Q1: Without God, what is the source of an atheist's morality?

Ken Granderson answers: Before trying to answer this question, it is important to separate truth from fiction as far as the implied claim that non-atheists get their moral standards from their religious scriptures.

While it is true that religious people derive SOME of their moral standards from their scriptures, this is after some serious cherry-picking of the ones that happen to conform with the concept of civilized society that one lives in.

This is why followers of Judeo-Christian faiths conveniently ignore verses that command you to do things like kill people who work on the Sabbath day, while the edicts and mandates that better fit our current society are embraced. When scripture is used as the basis for morality without any cherry-picking, you end up with what people call religious fundamentalists or (when they have political power or weapons) extremists. The reality that religious scriptures contain instructions that range from the most benevolent to the most reprehensible is why everyone from pacifists to serial killers routinely use religious texts as the basis of their moral standards.

When we look at what is considered moral across many cultures, we tend to find very similar perspectives that are in line with the precept familiar to Western people as the Golden Rule. However, rather than being the result of religious teachings, many people have found evidence that suggests that this idea is a result of natural selection - that groups who do well by each other tend to survive better than those who are constantly trying to kill each other. Also, some experiments with chimpanzees suggest that moral behavior is not limited to the human species.

IF you are a person who can find these ideas reasonable, then the conclusion is that religion is not necessary at all for morality (an idea backed up by some statistics on violence and other social issues).

So, whether you are religious or not, almost all of us get our standards from the universally recognized principle of treating others in ways that you would like to be treated yourself.

Now, I believe that the application of this principle is directly linked to the degree of connectedness that you feel for the other. Thus, this principle is more likely to be practiced with your friends and family than strangers, more likely with humans than other species, and more likely with living things than inanimate objects.

I mention this because I often find an inverse correlation between religious people and the scope of creation that they feel they must act morally towards. I think that many religious people limit their moral behavior to other humans because from the perspective of their scriptures, only humans are important, but many non-religious people extend their moral behavior to animals and the environment, as their concept of connectedness is not defined by the mindsets of authors of thousands of years ago.

Finally, in addition to the aspect of morality that deals with how we treat others we encounter, there are issues around personal behavior choices that often get lumped under the banner of morality, but I believe that this is mostly because the dominant religions in this country mix the two concepts together.

I am firmly in the camp of those who believe that people's personal choices (or orientations) around their sexuality and forms of entertainment are not moral issues unless their actions cause harm (not inconvenience) to others. As with religious edicts pertaining to acts that impact others, the ideas that personal choices are a moral issue also results from very selective reading of religious texts that conveniently coincide with the perspectives of those who tend to promote them.

In the area of personal choices, if we are going to use texts like the bible to determine people's morality, then everyone except celibates, faithful married folks and male polygamists are all toast....

Posted November 7, 2007. Ken is a member of the Boston Atheists.

Zachary Bos adds: In "On Liberty," "Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals," and "Justice as Fairness: A Restatement", Mills, Kant and Rawls respectively propose a moral system that has no reference to religion whatsoever. Each author's proposal is perfectly progressive and unobjectionable.

Posted November 7, 2007. Zachary is the director of the Boston Atheists.

Patrick Julius answers: Morality is intrinsically good, by definition. That which is moral is what you do simply because it's right. If a thing is done because some authority figure says so, or to avoid being punished, it ceases to be morality and becomes prudence or even selfishness.

Nobody (except fanatics like Osama bin Laden and maybe Anne Coulter) takes their morality from religion; you can't and remain sane. Holy books are full of atrocity, horror and totalitarianism. Intelligent, reasonable people like you and I get our morality from a combination of reason, intuition, experience, and compassion. We know what it's like to feel pain, so we don't cause pain for others unless we have to. We fear our own deaths, so we don't kill others. We understand the sorrow of losing something valuable to us, so we don't steal valuable things from others.

Posted November 8, 2007. Patrick is the president of the Secular Student Alliance at the University of Michigan.