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Everyone's heard the old "atheists don't have morals" argument. I've had it presented to me on a number of occasions, and have seen other atheists respond to it.
I'm afraid that a lot of the times the counter-arguments were not completely adequate. A lot of the times the response goes something along the lines of "I do good because it makes me feel good". Unfortunately, that still leaves the theist with the "god put morals in your heart" argument.

To explain why doing good makes us feel good, and why we deem something as "good" we need to contemplate our evolutionary history (yeah I know, some people don't believe evolution happens, but you can't really argue with those razz ).

Humans are a social animal, which means that we need to work together to survive. When it comes to social animals, the main evolutionary advantage is working well together. That means: no killing of the members of your own tribe, no causing of disagreements (e.g. stealing) and usually some kind of obedience to authority.
Another trait that helps a group function better is empathy - empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another and feeling as they feel. It is also an important source of our moral sense. This is why psychopaths don't have a problem killing or harming another person.
Now remember, these rules only apply within your "tribe", and that is why we see people killing other people so much - as horrible as it sounds, people have less of a problem killing a person they don't consider to be a part of their "tribe". Fortunately, as society develops, the "tribe" expands to a larger part of humanity, and ideally, to the whole of humanity.
We can see examples of what people consider their "tribe" in criminal organizations - people that are a part of a gang won't have much trouble killing a member of a rival gang. On the other part of the spectrum, we have animal rights activists - they expand the "tribe" to animals, usually mammals. I would guess what contributes to that is a stronger sense of empathy, while in the case of criminal organizations, some sort of suppression of empathy would have to play a role.
When it comes to the more complex morals, like "homosexuality is wrong", it usually comes down to obedience to authority - for example, a priest.

I have explained my position in debates with theists before, and haven't heard much of a counter-argument. Those same people didn't stop citing morality as evidence for a god. I guess it's an important part of their arsenal smile


Any thought, ideas and criticism are more than welcome.

I've always made a similar argument for why everyone has the set of morals they do. Even criminals. It's all about survival and how each individuals brain has been wired for their own survival.

Isn't the typical atheist stereotype in America that we're all liberal wack-jobs? I go to a mostly atheist church, (Unitarian Universalist, for those curious) and most people there are anti-war, health care supporting, and vegan/vegitarian. Morals abound here, folks.


Now, I personally am another matter, though it may or may not be an unusual matter, I rarely meet anyone with beliefs like mine... I'm very conservative for an atheist, do not support any of the ideas I mentioned above (I'm kind of the odd-one-out in my church and I'm really only there for a sense of community) and the question of whether any existing moral can have absolutly no exceptions HAS kept me awake at night in the past.


That being said, I would like to affirm that I do not think I am the norm for atheists, and I think the people from my UU church are even more connected to morals than the people in the Lutheran church I grew up in (although the latter was lovely and I don't regret being raised there, it's just that UU's seem more vocal about it).

If I feel good after treating others good or not doing them any harm, it seems like a win win situation to me. The thoughts and the ideas that I have received in the information that I have learned from my teachers and the bible, have never left me with a heavy feeling; you know that weight that don't belong to you and is not necessary to carry. Morality without God, what is the purpose and what is our purpose.?

Morality. So can you explain to me were the concept of wrong or right behavior originated from?; surely you know the source. I have not been limited to a tribe as far as having associates, love ones and relatives, they come from all walks of life and locations, but we all have similair values.

Morality originates from the frontal lobe of the brain. It's a rather simple survival construct.

And what we have learned is time-tested and verifiable. We've pinpointed the morality center of the brain and it shows the remarkable similarity between moral concepts cross-culturally.




What is a soul? To try and say that there's something beyond mind and body is fully presumptuous and destructive might I add. And to say also even more presumptuously that a human soul is ONLY flawed is even more presumptuous. There cannot be a flaw in an abstract concept unless your mind makes it so, and there can be flaws in the human mind because the connection between the brain and the mind. The brain can be damaged or not function correctly and viola there's a problem in thinking.



A hasty generalization. Men are self-interested, yet remarkably altruistic creatures. It's because we ultimately have a drive for self-preservation that we are the fastest adapting creature on our planet.

I disagree, but only with the part where you pin it on a single part of the brain. The very construct of a brain, human and non, is the source of morality. Humans have the most complex moral systems simply because we have the most complex brains. It's also shocking how little a person needs to know about brain structure to realize this.



Yes and no; there is a truth here. Whether our brains are wired for an egocentric set of morals or a social set of morals depends entirely on whether the environment we are raised in is more "nature" or "nurture" as they say. So it is learned, technically, but on a subconscious level that affects brain structure (hard-wiring, as Artto said.) It would be a great fail on your part to not acknowledge an egocentric set of morals as morals, which is something I have seen far too often especially in Christian-dominated societies and seems to be what you are leaning toward.