In the world of an Atheist who defines right and wrong?

[Jake_]

Where does your moral code come from?

The way I see it, either you don't know or you can't have one? And i don't see how such a thing could have evolved......

Anyhow, please tell me where, personally, your moral code comes from.

[Thatguy]

Where does your moral code come from?

The way I see it, either you don't know or you can't have one? And i don't see how such a thing could have evolved......

Anyhow, please tell me where, personally, your moral code comes from.

My moral code appears to be subjective, not objective or universally true. That it is subjective does not stop me from having it.
My moral opinions come from the same place as everyone else's. I draw from my culture, what I was taught as a child, what I have accepted or rejected from others I have spoken with or whose works I've read. Most of it comes from the empathy that I've picked up either entirely from the teaching I've received or from something instinctual.

Many of my most cherished moral opinions are shared not only by other people, but are practiced by other primates and other types of animals, leading me to believe that evolution may have played an important role. I can think of what, to me, are good reasons why animals such as people who share my moral code have a survival advantage. But, at the same time, I can think of reasons why some moral values contrary to my own might also give a survival advantage. That would explain how both my moral views and the moral views of those I disagree with have both survived and how we can find analogous behavior in other animals.

Where, if I may ask in turn, does your God get his moral values from?

[McCulloch]

And i don't see how such a thing [a moral code ] could have evolved......

Then you need to do a bit of reading. There are more than a few researchers investigating this very phenomenon. Your own personal incredibility on this matter does not mean that moral codes have not evolved.

Anyhow, please tell me where, personally, your moral code comes from.

My own perception of morality comes from the same place that my own perception of grammar or logic comes from: the society that I live and have lived in.

However, I believe that there are objective moral truths, just as there are objective mathematical and scientific truths.

[Goat]

Where does your moral code come from?

The way I see it, either you don't know or you can't have one? And i don't see how such a thing could have evolved......

Anyhow, please tell me where, personally, your moral code comes from.

My morality is a socially conditioned response, which in turn is based on empathy and reciprocal altruism

[Bust Nak]

Where does your moral code come from?

My moral code comes from me, via a combination of instincts and upbringing. In other words I define right and wrong.

The way I see it, either you don't know or you can't have one?

Do you need to be able to explain why you like the taste of something before you can say something is tasty?

And i don't see how such a thing could have evolved......

It evolved the same way other traits evolved. Successful variation that's made it past the selection process.

You do see how a team working together might be more successful than individuals working seperately, right?

[ttruscott]

Ahhh, the great existential dilemma - I am my own god and I know that I am not godly....

the Christian God is assumed by them to be the source of all goodness.

The existential response:
I find goodness coming from myself.
I am therefore god (or as good as) and choosing for the whole world.

Why did satan fall again?

Peace, Ted

[Goat]

Ahhh, the great existential dilemma - I am my own god and I know that I am not godly....

the Christian God is assumed by them to be the source of all goodness.

The existential response:
I find goodness coming from myself.
I am therefore god (or as good as) and choosing for the whole world.

Why did satan fall again?

Peace, Ted

The road to hell is paved with Good intentions.


Why should I accept your choosing for me? I find my own goodness for me better than your claims for goodness for me.

[Bust Nak]

Ahhh, the great existential dilemma - I am my own god and I know that I am not godly....

the Christian God is assumed by them to be the source of all goodness.

Well if you define god merely as an arbitrator of goodness then the existential response would be: I am my own god and I know that I am godly.

Why did satan fall again?

He crossed the wrong guy?

[Overcomer]

McCulloch wrote:

"However, I believe that there are objective moral truths, just as there are objective mathematical and scientific truths."

What are they? Where did they come from? Who established them? How were they arrived at?

[Overcomer]

Thatguy wrote:

My moral code appears to be subjective, not objective or universally true. That it is subjective does not stop me from having it.

When you encounter other people with a different moral code, how do you determine which one is better? Or are they all equal? Who decides?