3/30/2007

Morality

A while back I saw a video on youtube by Brett Keen about morality. The topic was: "Can atheists be moral?" In his video he explained how atheists could be moral people. Going back to the definition of atheism, it's only an individual who lacks the believe in a deity.

What the question should be is: "can an atheist have a belief system?". Religion is just that, a belief system with some sort of "god/s" at the center. So, if atheism is only the lack of belief for a certain belief system, why can't they have some different belief system?

Addressing the original question that Brett Keane discussed in his video, Atheists can be moral people. The moral "code" that they follow is in accordance with their belief system. What must be understood though is that people who follow a certain moral code do in fact have a belief system, whether they call it a religion or not.

So what about me? I consider myself an atheist, as well as an agnostic. What sets me apart from most is that I do not have a belief system. The words: right/wrong, good/evil mean nothing to me because they resulted from a religion and/or some other sort of belief system. I may coincidentally follow a moral lifestyle, but it is just that, a coincidence.

To further illustrate what I mean I'll give some examples. Let's seee....here's a simple one. To a religious person, it may be "wrong" or "immoral" to steal and so therefore they will not steal because of their belief system. I'll be truthful, I used to steal all the time. When I was in high school I stole a magazine from the local cvs every week or so. The only reason I stopped was because I was caught once. I became scared that I would be arrested, so I stopped stealing. Now I don't steal because I'm afraid I will go to jail, not because I believe it's immoral or wrong.

To society, I appear to be a moral person, but I'm actually not. I am not moral, but most of my actions are, according to the viewer with the belief system.

You may be thinking, "shut up with indication of the belief system". It's actually very important that I specify this. I'm probably just confusing you, so I won't explain why.

I think I'll end there. Comments are appreciated.

P.S. If you would like to view Brett Keane's videos you can find him on youtube or just by clicking here

Another blog about religion and such that I've been reading you can find here

2 comments:

  1. "What must be understood though is that people who follow a certain moral code do in fact have a belief system, whether they call it a religion or not."...Doesn't this imply that you do in fact have a belief system, even though you claim that you don't? Society as a whole defines the moral boundries. The fact that you chose not to recognize the boundries, doesn't mean they don't exist. Being an agnostic, I've wrestled with these type of questions for years. I've come to the conclusion that religion was and is used to manipulate the masses into conforming to a set of morals. If there is a deity, does he/she really care if we build houses of worship or give money each week? My guess is that its all irrelevant, but yet it does serve a purpose in society. A lot of people need the guidance and comfort religion offers. I always view the bible in this way: remember the game you played in kidergarten where you get in a circle and pass a secret. By the time it came full circle the original message was something completely different. Now multiply that by a couple of thousand years. Imagine how warped this story has become. Yet people base their entire life on this book. It really makes me wonder as well....

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  2. Hello there! This is quite exciting; I never would have thought something I wrote would attract such a lengthy comment. I give you my gratitude!

    Back to the topic at hand....I still don't think that I have a belief system. Like I said in my blog, I may appear to follow a moral code, but that is just mere coincidence. This coincidence is the result of my human instinct and the observance of cause and effect.

    I guess I should have more clearly defined what I think a belief system is.

    I do agree with most of what you said. I believe(not to be confused with 'belief system') that religion was created to both comfort and possibly manipulate the masses. I know from what I see from both of my grandmothers that they live day to day on the belief in god. Without that comfort, who knows if they'd still even be alive right now. But yes, this has a huge impact on society.

    Like you said, every person has their own interpretation of the bible and whatever other source of a belief system they identify with because the stories have been warped over time. And because of our democratic system, 'moral boundries' are thus shaped by everyone's different interpretations.

    These boundries do exist, but only in the minds of the people who believe them, as they come from different opinions. And opinions are just opinions.

    I choose not to recognize them, because they don't mean anything to me.

    Hopefully that made some sense. I do plan to continue my rant on morality, so please feel free to stop by and comment again!

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