Preview

Can One Be Moral

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2500 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Can One Be Moral
Can One Be Moral and Not Believe in God

Name:

Course: Phi 103 Informal Logic

Instructor: Jennifer Creekmore

Date: May 6,2013

Can One be Moral and Not Believe in God

There are many people, that do not have any faith or belief in any personal god or deity, one that dispenses grace, goodness, and/or miracles according to his/her 'will'. Many people do not acknowledge any ‘supernatural’ agent or agency that intentionally intercedes in human affairs or selectively answers peoples' prayers. There are people who do not and cannot stomach any willful divine being that plays with tornados, earthquakes or any other type of natural disasters. They do not support or promote any formal, organized religious notion
…show more content…
Atheism is obviously the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. The word Atheism is truly a Greek term meaning without Gods. Most Atheists believe there is not enough empirical proof to bring into being an existence of God. at that place are many atheists who live ethical lives and have high moral principles, but because they reject the mind of there being a God they are looked at as being bad peck. There are some who actually believe that atheists are incapable of having a long system of morality because they do not possess religion. There is even a term coined moralistic atheists. These are the atheist who offended people think that they lack morality by giving up God. Morality can be what a person inherent rules of right and wrong that were not given to them by anyone or anything, they are inherent morals that each person is given. Another way a person can look at morality is the obvious religious implications that morals come from religion and religion only, which what God says to be right and wrong are right and wrong because God is all wise and knows the morals that we should follow to be happy. Another way that morality is described is not in the terms of religious contexts, nor is it the inherent good that every person is born with, it is the rules of right and wrong that each individual person has adapted for themselves as to what they think right and wrong truly are. There are many things that can shape …show more content…
The Catholic Church, for example, considers stopping gay marriage, stopping abortion, stopping the ordination of women, and opposing stem cell research to be amongst its highest moral concerns because they think that God wants them to do these things. It's important to note that with or without religion, we are still going to have evil in this world, but we would have less evil if religion were to go away. Places of worship can be converted into meeting places and homeless shelters. Former believers can still band together and do great things. People can still take moral lessons from religions and apply them to their lives. No longer would we have such a mass of unsubstantiated beliefs and the idea that faith is admirable. A post-religious society can be had in which people demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims and do good just for the sake of doing good. Without religion, we can still come to the conclusion that we should help others, make this world a great place to live in, and respect other

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Religion encourages citizens to be more virtuous. In the words of Tocqueville, “it [religion] facilitates their use of it [freedom],” meaning that without religion to bound human intellect, members of a democracy would not be able to make use of freedom (Tocqueville 280). Religion also teaches delayed gratification which prevents people from falling into an endless spiral of greed. Most importantly, “faith alone is the permanent state of humanity,” and without faith, humans would lose the part of themselves that gives them hope for the future (Tocqueville 284). Hope fuels humanity, and religion is “only a particular form of hope” that is potent enough to drive humanity to greatness (Tocqueville…

    • 1715 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Atheist, according to the Merrian-Webster dictionary is defined as someone who believes that there is no deity. In other words, Atheists don’t believe that there is a God or any supernatural…

    • 2331 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Divine Command Theory

    • 1962 Words
    • 8 Pages

    People are extremely motivated by self-interest, even as societies have evolved and grown larger. While the more intertwined societies did lead to a greater need for cooperation in order to live as peacefully as possible, the need to follow the rules of that society can still be ignored when self-interests are present. The need to live by a set of moral rules is well explained by connecting God and morality. As God holds a person accountable, following the moral rules is now is that person’s interest. So even while the person may act according to society, the actions are still explained by the incentives and sanctions placed by God with the promise of Heaven and the threat of Hell, respectively. However, the Divine Command Theory falls short by basing morality solely on God’s commands. Morality then seems subject to God’s whims, which makes morality arbitrary. The opposing view counters strongly with the existence of morals within atheists. For if morals are based only on God’s will, then atheists must be godless brutes lacking any semblance to a moral compass. The morality of atheists is clearly evident, yet the argument failed to establish a reason for morals other acknowledging damage done to the…

    • 1962 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Response to H.J. Mccloskey

    • 1654 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Bibliography: Craig, William Lane. "The Absurdity of Life without God." Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 2008, 3rd ed.…

    • 1654 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Clinton Richard Dawkins the author of the book The God Delusions. This book aims to give wisdom to the reader that there are a scientific explanation about the unfeasible things that happened around the world. On pages 157 and 158 of the God Delusion, Richard Dawkins encapsulates the central argument of his books. Another assertions that can be made regarding to the subsistence of God is morals. There are two types of morals, objective and subjective. People define morals as an objective if a man’s suddenly die and the morals that they acquire would still exist. Now a subjective morals are consider subjective if humans believe that whatever they achieve whether it’s accurate or inaccurate they would still believe that it’s the right thing to do. But if morals are subjective then it is true that God does not exist. Humans create morals from their own personal experiences. Morality is a subjective way of thinking that needs decent objectives. Morals change over time, which proves that it is a subjective thought and not something that stays the same as time passed by. It is proved that morals are not made by God, but simply lying to mankind itself. The existence of God is something that has puzzled millions of people around the world. There are lots of arguments supporting the existence of God, but as many denying facts that think that God doesn’t exist. Agnosticism is something that many people go by because it allows their mind to explore and assist them in deciding whether or not a deity exists. Humans need to find answers within their self because only they can determine what truth and reality is. Not all questions may be answered, but it will allow mankind to form a true and concise belief. People cannot depend on someone or something else to satisfy their questions. Man only lived once and must…

