M O R A L I T Y

Morality

About morality

Religious people often blame the nonreligious ones like me of having no moral standards and that we therefore have no way to tell good from bad and right from wrong. They claim that without religion the basis for a system of moral can be chosen aribtrarily and that so just any action can be declared as right and good. Then they list the crimes committed by self acclaimed atheists like fascists or communists to prove their point. In my opinion this reasoning is wrong on several accounts.

For starters, it is very well possible to derive a morality without religion. We are human beings living in company with other human beings^*, so somehow we have to get along, if we want it or not. So we all should behave so that this living-together thing works as best as possible. This means, no stealing, no killing, no lying etc. Generally it means, not to live on other peoples cost. Also it means freedom. People should be free to do what they want, as long as they don't do it on someone elses cost. So they should be allowed to love who they want^**, listen the the music they like, do the job they are best at and so on. This simple set of rules dosn't need a religion as a basis and mostly complies with the intuitive definition of good and right behaviour of most people as well as with the rules of conduct of most religions.

On the other hand it is very well possible to justify just any gruesome atrocity with a religion. Just blame the others to be soul-less subhumans and there is a fine justification to kill, torture, enslave or opress them. Shamefully the human history is full of examples for just this behaviour and it still happens on a daily basis in every country on this planet.

So non-religious morality isn't more arbitrary than any religious morality. Maybe it is even less arbitrary because, as I wrote somewhere else around here, religion itself is mostly arbitrary as most people believe in the religion the happen to be used to. Also I don't kill, steal or lie because I read in some book that I must not do it, I don't do it because I believe it is wrong and bad behaviour. So my system of moral is not at all chosen arbitrarily at all, works pretty well here and now and will hopefully put me in a not too bad position on judgement day, if there ever is one.

^*There is a philosophical idea called solipsism which says that there is only me thinking. I will ignore ideas like this because they are irrelevant in this context. Otherwise I would have to write a huge book about everything in philosophy which would be impossible to finish.

^**Before some sick character want's to dreive from this that it is OK to molest children: No, it is not OK. A child never wishes to have any sort of sexual relationship with an adult whatsoever, so child molestation is always against the will and on cost of someone else, the child in this case. A consensual homosexual relationship between two adults on the other hand is fine, because they both enjoy it and it doesn't hurt anyone else.