{"id":27219,"date":"2021-02-20T13:22:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-20T17:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=27219"},"modified":"2021-02-20T23:41:04","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T03:41:04","slug":"atheist-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/atheist-morality\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheist Morality: Religious Doesn’t Equal Moral"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is atheist morality? Can morality exist without religion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atheist morality is the idea that we don’t need God or religion to explain or dictate our morality. In fact, morality without religion is a natural part of the human experience and is more genuine and effective without religious guidelines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about atheist morality and how morality can exist without religion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Atheist Morality: Without Religion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Clearly then, we don\u2019t need God to explain our morality. <\/strong>In fact, the American philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris has noted that many of the behaviors we would traditionally associate with immorality, such as violent crime, are more <\/em>prevalent in religious communities than secular ones. This helps explain why atheist morality makese more sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, of the 25 most dangerous cities in America (by violent crime), 76 percent are in \u201cred\u201d states, with large numbers of conservative Christian<\/a> residents. Similarly, we see far higher rates of abortion and teen pregnancy in the \u201cBible Belt\u201d region of the Southern United States than we do in the rest of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser\u2019s research shows that when atheists and religious people are presented with a series of hypothetical moral dilemmas, there is zero measurable difference between the moral intuition<\/a> of the two groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, there is something problematic about the claim, often advanced by religious people, that they behave in moral and upstanding ways only because God compels them to. This is not morality; it\u2019s just fear of punishment and ingratiation to a powerful higher being. By claiming religion as the sole basis for their moral behavior<\/a>, people of faith are in effect saying that they would <\/em>kill, rape, and steal if they didn\u2019t live in fear of God\u2019s punishment.<\/strong> In this way, atheist morality makes more sense and is truly moral. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Categorical Imperative<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

One final moral claim advanced by the religious community is that religion provides absolute moral standards. Religion, they argue, is the only force capable of telling human beings what is good and what is evil in all cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without the absolute and universal moral clarity of religion, they claim, each individual would be free to decide for themselves what is and is not moral. Anything <\/em>could be justified under such a flimsy moral framework. But is this really true? But does religion truly have a monopoly on absolute moral standards?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 18th-century German moral philosopher Immanuel Kant would have likely disagreed. He put forward a theory of atheist morality that could operate without God. Kant\u2019s categorical imperative argues that individual <\/em>moral principles should be judged on the basis of whether or not they would make sense as universal <\/em>principles. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, if you cheat on a test because it\u2019s inconvenient and burdensome for you to get good results by studying, would you then be in favor of a universal law that justifies cheating in all <\/em>situations where working hard is inconvenient? Is a world in which people did this as a matter of routine a world in which you\u2019d like to live? If your answer is no, then you must judge your own conduct as immoral under the categorical imperative<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kant\u2019s categorical imperative provides a moral standard that exists entirely outside of religion\u2014it does not require the existence of God, nor the acceptance of a holy text. It demonstrates that morality can exist wholly without reference to religion, and that atheist morality exists for morality’s sake, not for God. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is atheist morality? Can morality exist without religion? Atheist morality is the idea that we don’t need God or religion to explain or dictate our morality. In fact, morality without religion is a natural part of the human experience and is more genuine and effective without religious guidelines. 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