Atheists Have No Morals

I can follow some religious fundamentalists that claim that atheists have no morals. But only with some interpretation, and only some of the way.

Most movements, including Christianity, define themselves according to "positive" and "negative" comparisons. A positive definition is when the movement makes statements about who its followers are, what they believe in, and what their opinions are. A negative definition is when the movement makes statements about what it isn't; for example, Christians will readily state in which areas their religion differs from Islam, and the various Christian groups will gladly explain how they differ from other Christian groups. A positive definition is the religion's "what we are" statement, and a negative definition is the religion's "what we are not" statement. Both are valid descriptions helping define the movement, and both are moral statements of what one believes in and what one doesn't believe in.

Atheism is only negatively defined. It rejects the notion of gods but there is no explanation of what atheism is instead. Atheism only implies a non-belief in gods. Moral questions are not covered by atheism. As a "movement," atheism has no shared interests to gather around--just like one doesn't create an organization with the goal of not collecting stamps. Atheism can easily state itself in negative terms (i.e., it is the disbelief in gods), but cannot state itself in positive terms, that is, atheism cannot answer the question of what atheism offers.

In short, atheism has nothing to offer, and the corollary is that since atheism doesn't have moral statements to offer, then it isn't atheism that contributes to any atheist's morals. Morals have to come from somewhere, and according to the definition of atheism, morals can't come from atheism. Both from a religious view and an atheistic view one can sensibly argue that if atheism rejects the concept of gods, then atheism also rejects the notion of god-given morals.

In the hypothetical situation where atheism was all alone, atheism would in fact lack morals, and probably no society could exist without these non-spoken rules of behavior. One can therefore argue that the various religions accusations that atheist have no morals are in fact true.

The mistake in such an argument is of course that although atheism may not offer particular ethical or moral views, atheism isn't shielded from society, and while atheism rejects the existence of gods, atheism doesn't reject ethics or morals. Atheism can easily include Christian morals or other kinds of morals, even if these morals happen to be founded in a world-view that involves the belief in gods. Modern atheism began to appear while belief in gods was widespread (and that's how things still are), and in a sense adopted the morals that were already found in these societies. It means that although atheists don't believe in gods, in practice they behave as if they did.

Atheists thus find themselves in a difficult position, because if they are to draw the consequences of the non-existence of gods, at least they must come up with a good explanation of why the existing morals can be accepted. It is a rather poor argument to state that existing morals should be accepted because their justification is the belief of many people in a particular god.

In practice, atheists choose one of two options when confronted with this question. One option is a rather shallow notion that one just follows a "naturally appearing" moral--where unfortunately one misses the devil in the detail that the moral that feels most natural happens to be the moral that one was raised to believe in by one's predominantly Christian parents. The other option is to consider morals as created by human hands, that is, to rely on, e.g., secular humanism or adopt ideas from, say, objectivism (although the morals of objectivism are highly reminicent of the ethics identified as protestant work ethics by Max Weber more than a century ago).

Atheists are faced with a hard decision: either they adopt the morals and ethics of the religious people they grew up among, or they must face the consequence of a world with no Heaven og glory bright and no Hell where sinners roast: it is a world with no supernatural purpose with life; it is a world where you have only one life which you're responsible for making the most of yourself; it is a world where no authority but humans themselves make the rules. As an atheist, you choose between the hypocricy of claiming atheism yet living according to religious beliefs, or you walk the talk by playing what the religious people have long considered the Devil's game.

Religion has something to offer, and not all of if is intangible. Religion provides a sense of belonging, the feeling of purpose in one's life, and in many cases a social network. Religion has an advantage that will keep would-be atheists from non-belief until atheists can offer an alternative to the emotional, physical, and mental gratification that religions have to offer.