An Atheist Is (or, at least, can be) A Moral Person.
My friend Kenny has written a blog post entitled Atheists Are An Amoral Animal. This is my response.
Kenny defines a moral person as "one who consistently seeks to do the Right Thing" and alleges that "for the atheist, there is no right thing." Kenny asks: "If there is no higher power or being to dictate such things, what makes an action inherently right or wrong?"
I would then pose this question to Kenny: If you believe that no inherent quality of right or wrong applies in the absence of a higher power, then which church should be designated as the official state church of the USA, and what should be the penalty for non-belief? Your own argument implies that there could be no legitimate basis for a secular law.
Yet, we do have a secular law, which forbids the establishment of a state religion yet still deems certain actions "right" and others "wrong." The law of this country does not merely exist to confer reproductive benefits upon a social group. Some babies born premature or ill would perish without lengthy, expensive medical intervention. A secular law based only upon reproductive fitness would certainly let these babies die. Instead, they are nurtured. Some people carry genes that leave their children at risk for severe diseases. They are allowed and even encouraged to raise families of their own. Even if they avoid the birth of affected children and leave the alleles dormant, those genes' persistence in the population holds no intrinsic benefit for the group's reproductive fitness as a whole. So what, then, is determining the rightness or wrongness of actions in this society and its secular law?
The basis of our country's secular law is the principle that all should have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that no independent action infringing upon another's rights can be good. (Imprisoning a murderer removes his liberty, but only in reaction to his previous independent action to take another's life.)
In other words, this would be the Golden Rule. The Gospel of Matthew states this, "Do to others whatever you would have them do to you" (Matthew 7:12), while in the Jewish Talmud, you might find it phrased "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man." However it is phrased and whichever religious groups promote it, this principle alone does not invoke or depend upon a higher power. And this principle, my atheist husband says, is one of those which forms his own sense of morality.
In closing, allow me to invoke one of the first and most famed Christians, whose words are so frequently cited as a source of Judeo-Christian morality. Saint Paul writes, in his Letter to the Romans:
"For it is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; rather, those who observe the law will be justified. For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people's hidden works through Christ Jesus." (Romans 2:13-16)
Kenny defines a moral person as "one who consistently seeks to do the Right Thing" and alleges that "for the atheist, there is no right thing." Kenny asks: "If there is no higher power or being to dictate such things, what makes an action inherently right or wrong?"
I would then pose this question to Kenny: If you believe that no inherent quality of right or wrong applies in the absence of a higher power, then which church should be designated as the official state church of the USA, and what should be the penalty for non-belief? Your own argument implies that there could be no legitimate basis for a secular law.
Yet, we do have a secular law, which forbids the establishment of a state religion yet still deems certain actions "right" and others "wrong." The law of this country does not merely exist to confer reproductive benefits upon a social group. Some babies born premature or ill would perish without lengthy, expensive medical intervention. A secular law based only upon reproductive fitness would certainly let these babies die. Instead, they are nurtured. Some people carry genes that leave their children at risk for severe diseases. They are allowed and even encouraged to raise families of their own. Even if they avoid the birth of affected children and leave the alleles dormant, those genes' persistence in the population holds no intrinsic benefit for the group's reproductive fitness as a whole. So what, then, is determining the rightness or wrongness of actions in this society and its secular law?
The basis of our country's secular law is the principle that all should have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that no independent action infringing upon another's rights can be good. (Imprisoning a murderer removes his liberty, but only in reaction to his previous independent action to take another's life.)
In other words, this would be the Golden Rule. The Gospel of Matthew states this, "Do to others whatever you would have them do to you" (Matthew 7:12), while in the Jewish Talmud, you might find it phrased "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man." However it is phrased and whichever religious groups promote it, this principle alone does not invoke or depend upon a higher power. And this principle, my atheist husband says, is one of those which forms his own sense of morality.
In closing, allow me to invoke one of the first and most famed Christians, whose words are so frequently cited as a source of Judeo-Christian morality. Saint Paul writes, in his Letter to the Romans:
"For it is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; rather, those who observe the law will be justified. For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people's hidden works through Christ Jesus." (Romans 2:13-16)