Do Absolute Morals Exist Without God?

[mymistake]

Who's to say we've grown wiser? Who's to say that "equality" and "justice" are good things? Who defines what is good? And good for whom?

 

We decide. Good for us.

 

Why is looking out for the good of another something that should be done, if we're just chemicals striving to survive and pass on our genes to the next generation.

 

I haven't quite worked it all out but I'm starting to see that revenge is insanity and happiness comes from letting go of past. Perhaps the answer you are looking for is that humans are social creatures. We survive as a group.

[midniterider]

Do absolute/objective morals exist without God?

 

I think morals are a consensus thing. The people come to an agreement about what is good and what is bad behavior. A moral such as 'not killing' may appear to be an absolute moral because people generally don't want to be killed. But it isn't an absolute moral because society has made certain exceptions such as killing is ok in war or death penalty for certain murderers. So I don't believe morals are an absolute in any case. Much like biblegod changes his mind here and there about killing people, society also flip flops and/or finds exceptions to 'the law.' Exceptions to the law necessarily deny the concept of 'absolute morality', imho.

 

 

Is morality always subjective and relative to each culture and individual?

 

I think all cultures share a certain number of core values that are probably built into the human race, such as the instinct to survive. Though other values may be relative to how and where and when someone lives. So no, morality is not always subjective nor relative

 

If I determine that something isn't wrong to me (case of a psychopath perhaps), then am I truly in the right, or am I merely made guilty by the consensus of the whole?

 

In particular cases you can be truly in the right yet you are guilty by society's standard. Is it immoral to smoke marijuana in the privacy of your own home if it affects nobody adversely? No. Yet it is still illegal. Is it immoral to run a red light at 3 o'clock in the morning when you are the only driver on the street? No. But you have still broken the law. If a voice in your head convinces you it is ok to pull up onto the sidewalk and run over 100 people, then no you are truly wrong when you do it. Right and wrong are value statements only in relation to other people.

 

And when the whole is racist, homophobic, sexist, genocidal, or otherwise immoral, do these values only exist in the eye of the modern beholder projecting his or her society's values upon them?

 

As society evolves we become aware of bad behavior that we didn't previously know was bad and we try to make changes to improve life for all. So yes, society in general may be ignorant of a certain value until someone stands up and makes a big deal out of it.

 

Did Martin Luther King's values and actions only become right when the majority agreed with him?

 

No, people of any race should be treated with respect and dignity. Hey, maybe THAT is an absolute moral. :-)

 

Has any atheist thinker/author/speaker dealt with this topic in any depth?

 

Dunno. Probably. But remember there are no absolute answers in life. That's what makes it fun. Some things are immoral but legal, moral but illegal, illegal as well as immoral. The problem with absolute morality is it doesnt work more than 5 minutes. Once laws are enacted to 'make things fair', people exploit those laws to gain unfair advantages or society swings 180 degrees the opposite direction to be politically correct.

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

[thetourist]

I think people in Western societies have a shitty idea of what "morals" really are. We have this idea in our heads (which is TOTALLY Judeo/Christian in origin) that certain things are "sins" and we simply shouldn't do them to be "moral". Being devious motherfuckers, people have found ways to not explicitly sin, but still do "bad things". For example, when I was in high school, I was very concerned with finding out just how much sexual stuff I could do with my girlfriend without actually breaking a commandment. In terms of things that are actually immoral and not totally awesome (ie. not me getting laid), people claiming to be moral have spun "rules" around to justify some pretty awful stuff, like the Crusades, and John Calvin burning tons of people at the stake because they didn't believe in his bullshit.

 

Basically, rules are stupid, morals should be ideas and principles. Confucius got this right; he focused on having good judgement about how to conduct yourself based on PRINCIPLES instead of listing a bunch of rules that say "do this, don't do that". If you base morality on something like this instead of a fuckton of rules, you can measure your actions against the spirit of your ideas which will provide you with a better moral compass or whatnot.

 

Even though I don't really think anything is absolutely right or absolutely wrong, I do think it's interesting that many lines of thinking lead to some sort of "Golden rule", that you're supposed to empathize with others and treat them as you'd want them to treat you. Confucius came up with it like 600 or so years before it was attributed to Jesus, and people like Kant who tried to start from scratch and write a philosophy of morals came up with the same kind of thing.