Where do atheists get their morals from?

[Viking]

This question arose in the terrorism thread where I suggested that muslim radicals in iraq find themselves permitting themselves to do obvious great evil and using their book and god to justify it.

Quoting Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Stephen Weinberg

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

People on their own will follow their nature endevoring to do what they feel is right, ethical and moral. Good people doing good things and bad people doing bad things. This is a bit solipsistic, but what makes a man good is what he does. To quote Matthew 7:16 "You shall know them by their fruits". 

Now to where we get our morals from. All humans have a natural evolved morality combined from instinct and societal norms. In effect you have genes and memes which are passed on from generation to generation. In effect you can discriminate which are which. Human universals are genetic and can be found (applying to the in-group rather than necessarily to all humans) in all societies. I'd suggest that these include the "Do Not" commandments prohibiting theft, perjury and murder. The memtic morals would be more of a "how to" kind telling you how to have sex and with whom, how to dress, how to worship, how to treat your animals etc.

Now why do these morals often seem universal. In animal evolution you get different animals evolving differently in different environments; why are these supposed universal morals nearly identical? The environment our morals evolved in are the stone age hunter gatherer tribe and the traditional farming village. Having good relations with a group of about 120 other humans is the gold standard here. Behaviors and rules of conduct which tend to produce happy, cooperative and well functioning groups of humans are the bedrock of morality.

Some moral and ethical standards are better than others. You do not need to constantly guard your stuff if your group has a rule of conduct which includes "do not steal" and if it has "do not rape" as well then you don't need to shunt your women in a burka and guard them 24/7. What makes one set of morals better than others? Well the success of society. Successful societies here are the ones which thrive, procreate and pass on their morals, just in the way that successful animals (evolutionarily speaking) are the ones which are healthy, have offspring which have their genes.

The thought experiment here is to imagine two tribes of stone age hunters both of which are perfectly happy to kill outsiders but one group has a moral rule that prohibits them from killing a member of their own tribe. It is a bit trivial to consider which will thrive and which will not and within generations you can be certain that the violent tribe is gone while the cohesive one is still there, possibly having split up into two groups the second living on the violent group's territory.

If you get your morality from the bible or koran you think that eating shellfish is a mortal sin and that killing religious outsiders is the more virtuous activity. When Hitchens sub-titles his book "how religion poisons everything" he means just this. You cannot be moral if you get your morals from an instruction manual. You are not being good because you are not doing what you know to be good, you are doing what the book tells you is good.

The same works with evil. If you have a book you do not avoid doing evil because it is evil, you avoid doing evil because the book tells you so. If you think this is false I refer you to the multitude of christian apologists (muslim apologists don't use logic, they show up at your house with an axe) who have argued that without absolute divine command morality backed up by the thread of divine punishment they would rape and steal without fear of reprisals.

The book teaches you to ignore your own moral sense. This is the difference between the Norwegian Resistance (I refer to them because they are the resistance group mentioned in the question) and the Iraqi Insurgents. Gunnar Sønsteby and Max Manus had to justify to themselves why what they did was moral, al-Zarqawi and al-Masri only had to say God wills it and they didn't need to consider their actions at all.

That is where I think all peoples get their morals from and that is why I think religion (to paraphrase Hitchens) "poisons morality".

[Tamas]

The "universal" morals are the ones which allow people to coexist with each other in a society and let each other pursue their individual desires as much as possible without getting into the way of each other.

IMHO, the "good" people are the ones who realize the need for such co-existing on their own (well, based on what they saw of the world, what their parents taught of them etc). Point being, that good people choose to honor that basic rule above on their own accord, not because they fear punishment from God.

The rest of the people are dumb fucktards who need the threat of eternal punishment to behave semi-civilized. Thus, religion was born.

