Moral Grounding and Egoism
“Atheists have no moral grounding. There morals are grounded in egoism.” While logically these two statements are contradictory, that never seems to bother the ignorant religious believers that make statements to this affect.
Why is it that religious believers seem to think that without a moral grounding egoism must be the moral philosophy? Let’s say for the sake of argument that there is no moral grounding. How does a lack of moral grounding default to egoism? If my morals were not grounded, then anything could be moral to me. I could choose any morals I like because my morals aren’t grounded. So if my morals aren’t grounded, then maybe I’ll choose Humanism as my morals for choice.
As it turns out, morals are grounded in empathy, compassion, and wellbeing so it is a moot point. But this that is not really the topic for this discussion. The point today is that religious people make contradictory statements when they claim that atheists have no moral grounding and then ascribe egoism as our default moral grounding which they stated we don’t have.
When an atheist calls them out the contradiction, the religious will often fall back to their twisted view of Evolution; “Survival of the fittest, right?” Wrong, evolution is not about survival of the fittest, it is about the survival of the best able to adapt. Besides, evolution describes what happens in biology it is not a philosophy about what ought to happen in ethics.
For example, gravity is a description of what happens in physic and it too is not a philosophy about what ought to happen in ethics. Do you believe in gravity? They you must believe that people should drop babies out of windows. That is the logical consequence of the theory, right? Such a view is obviously absurd.
Related articles
- Ignorance of Ethics (dangeroustalk.net)
- Another rabbi embarrasses me (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
Filed under: humanism, morality, Religion, Religious Manipulation
