by Star 
When it comes to morality and ethics, most of us look for a source
of absolute authority in order to determine what is moral/ethical
and what is immoral/unethical. That is why many people believe
that they need God as an absolute source of morality, and religion
as the only machine to deliver it. In this article, I would like
to talk about the state of moral values, regardless of what they
are and how they are defined. In other words, I will attempt to
determine a new category for morality and ethics from a human
sincerity and integrity point of view. Once again, I am not going
to determine whether or not your actions are moral or ethical,
rather I will try to determine whether your moral values are "true" or "false".
In this article, the word 'true' is defined as genuine, sincere,
and authentic whereas the word 'false' , is defined as fake, insincere,
and disingenuous. Put it this way, I would like to determine the
'quality' of moral values in which they are either 'true' or 'false'
.
True and false moral values are determined based on their origins.
For instance, religious moral values are determined by God and
reinforced by Him or Her through religion. In this case, the individual,
who follows his or her religious moral and ethical values, is
obligated to do so because of the divine force and the fear of
being punished by the almighty omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent
God. Put it this way, religious people carry out good deeds because
they are afraid of God plus the fact that they are looking for
eternal life in Heaven. This is what I call the 'divine bribe'.
That's right; many religious people follow their religious moral
values because they want to please and satisfy God in order to
be granted first, with a divine blessing on Earth and second,
with an eternal life in Heaven after death. In other words, religious
people have to bribe God to achieve their goals. After all, what
are prayers for?
Based on the above definition, the religious moral and ethical
values are 'false' in nature which makes them fake, insincere,
and phony so to speak.
On the other hand, atheistic moral and ethical values are considered
'true' because they are genuine, sincere, and authentic when it
comes to their origins and their originality. Let me elaborate
on these concepts a little bit more.
Atheists do not believe in God, Heaven, Hell, or life after death.
To many atheists, life on planet Earth is the only life they have.
In spite of not believing in God and life after death in Heaven,
atheists carry out many good deeds. Furthermore, atheists do not
believe in Hell and eternal punishment and yet they are honest
and have a great deal of human integrity. Therefore, atheists
do good things not because they are afraid of God or believe in
eternal life in Heaven, but because they want to be good and they
indeed do many good things. That is why atheistic moral and ethical
values are original, genuine, sincere, and true.
Last but not least, there have been many atheists in human history
who have held great moral standards and have made many scientific,
altruistic and philanthropistic contributions to humanity. It
is a long list; however, I would like to mention a few names of
atheists, dead or alive, who have done many good deeds for humanity.
See if you can recognize anyone on the list: |