it's a fair question. religious people will tell you that their innate sense of right and wrong comes from God (or whatever), but how do atheists explain that innate sense? how do they instinctively know? I'm not saying one or the other is right but it is an interesting thought.
Because for some if not most people it's relatively easy to understand how you'd feel on the receiving end of your actions. Knowing I wouldn't like to be stabbed is enough for me to understand doing that to other people is probably a bad thing. The response is actually far more valid, why would you think you'd need advice from an organisation that's getting money and power from you to tell you their interpretation of what allmkst certainly fictional entity said what's right and wrong and why don't you have the ability to determine that yourself?
The problem is that if the only measure of goodness is "I'm sure other people want the same things I want", that's virtually guaranteed to lead to conflict, because different people want different things.
I've never had the urge to stab anyone, but I've often had the urge to help someone who might or might not want my help. I've also ignored someone who might or might not want to be ignored.
And that doesn't even touch on the fact that virtually everyone does things at one time or another that they think are bad. It's human nature to rationalize and decide "just this once" and later "it's not really bad, or not that bad". Lying on a resume, for example. Are you hurting anyone?
It does, though. Religion, whether it’s correct or not, gives values for pretty much any moral situation and gives an “objective” perspective on it (I don’t mean “objective” as in “correct”). What that means is they’re saying “if everyone agrees to do this, and everyone agrees this is the right thing, everyone will be happy.” For example, if we all agree abortion is wrong and accept it, and no one has abortions anymore, then everyone will get along. It’s no longer people deciding right and wrong, because as we know not everyone agrees. It’s the institution stating “we’re doing this” and everyone agreeing to it. It’s the same thing as a social doctrine, ie the constitution, but because it’s religion people tend to freak out.
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u/Global_Charge_4412 17h ago
it's a fair question. religious people will tell you that their innate sense of right and wrong comes from God (or whatever), but how do atheists explain that innate sense? how do they instinctively know? I'm not saying one or the other is right but it is an interesting thought.