[HVC]

Didn't read your long post but i'll assume it's anti-religious. As to the question at hand, morals are societal. Atheists have the same moral guidelines as any other person in said society. and like their religious counterparts atheists can  choose whether or not to follow the guidelines. i doubt most religious people go "if i do this will god get mad at me? I know i sure didn't when i was religious. They know what right at and wrong just like any other person growing up, they were taught what was right and what was wrong.

[Martinus]

What baffles me are people who claim that if not for God and the threat of eternal damnation, they would be murdering, raping and stealing. People like this should be isolated from the society.

[Solmyr]

The funny thing is though, the modern, western morals are almost entirely based on Christian teachings.

[CountDeMoney]

What baffles me are people who claim that if not for God and the threat of eternal damnation, they would be murdering, raping and stealing. People like this should be isolated from the society.

Oh bullshit.  All that means is that you'd get laid more often.

[chipwich]

There were a LOT of historical cultures where murder and rape were okay under certain circumstances and a few today where murder is okay.

[Razgovory]

What baffles me are people who claim that if not for God and the threat of eternal damnation, they would be murdering, raping and stealing. People like this should be isolated from the society.

That would suggest that a militantly athiest state would become some kind of murderous kleptocracy.  Fortunately nothing like that has ever happened.

[Gups]

The funny thing is though, the modern, western morals are almost entirely based on Christian teachings.

Give some examples.

[Razgovory]

Perhaps if Hitchens was less concerned about religion poisoning anything and more concerned with tobacco poisoning, him he might still be alive.

You mentioned "memes" as a source of morality.  Perhaps you'd like to show us the proof that memes actually exist?

[Razgovory]

The funny thing is though, the modern, western morals are almost entirely based on Christian teachings.

Give some examples.

compassion for the poor and weak, the cherishing of children, charity to the poor etc.

[Darth Wagtaros]

At some level religion and political ideology are the same.  Look at Communism, or Libertarianism as examples.

[Viking]

Didn't read your long post but i'll assume it's anti-religious. As to the question at hand, morals are societal. Atheists have the same moral guidelines as any other person in said society. and like their religious counterparts atheists can  choose whether or not to follow the guidelines. i doubt most religious people go "if i do this will god get mad at me? I know i sure didn't when i was religious. They know what right at and wrong just like any other person growing up, they were taught what was right and what was wrong.

Didn't read your short post but I'll assume it's stupid. You are eggplant after all. Then I'll write something which is consistent with what I wrote in a tone where I sound like I'm telling you that you are an idiot for holding the views you don't hold at all but rather you should hold my view which I was idiotic enough not to know since I didn't bother reading your short post. Then I'll misrepresent one part of your short post (despite not having read it) justifying my opposition to that misrepresented bit by generalizing a personal anecdote. Then I'll end my post with a deepity.

[Viking]

The funny thing is though, the modern, western morals are almost entirely based on Christian teachings.

The funny thing is though, what you said above is BS.

Theology wise Christianity is pro-slavery, pro-misogyny, pro-homophobia, preaches murder on apostates, opposes work, opposes reason, opposes doubt and accepts the premise of vicarious redemption through human sacrifice.

Modern Christian Teaching is almost entirely based on modern western morals as defined by the moral philosophers of the enlightenment.

Do not murder, do not steal, do not lie, do not covet, do unto others, giving to charity etc. these are the universals christian theology included. These ideas exist in all other religious and philosophical traditions.

The most significant non-universal idea christianity has transmitted to the west is a jewish one it merely carried along with it. The idea that the individual is in and of itself valuable to god who created the individual in his image. This is unique in religion and is the fundamental idea that modern democracy and the idea of human rights is built upon. Though I must insist that this idea did have it's effect until the enlightenment got it's hands on it.

[Viking]

Perhaps if Hitchens was less concerned about religion poisoning anything and more concerned with tobacco poisoning, him he might still be alive.

You mentioned "memes" as a source of morality.  Perhaps you'd like to show us the proof that memes actually exist?

Proselytizing religions are memes. Perhaps you'd like to show us some proof that you understand the word?