Why should you do some things and not do other things?
If you say you should be moral because God will punish you if you are immoral, the question naturally arises, why should I care whether or not I get punished?
If the answer is that being punished is bad for your well-being, we at last get to some common ground on the subject of morals.
We can then say that things like rape, murder, torture etc are bad for the well-being of humanity in general and individuals in particular.
If the Christian response to that is why should he care about the well-being of humanity in general and individuals in particular, then he is open to the same question of why should he care about whether or not humanity goes to Hell.
So atheists can be moral for exactly the very same reasons that Christians can be moral - they are concerned about the well-being of humanity in general and individuals in particular.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-11-27 08:15 pm (UTC)If you say you should be moral because God will punish you if you are immoral, the question naturally arises, why should I care whether or not I get punished?
If the answer is that being punished is bad for your well-being, we at last get to some common ground on the subject of morals.
We can then say that things like rape, murder, torture etc are bad for the well-being of humanity in general and individuals in particular.
If the Christian response to that is why should he care about the well-being of humanity in general and individuals in particular, then he is open to the same question of why should he care about whether or not humanity goes to Hell.
So atheists can be moral for exactly the very same reasons that Christians can be moral - they are concerned about the well-being of humanity in general and individuals in particular.