Atheists typically insist that they are as “moral” as anyone else and bristle at any suggestion that they lack “morality.” However, almost never is anyone really accusing atheists as a group of being objectively less “good” than Christians or Hindus.
The real issue is, what is the
reference point – the
standard – for an atheist’s supposed morality? Almost always we find that the morality claimed by atheists is really derived from some religious moral code (the Ten Commandments, for example) or combination of moral codes the atheists have simply appropriated for themselves.
“I don’t rape or murder,” an atheist may say. OK, fine, but what is the atheist’s standard for thinking that rape and murder are immoral? Not raping or murdering may be a rational decision. You won’t have to hide from the police or face life in prison if you don’t rape or murder. But this has nothing to do with
morality. The law prohibits and punishes rape and murder, but the law prohibits and punishes lots of things that no one considers immoral. Whether something is illegal, even criminal, is a different matter from whether it’s immoral.
“Everyone just knows rape and murder are immoral,” the atheist may respond. But this begs the question.
How and why does everyone know this?
A Christian has an easy answer: Our reference point is God, who has revealed himself in the Bible and the person of Jesus. God determines our morality. Moreover, we believe (as Romans 2:14-15 teaches) that the basic laws of God are written on the hearts of even nonbelievers (“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them”).
(A popular question is whether something is moral only because God prohibits it. If God had said “Thou shalt rape,” would rape then be moral? The point that is missed by those who play this game is that God is perfect goodness – there is no morality apart from God, but the God whose very nature is perfect goodness would never have said “Thou shalt rape.”)
Christian apologists like Dr. Frank Turek accuse atheists of “stealing from God” because they say you can’t have a genuine moral code without a higher external standard – like God. You can have a personal
opinion or a
group consensus or even a
law, but you won’t have morality.
I used to try to understand the atheist position by thinking that perhaps evolution rather than God might have written a basic moral code in the hearts of humans. Evolution would serve as the higher external standard, if you will. But this doesn’t work for lots of reasons, as even atheist spokesmen like Richard Dawkins recognize.
According to Dawkins, we are “survival machines created by our selfish genes,” whose only objective is survival. The goal of evolution
isn’t truth or morality.
It’s an unsolved puzzle as to how consciousness could arise in a survival machine in a purely materialistic universe. It’s an equally unsolved puzzle as to how a process whose only goal is survival would or could have produced minds capable of discerning truth or morality.
If a process whose only goal is survival could have generated a code of conduct and hardwired it into humans, would it look anything like the Ten Commandments? Would it look anything like the morality that most atheists claim for themselves?
I think it’s pretty clear that moral codes, both religious ones and the ones that atheists claim for themselves, are aimed at
controlling and
restraining the selfish, survival-driven human traits that atheists believe evolution has produced (and that Christians believe sin has produced). Most moral codes don’t come close to fitting into any model of the “survival of the fittest.”
The notion of an evolutionary moral code is an oxymoron. “Thou shalt not rape” would mean nothing more than “Survival will be enhanced if you don’t rape.” It’s not at all clear that most of the behaviors that we commonly regard as immoral would adversely affect survival. The elimination of the elderly and the physically and mentally infirm, which most people would regard as immoral, would seemingly fit nicely in a purely survival-driven moral code.
Dawkins is at least honest in this respect. In a debate with a computer scientist who is also an evolutionist, the following exchange took place:
Jaron Lanier: “There’s a large group of people who simply are uncomfortable with accepting evolution because it leads to what they perceive as a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have no basis in nature.”
Richard Dawkins: “All I can say is, ‘That’s just tough. We have to face up to the truth.’”
Dawkins argues for a kinder and gentler world in which the best human instincts predominate, but he can’t tell you why we have those instincts or why a purely survival-driven process would allow us to switch it off so they can predominate.
I find a world in which right and wrong are purely matters of personal opinion, power-group consensus or legislation to be a frightening thought. But it seems to me that this is the world that honest atheists are stuck with. They simply have no legitimate claim to an “atheist morality.”
Christians and other believers are, of course, capable of perverting or misapplying their moral codes. But the point I'm making here is that believers can legitimately claim to be following (or at least attempting to follow) a
moral code while an atheist can't. Atheist "morality" is always going to be subject to shifts in societal norms or the dictates of whichever group happens to be in power, which is really no morality at all.
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