Morality

Many people say that without fear of eternal damnation, there is no reason to be good to anyone. People would just go around stealing from each other, deceiving each other, and hurting each other. Atheists are considered about as trustworthy as rapists. After all, it's only human nature. If no one gets punished, why would anyone ever do the right thing?

If you look back at my axioms, I mention that I don't believe there are any supernatural powers or beings. It's a rather round about way of saying I don't believe in a god of any type. I didn't say "I don't believe in God" because I also don't believe I should be forced to assume that believing in a monotheistic God should be the default assumption.

At any rate, this puts me in the same level of trustworthiness as people who psychologically or physically abuse other people in order to forcibly smush their nasty bits into them.  Great.

However, I don't believe that fear of punishment is the only reason people Do the Right Thing. Human beings are social creatures, and caring for the group is a natural motivator. Of course there are exceptions, and it doesn't take many people doing wrong to wreck everything everyone else was working towards. Even so, I would bet most people would consider themselves trustworthy, even if they believe most other people are not.

On a personal level, not believing in some arbiter of good and evil makes me more likely to act justly, not less. If there's no all powerful entity around to clean up the mess, there's only people. And if I don't do my part to maintain our society, help my friends, or help my family, I'm leaving it to other people to pick up the slack. Leaving it up to other worldly beings abdicates my responsibility for the situation. I believe the true measure of honor is not what you do when people are watching, but what you do when no one is watching, when no one will blame you, and when you will never be caught. Doing the right thing out of fear is merely saving face, not true morality.

In my view, humanity is a tiny bit of the universe on a tiny speck of dust that could be destroyed at any time. It has no significance in the large scheme of things. But even if the rest of the universe doesn't care, that doesn't mean we shouldn't care. Our finite existence will one day come to an end. I believe we should make the best of it, and help each other fulfill ourselves as much as possible. Subscribing to basic morality the just the first step of doing that.