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Atheist morality
I asked a question over on Askville a while ago. I wanted to get atheists and Christians to talk to each other in different ways. There are fairly large and active communities of both groups there, and the site has morphed into a place for discussion more than anything else. I thought it would be interesting to get the two groups to interact without arguing; it might lead to some new understandings on both sides.
It turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.
My first question was "Believers, non-believers: what do you have to say to each other?". Unfortunately the discussion board was quickly ruined by a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who insisted that "believers" must include his belief that one of the buildings was blown up as an inside job, or something like that. This despite the fact that I'd assigned the topics "religious perspectives, discussion, interfaith dialogue, personal opinion, atheism, religion"!
I had to abandon that question and try again: "Christians, atheists: What do you have to say to each other?". This time I caveated it with a note that I was asking about religion. Unfortunately it still ended up turning into a discussion/flamewar about evolution and creationism; not an uninteresting subject, but not what I was looking for.
Third time's the charm, or so I hoped.
"Christians, atheists: What do you fear/think/feel/believe about people on the other side of the fence?".
It has taken some work, but I think the result has been a remarkably civil and thoughtful discussion!
Eventually, I was asked a tough question in the DB: What's the source of atheist morality? I dragged my feet for quite a while, but eventually responded:
It turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.
My first question was "Believers, non-believers: what do you have to say to each other?". Unfortunately the discussion board was quickly ruined by a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who insisted that "believers" must include his belief that one of the buildings was blown up as an inside job, or something like that. This despite the fact that I'd assigned the topics "religious perspectives, discussion, interfaith dialogue, personal opinion, atheism, religion"!
I had to abandon that question and try again: "Christians, atheists: What do you have to say to each other?". This time I caveated it with a note that I was asking about religion. Unfortunately it still ended up turning into a discussion/flamewar about evolution and creationism; not an uninteresting subject, but not what I was looking for.
Third time's the charm, or so I hoped.
"Christians, atheists: What do you fear/think/feel/believe about people on the other side of the fence?".
It has taken some work, but I think the result has been a remarkably civil and thoughtful discussion!
Eventually, I was asked a tough question in the DB: What's the source of atheist morality? I dragged my feet for quite a while, but eventually responded:
I intended to answer this the first time you asked.
But I ended up putting it off over and over. Why? Well, partly because I am busy (which reminds me: I'll be away and offline from this Friday through Sunday). But mostly, it was because I felt that I had to do a really good job. I didn't want to give anyone - okay, I'll be honest, any Christian in particular - a reason or excuse to despise my personal moral code. Because that's something that I've seen thrown at atheists online a lot, including me: that our morality is somehow defective.
That's actually somewhat ironic, since my personal life is rather ridiculously old-fashioned in many ways. I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs, and never have - well, I might have a glass of Merlot once every couple of months. But that's the most I've ever drunk. I don't steal, or lie. I drive closer to the speed limit than anyone I know under the age of 70. The cashier at the place I bought my lunch today made a mistake and charged me $2 less than the price; I corrected him. I've done that fairly often, and the cashiers themselves often look at me as if I were insane.
Lastly, my wife is the only woman I've ever been intimate with.
But I don't do these things strictly out of morality, necessarily. I don't drink or take drugs because I value and like my mind, and am afraid of screwing it up - even temporarily. I don't smoke because when I was a kid watching Bugs Bunny cartoons, it looked as if you were supposed to blow through the cigarette, rather than inhaling - so the one time I snuck one of my mother's cigarettes and tried smoking, I found it spectacularly pointless. By the time I knew better, I also knew how dangerous smoking was.
I don't lie or steal because I know that if I get caught, the embarrassment or penalty won't be worth whatever I gained - and frankly, because it feels undignified and degrading. I drive carefully because I know how terribly bad I would feel if I ever caused an accident or hurt anyone.
And as for my wife...well, until I met her I was shy. :D
That said, and recognizing that I am not going to create an impressive written code for myself tonight, I will say that there are certain points that are important to me. One is hypocrisy: I despise it. I've extended that to a variant of the Golden Rule that always pleased me, "Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you." It might be better expressed as a desire to treat others with the respect and courtesy that I would like for myself. If I didn't, I would be a hypocrite.
Of course I'm not going to pretend that I'm flawless. Far from it! That would be a pointless pretense, since at least one or two people here have seen me flame others quite ruthlessly. I'm human, and I've done (and will do) things I regret. But I try to work on that.
Another point that I take seriously when it comes to morality is compassion. Human beings are social animals; we do not thrive and find it difficult to be happy when alone. Relatively recent studies have indicated that empathy is (in part) actually inherent to the structure of the brain. When we become aware that someone else is suffering, we actually experience some of the same feelings ourselves (or the feelings that we would experience under the same conditions; we're talking about empathy, not telepathy. I don't believe in telepathy).
What else? I value life. I'm not a zealot; I eat meat. But I try not to kill anything unnecessarily. That includes bugs, so I've gotten pretty good at trapping them in cups and getting them out of the house. The one exception is mosquitoes. Anything that sucks my blood or my family's blood, I have no mercy towards.
I'm getting really tired, and this is already really long, so I'm going to end it there for now. Except I should say, I guess, that I didn't create my moral "code" (if you want to call it that) out of whole cloth; it evolved over time, and of course a large part of it came from my upbringing. We'd all like to believe that we determine our own standards, but society and particular our parents do play a large role in establishing our individual senses of right and wrong!
Hmm, I'm tempted to write something about some Christians I've known, loudly pious ones, who've displayed absolutely awful personal morality. But that would be unfair, since I'm sure they're not representative of all Christians, or even a substantial majority of them. Just as atheists who deliberately try to shock and provoke Christians represent a minority of atheists.