Eventually I realized that millions of people have lived lives of incredible meaning, morality, and happiness without gods. I soon realized I could be more happy and moral without God than I ever was with him.
You sort of glossed over this, but it seems like the bit that a lot of people have trouble with (and have trouble realizing that it’s even possible). There are lots of arguments for this position, but I’m just curious if there were any particular things that were “Aha” moments for you here.
ETA: Do you think you could have come to this position before rejecting God? That you could have said “even though there is a God, it would still be possible to be moral and happy and purposeful if there weren’t”? I’m curious how easy it is to get people to realize this before it’s their last resort for preserving morality etc.
As an atheist that attended a Catholic high school, one of the questions often leveled at me was what exactly prevented me from going on murdering rampages without a religious morality to keep me in check. I got this question from both students and faculty (usually as part of the class discussion in religion class). So in my experience at least, it is difficult for religious people to understand the morality of a non-religious person. I would speculate that this is because they, on some level, didn’t believe in God (or at least the Catholic God) and were instead believing in belief, feeling that the morality that came with the dogma was necessary and beneficial to leading a proper life.
At the time, I made a distinction between ethics and morality that I would now say is probably more semantic than definitional. But, IIRC, they defined morality as a code of behavior with a religious basis. So I used the term ethics to say that I followed a code of behavior that didn’t follow from religious belief.
Essentially, I made the point that just because I didn’t believe I would go to hell for killing somebody didn’t mean that I had any desire to. Or that the prospect of prison and general rejection from society didn’t serve as an adequate deterrent. I don’t remember specifically, but I might have made the point that the Golden Rule doesn’t have to be tied to a religious belief and is a pretty self evident truth on its own.
As for their response, I mostly remember them moving onto a different topic (or at least, ceasing to focus on me for that moment). I always thought about my answers and tried to give an honest answer, but I actively avoided giving them the answers they were expecting or wanted, since they were usually leading questions designed to get me to agree with them in some basic way.
I know plenty of religious folk who freely acknowledge that there exist non-religious moral folk, and accept that it follows that belief in God (as they understand God) is not crucial to living a moral life.
Mostly they seem to have arrived at that conclusion by observing the behavior of other people who don’t share their understanding of God, and concluding that it sure does seem moral to them.
That said, I also know religious folk who have made that same observation and conclusion, but nevertheless continued to believe that there is no living a moral life without sharing their understanding of God, so it’s by no means a given.
You sort of glossed over this, but it seems like the bit that a lot of people have trouble with (and have trouble realizing that it’s even possible). There are lots of arguments for this position, but I’m just curious if there were any particular things that were “Aha” moments for you here.
ETA: Do you think you could have come to this position before rejecting God? That you could have said “even though there is a God, it would still be possible to be moral and happy and purposeful if there weren’t”? I’m curious how easy it is to get people to realize this before it’s their last resort for preserving morality etc.
As an atheist that attended a Catholic high school, one of the questions often leveled at me was what exactly prevented me from going on murdering rampages without a religious morality to keep me in check. I got this question from both students and faculty (usually as part of the class discussion in religion class). So in my experience at least, it is difficult for religious people to understand the morality of a non-religious person. I would speculate that this is because they, on some level, didn’t believe in God (or at least the Catholic God) and were instead believing in belief, feeling that the morality that came with the dogma was necessary and beneficial to leading a proper life.
How did you usually answer when they asked that, and how was your answer received?
At the time, I made a distinction between ethics and morality that I would now say is probably more semantic than definitional. But, IIRC, they defined morality as a code of behavior with a religious basis. So I used the term ethics to say that I followed a code of behavior that didn’t follow from religious belief.
Essentially, I made the point that just because I didn’t believe I would go to hell for killing somebody didn’t mean that I had any desire to. Or that the prospect of prison and general rejection from society didn’t serve as an adequate deterrent. I don’t remember specifically, but I might have made the point that the Golden Rule doesn’t have to be tied to a religious belief and is a pretty self evident truth on its own.
As for their response, I mostly remember them moving onto a different topic (or at least, ceasing to focus on me for that moment). I always thought about my answers and tried to give an honest answer, but I actively avoided giving them the answers they were expecting or wanted, since they were usually leading questions designed to get me to agree with them in some basic way.
I know plenty of religious folk who freely acknowledge that there exist non-religious moral folk, and accept that it follows that belief in God (as they understand God) is not crucial to living a moral life.
Mostly they seem to have arrived at that conclusion by observing the behavior of other people who don’t share their understanding of God, and concluding that it sure does seem moral to them.
That said, I also know religious folk who have made that same observation and conclusion, but nevertheless continued to believe that there is no living a moral life without sharing their understanding of God, so it’s by no means a given.
Yes, I think I could have realized this before deconversion. Plenty of people do; perhaps most. I was just too thoroughly isolated.