Morality
See also: Morality without religion, Euthyphro dilemma, and Divine command theoryThe Catholic Church believes that morality is ensured through natural law but that religion provides a more solid foundation. For many years in the United States, atheists were not allowed to testify in court because it was believed that an atheist would have no reason to tell the truth (see also discrimination against atheists).
Atheists such as biologist and popular author Richard Dawkins have proposed that human morality is a result of evolutionary, sociobiological history. He proposes that the "moral zeitgeist" helps describe how moral imperatives and values naturalistically evolve over time from biological and cultural origins.
Natural law provides a foundation on which people may build moral rules to guide their choices and regulate society, but does not provide as strong a basis for moral behavior as a morality that is based in religion. Douglas Wilson, an evangelical theologian, argues that while atheists can behave morally, belief is necessary for an individual "to give a rational and coherent account" of why they are obligated to lead a morally responsible life. Wilson says that atheism is unable to "give an account of why one deed should be seen as good and another as evil" (emphasis in original). Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, outgoing Archbishop of Westminster, expressed this position by describing a lack of faith as “the greatest of evils” and blamed atheism for war and destruction, implying that it was a "greater evil even than sin itself."
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of Atheism
Famous quotes containing the word morality:
“As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones. There is so much goodness and ingenuity in a raindrop that an apothecary wouldn’t let it go for less than half-a-crown.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)