Atheists typically propose a few possibilities: evolution, reason, conscience, and human nature. None of these can be the ultimate source of morality. Let’s start with evolution. It cannot be evolution because any supposed morality that is evolving can change. If it can change for the good or bad, there must be a standard above these changes to judge them as good or bad. For most of human history, powerful societies enslaved weaker societies and prospered. That’s just the way it was, and no one questioned it. Now we condemn slavery. But based on a merely evolutionary model, that is an ever-changing view of morality, who is to say that it won’t be acceptable again one day? Slavery was once accepted, but it was not therefore acceptable. What about reasoning? While reasoning is a powerful tool to help us discover and understand morality, it cannot be the source of morality. Was it reasoning, or something higher than reasoning, that led those gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocauset? The answer is obvious: it was something higher than reasoning, because risking one's life to save a stranger is a very unreasonable thing to do. Conscience can’t be the source of morality. How is your conscience right but Hitler’s is wrong if conscience alone is the source of morality? The answer is you can’t. Some people say that human nature is the ultimate source of morality. But human nature can lead us to do all sorts of deplorable things. In fact, human nature is the reason we need morality.
Human behavior determines why certain things are “good” or “bad”. Human behavior is affected by both genetic inheritance and by experience. The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances that we have been through. Each person is born into a social and cultural setting, whether it be family, community, social class, or religion. The characteristics of a person's social setting also affects how that person learns to think and behave, thus deciding what is good and bad. When we decide what is good and what is bad, we also base things off of not only our emotions, but the facts. Here’s an example: smoking is bad. An emotional reason it maybe bad is because a close family member has died because of smoking. A fact of why it is bad is because the nicotine is damaging to your body
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Every culture includes a somewhat different web of patterns and meanings. This includes: ways of living, systems of trade and government, social roles, religions, expectations for behavior, and beliefs and values. Fair or unfair, desirable or undesirable, opinions are a salient part of every culture. That's why there's many people who take pride in their culture and where they come from; other people can’t relate to them and it's something special that only the people within that certain way of life will understand. If we look into religion, someone who follows Islam prays 5 times a day and has to go to the mosque on Fridays, while someone who follows Christianity pray’s once a day and goes to church on Suday. This becomes another factor in which how religious someone is and how much they care about their religion. Some may say not praying everyday is bad or some may say “it’s fine” or “it's okay”. In Islam it is forbidden to eat pork, but why is it known as bad? Religion wise, it is “bad” because it goes against the will of Allah (God). There is also science proving it is harmful to eat pork. It increases your chances of developing deadly diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, asthma, and impotence. In religion people think its always bad to go against the will of God because God wants all good. That's why muslims follow what the Quran says and Christians follow what the Bible says and they all try to be what is known as “good” or holy.
People think if someone comes from a lower social class or a shady neighborhood, they’ll turn out to be “bad” but that’s not true. People are shaped by their surroundings yes but mostly by other people who are around them. There’s a saying “you are who you go out with” and that's true, if you look at someone who hangs with people who do things that are considered bad then they’re more likely to do those “bad” activities when they’re with these certain people in their lives. When someone hangs out with people who are doing things considered good, then for those same reasons, this person is more likely to do these “good” activities. You also have to bring the parents into this part because parents are also involved in the factor of shaping the minds of their children. Parents teach their children about the world around them so they can get a basic understanding of it. For instance, if a child grows up in a household with parents who are conservatives, then they’re most likely to follow the same path of being conservative, and if they’re raised in a house where the parents are liberals then the child will most likely be a liberal and so on. This will become the child's belief of politics and they will end up choosing sides on a political topics. Take abortion as an example, them being raised in a household with a certain belief will shape their opinion on this topic. Then there’s other social problems such as racism: racism is taught to people because no one is born hating another person for any reason. If a child is raised in an environment where there are racists, then they’ll obviously be on the side of thinking that certain people are worthless because of the color of their skin and they’ll think that people of lighter color are good.
When a waiter in a diner asks you if you would like dessert after a meal, the answer is easy. Your belly isn’t full and you love sweets, so yes! In other words, you make your own decisions. What if there were four other people sitting at the table with you and each of them had already said, “no thank you” when asked if they would like dessert? Do you change your answer? What is demonstrated her is explained by Jonah Berger, Stanford phD and professor of Marketing in his new book, “Invisible Influence; The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior”. Jonah Berger shows that these influences are often so strongly embedded in our nature, they’re practically impossible to resist. In fact, it is not just humans. Many animals are affected by influence, even cockroaches. In 1969, Robert Zajonc studied the effects of a crowdon racing cockroaches. What’s the result? Cockroaches ran faster when being watched. That’s not all: the same audience made them run slower when Robert made the race more difficult. Later studies show the same thing happens to humans.
The idea of a soul mate has existed for thousands of years. In The Symposium, Plato wrote that humans originally had four legs, four arms, and a head made of two faces. They could walk equally well backward and forward, and so terrible was their might and strength that they threatened the very gods who were supposed to be ruling over them. Something had to be done. The gods discussed various solutions. Some wanted to annihilate the human race—wipe them out forever. But one of the gods, Zeus, had a more creative idea. Humans provided gods with various tributes and offerings, so why kill them off entirely? Instead, each human would be split in half. This would teach them a lesson. It would diminish humanity’s strength and punish humans for their pride. And so it went. Each human was divided down the middle. Like a tree trunk cut in two. Not surprisingly, these split humans were miserable. Even when their wounds healed, they cast about, longing for their other half. Forever searching for the piece that would make them whole. A lot has changed since Plato’s time, but the notion of a one, true love for each of us has remained.
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