    • 1715 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Defining the Moral Status

    • 1565 Words
    • 7 Pages

    As time passes medicine and the healthcare system has greatly improved the life expectancy of mankind, and more options present themselves, they also come a price as to which is the right choice to make. How do we defy which life is more important, who gets to live and who has second priority?…

    • 1565 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Arthur disputes the Divine Command Theory by saying that it is part of human nature to worry about simple consequences such as “will I get caught” or “what will someone think if they see me”. He points out that we often do not think about religion when making moral decisions, we just seem to know our duties.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is difficult to mount an affirmative defense of atheism without sounding as self-righteous as religious zealots quoting scripture. But you can, at least, acknowledge what atheism is not: It is not inherently nihilistic, as many believe; it does not deprive you of moral standards or instincts.…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When it comes to religion everyone believes in different things or either have some of the same views. Over time older theories have changed a little or some people believe theories are outdated . Theories in my opinion depend on how you was raised and what your family believes in. Each author in the readings in morality in religion state their opinion on the topic of both morality and religion. The authors use Plato's and Socrates dialogue to get their views across. and how they feel about natural law and divine command theory which deals with religion.…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    People’s gods and their beliefs control what others see or should see, say or should say, and tell people how they should conduct themselves. I feel allergic to the institution of organized religion. I feel that religion discourages your personal desires by asking followers to submit to the will of God. Religion should not feel like an obligation, but more of a spirituality; a feeling like an emotion where it soothes and comforts you versus a feeling of mobilization and rallying. I acknowledge that religion played an influential role in shaping America and helped humanity. I cannot deny some of the admirable things of religion such as helping some to cope with difficult situations, inspiring people to develop a good moral code, and providing something positive for a person to look forward to. Religion is also important to many social movements because of its role in shaping a person’s identity and can be used as a powerful source of collective identity and unity. There are definitely some good outcomes from organized religion, but religion has also been used as a vehicle for discrimination, persecution, and even…

    • 1131 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Moral by definition means, "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior". To get a better understanding of what that means here it is in less complicated terms. Moral means having the ability to differentiate between right and wrong. The American citizens are starting to lose our morality. The citizens have started overlooking when the line is crossed and they don’t realize what is wrong and what is right anymore. There are two major places that lacks morality. First, the home, terrible home life can create horrible outcomes and the prevention of prosperity to the American people. Secondly is the country as a whole, In America we are a sinking ship that needs to be saved but not by another country but by ourselves. In America today, the citizens are losing the morality. Starting with the home life how does it get so bad in the first place.…

    • 1947 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Is Atheism a Religion?

    • 2806 Words
    • 12 Pages

    To begin with, it is fundamental to interpret what is classified as religion. Religion has been globally renowned as a set of symbolic world views, theories of action and institutions that relate individuals and groups of individuals to that which they consider to be the ultimate reality. Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism are all vivid examples of belief systems that are devotedly practiced worldwide. Although unique in their own respective way, all of these belief systems share the common ground of being classified as religions. Contrarily, Atheism (although it possesses the “ism”) is often disregarded as a religion due to a variety of reasons. Not only does majority of the public disregard Atheism as a religion, but also refuse to accept it as an ideology, philosophy,…

    • 2806 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Making Moral Decisions

    • 1786 Words
    • 5 Pages

    When an incident occurs, people would like to deal with it in the way they prefer. However, there always are some situations that force people to make decisions that are opposite to their own will since people live in society and they need to consider other's opinions. No matter if people realize or not, it is hard to make decisions totally in terms of if they like it or not, because there are many factors which need to take into consideration like moral and ethics and the effect exerted on whole society and other people’s opinion. Both George Orwell and Claire McCarthy faced the dilemma of making a choice between their feelings and other people’s thoughts. In Orwell’s article “Shooting an Elephant”, he describes a poor elephant that destroyed people’s homes and kills a man. The people in town wanted him, as sub-divisional police officer, to kill that elephant. Orwell in fact did not want to kill the elephant but he did because other people wanted him to do and pressured him to make that choice. Claire McCarthy met a similar problem in her article “Dog Lab”. She knew dog lab was an efficient way for students like her to learn knowledge but she was feeling terrible and uncomfortable with killing dogs even though there were some values to do so. People in society approve of dog lab as the way to learn and they have not yet found other methods to substitute it. However, McCarthy believed in terms of morals and ethics she cannot kill an innocent dog. These two authors have no choice because they have to shoulder their responsibility. Orwell killed the elephant because he represented those people who dominate Burma and he needed to satisfy the masses in order to behave like the people in charge. McCarthy killed a dog during the experiment because she needed to well prepared for future operation on her patients. Making a decision is never easy especially when…

    • 1786 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    In a society that offers no hope of happiness or release from struggle and suffering, people quite naturally begin to place their hopes elsewhere. They respond to their condition by hoping for something that lies outside the conditions and constraints they cannot control or influence. Religion becomes some kind of hope for rescue from life. Religion responds by offering either internalization to a spiritual realm or an external hope of a better world and a better life beyond the pale of death.…

    • 4035 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Many people believe in “God”, or some type of god who has to do with creation and good and evil. These people that believe in God may belong to all different types of religion, such as Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist. There are some people that don’t believe in any type of god. These people are called Atheists from the Greek word atheos, meaning without god. Baron d’Holbach a French/German author and philosopher once said “All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.” People are Atheists for a few reasons; they were born and raised that way or possibly became an Atheist once something bad happened to them and they realized there was no God around to help them. Some…

    • 1679 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics