Ok, since this is may come up again, I have a simple primer for atheists that is intended to be the brief explanation of why "atheist morality" is a joke in the eyes of Christians. From your perspective, there is no God, gods or any other divine or hellish spiritual power capable of enforcing good and evil independent of humanity. With me so far? That means that humanity is left to enforce its morals, and ultimately morals have to be defined by someone so if not by the gods or God, then they are defined purely by people. So what's wrong with this? Well, it's very simple. With no threat of divine retribution, just what precisely is supposed to deter a very nasty individual who has good reason to believe that they won't get in trouble for acting maliciously toward a weaker person?
None. No God, gods, etc., nothing but mere man standing between the strong and the weak. So from the atheist libertarian perspective, let's look at it like this. A weak man says to a strong one who wants to steal from him, "you have no right to do this, you have no natural right to tell me what to do." The strong, evil man responds with a loaded gun and says, "I see no one capable of stopping me or punishing me." So what is the weak person supposed to do? Appeal to an inner sense of goodness that carries absolutely no value to the evil strong person? Oh yeah, be so very good when there is nothing but a warm fuzzy feeling that you can get out of it.
Your foundation for morality offers nothing to deter these people. None, not even a moment's consideration. The only thing they are worried about are the cops and the opinions of others. Maybe. There is no reason to fear punishment by a divine authority, thus if they get away with it, who cares, right? Of course in a society with a strong religious backing for its morality, that person might get to thinking that raping and pillaging might come back to haunt him or her when God is tapping his feet saying, "I hope you enjoy the temperature, I raised it a notch on the thermostat just for you."
The moral vacuum that you have from the lack of God means that no, I have no right to steal from you, but it also means that there is nothing that says I cannot steal from you. It's called a vacuum because there's nothing there. I like to call it the abyss, because to paraphrase Nietzsche, when you are exposed to it too long, it gets inside of you. You start to think, "why should I do what I want?" Do what thou wilt, quite rapidly becomes the whole of the law. It's a double edged sword, people, it cuts both ways both in defense of the little guy's rights and it can just as easily spill their guts all across the public square. It is in this absence that the only way a moral view will stand up is if it is imposed by someone over another.
First off, as an atheist, my beliefs aren't dependent on what works better or would be nicer, but simply what I believe to be the case. If there is no God, there is no God, and we go from there, unless you want to advocate some sort of Socratic "noble lie" to keep the masses in check.
On to morality, my morality, what is good and what is bad, is based on a standard. That standard is man's life. That which is ultimatly beneficial to my life, taking into account all aspects of life and time, is good, that which is ultimatly negative is bad. Think of it as a cost benefit analysis. We all place values on everything in life. When faced with decisions we weigh the pros and cons, we choose that which is ultimatly a positive gain, and reject those actions which are an ultimate loss. The difficualty is in placing proper values on things and of course weighing the pros and cons correctly.
For instance, someone may feel that stealing is positive, but actually they have committed an error, either in the value placement or in the wieghing of pros and cons. Often short sightedness is a large problem.
Morality is a personal endeavour, not to say that it is completely subjctive, but whether we rise to the task of being moral or fail at that task is ultimatly up to each individual, and the consequences are faced by the individual aswell. Legality however, rights ot life, liberty and property, is a basic foundation agreed upon by a group of individuals so that they can be free to practice thier own ideas of morality.
Not sure, if I conveyed my ideas properly here, kind of rambled, but don't you think that there is a link between self-interest and morality? Otherwise, why does God want you to be moral? Isn't it because being moral is actually what leads to the most happiness? Or do you just act moral out of pure obedience?
"do what thou wilt, quite rapidly becomes the whole of the law."
Correct me if I'm wrong Mike, but isn't that the credo of the Satanists?
So, in effect there is no difference between the lawlessness of the atheists or the Satanists. Both shake their fists in God's face from different viewpoints.
Morris,
I'm not sure if I would attribute that to Satanists per se, as I am not too familiar with what you'd classify Aleister Crowley as, but yes, something like that. What I was getting at was that the moral vacuum of the atheist leads to the philosophy of the Satanist, at least the Church of Satan for at least a strong minority of society.
For many people, being moral would not be what leads to the most happiness. Morality would restrain their drive for power, sex, wealth, etc. in ways that may fundamentally limit how much they get.
Obedience is only a factor if you really are on the verge of not being part of a religion. I want to obey God's laws to make Him happy, not for their own sake. There are at least a few of them that I would not follow if God didn't want me to. For us, we just do what our Father asks us to do to the best of our abilities.
I was an agnostic before I became a Christian and the funny thing is that I realized early on that without God, my morality was just an opinion based on utilitarian principles. As such, I wanted as much power as I could get in order to protect my position, and I invariably let that drive me to develop a good education in software development. Why? Money is power and the less you have the weaker you are and the more subject you are to the predatory elements. I had no illusion that without God there was any universal morality, right and wrong, etc.
It always struck me as odd to see these preachy atheists who would act like religionists, faithfully defending their One True Morality as though the abyss had been paved over by the power of their beliefs. As I freely say to atheists and agnostics alike, you are a coward if you won't walk up to the abyss created by your lack of belief and see it for what it really is. The only true atheist is the one who has walked up to the abyss, gazed into it, let it gaze back into him and then accepted that is just the way things are.