They internalize this feeling to their own experiences and can understand (though many may not) that it is good if they didn't hit others. Again, they don't verbalize this, it is simply understood on a subconscious level.

What about the other way around.
Can Religion exist without morals?
If no then do we realy have free will?
If yes then do we realy need morals?

[ArmsMerchant]

Originally Posted by gmail

Morality is simply a consequence of social groups. Ex: In the US we bury/cremate our dead. In other cultures cremating is considered an insult to the dead person and their family. In some other places they eat their dead. Eating people is illegal here, because we consider it immoral.

Ya dig?

True, in some societies, the dead are eaten ritually, as a matter of respect.

And there is no good reason not to do so. Once the body physically dies, the soul--the eternal part of us, the esential self--has no further use for it. No sense letting it go to waste.

The insane regard for garbage--which is all a corpse is, really--is merely a superstition.

[BrokeProphet]

Originally Posted by Charles Manson

Atheism is stupid, anyway. It's illogical. If I were god, I wouldn't even bother with the atheists. I'd be too busy. Maybe if I was feeling cynical, I'd kill a few.

Morals might be able to exist without religion, but not without philosophy.

Atheism is the ONLY logical choice. Tell me ANY logic found in a God or a belief in one. ANY logic AT ALL.

Morals exist without philosophy OR religion. Humans are social creatures. Wolves are social creatures. Wolves do not MURDER members of their own pack. They may fight and injure but it is not the intent to kill each other. Is it b/c they read the works of Plato or the Bible? NO. It is b/c they have an evolved social mindset. Morals are simply rules of a society. Morals exist ONLY in a social structure. Morals exist for ALL social animals.

Morality is simply an extension of the natural human survival instinct, you're not going to get far in life if you're constantly team killing the people around you; that's the basic premise of it.

Originally Posted by Surak

Morality is simply an extension of the natural human survival instinct, you're not going to get far in life if you're constantly team killing the people around you; that's the basic premise of it.

You win b/c you said, "Teamkill"

[i poop in your cereal]

Religion =/= Morals.


You're simply doing what you're told because you're afraid.
This has nothing to do with morals.

If anything, it's blackmailing.

[ChickenOfDoom]

As I see it morals are not by any means the primary force that keeps people from doing things detrimental to others. It's the fact that the traditionally accepted moral way of doing things is made to be the easiest path to take, and most of us aren't dying of starvation.

There really isn't much difference between a secular values system and a religion. What's really needed is a better word to describe these systems.. something along the lines of ideology. When it comes down to it, both assume they are privy to some sort of inherent truth in the world. This only really becomes a problem when adherents insist their values are universal and impose them upon others. Personally I don't think such awareness exists among humans outside of objective observations of the forces of nature. These systems do serve a function of organizing societies and attempting to overcome the risks associated with life though. They also provide a symbolic sequence of events which defines the life of the individual while also tying him into the whole.

As for morals, what is so great about them in the first place? Nature is amoral, maybe we should act more natural.

[Deoz]

Originally Posted by Surak

Morality is simply an extension of the natural human survival instinct, you're not going to get far in life if you're constantly team killing the people around you; that's the basic premise of it.

Summed up quite nicely here. I kind of view morality as a set of principles that humans have developed to helps us get along.