Atheism and moral principles
Offline Sunday School has been somewhat effective in teaching children to behave, treat others nicely, and not do bad things, where bad things are a set of actions that go against society and religious doctrine (murder, theft, lying, cheating). Of course this won't make everyone a saint, but it does set a framework for kids to go by, much like a parent telling their kid not to murder or steal. Now place the responsibility of moral teaching on the parent. Some households seem to have a better respect for treating others well and behaving well in society, and others don't. I'd blame poverty, crime filled areas, poor living conditions, inadequate living space, not enough parent-child interaction, seperated families, and argumentative parents and bad role models. If a kid can grow up in a good household they don't really need Sunday School, but in a bad household church at least acts as a backup set of morals, just as with teachers in school, or experiences in life.
There isn't really a set of moral principles for Atheists, unless you wanted to make some kind of "Ethics and Values for Kids" with delightful illustrations about the main difference between the ideals of Stuart-Mille and Kant. The point is there's no standard, so any kind of moral teaching is based on luck and societal conditions. I don't want something like an absolute set of principles either. But some sort of basis for ethics, something that can supercede the dated idea of "guy with a beard says you should be nice or you get barbecued for eternity" would be nice.
Of course you can say "it's up to the parent," and it is, but you could still have a set of books with recommendations for moral teachings, or basic guidelines that people can personally accept or reject. Then the answer to the question "what authority do you have to say how we should act" would be "none" but also "take responsibility for yourself." Again, such guides to morals would not be absolute, just as any book in the bookstore does not have to followed. And while most of the ideas behind morality and ethics are common sense, not everyone spends time teaching their kids how to behave. Some of them even rely on old Bible stories.
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Biology provides a set of built-in human morals, neurologically hardwired into human brains.
The research is still scattered across a variety of cutting-edge published works, and the evidence is still coming in. So it will be a few years before somebody decides to write a book about it and it filters down to children's books. I give it five years at the most.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
Really? I thought biology was just physical, and that you kind of make up your own morals as you go along throughout life.
To address the post though, it seems that we should have a very few moral absolutes, like rape, child abuse, molestation, and the like. Other than that, there are good reasons to do anything else.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
I disagree that there should be any moral absolutes - what you eventually get into are situations where the right decision is "immoral". Instead, I would teach the child to act how he felt was best, that the morals should be from the child, not some authority.
I hope that when the world comes to an end I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.
Whoa...I said only a select few. A very select few. When could rape and/or child abuse be considered as the right decision?
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
I tend not to think of positive behaviour in terms of morality. Sure I have my own ideas of right and wrong but I fail to see how anyone, even a God can make one thing right and another wrong, sure some behaviors can be rewarded (heaven) and others punished (hell) but that's doesn't lend authority to them as right and wrong, it's just bribery and threats, not morality.
Even if our morality is hard wired (as seems to be the case atleast in part) then that's justthe reaction of our physical brains to certain stimuli, once again, not right and wrong just phyiscs and chemistry.
Positive behaviours (that we call moral) exist so that society can function. If we weren't social animals we wouldn't need these 'morals'. Right and wrong would be irrelivant. As we live in society and our lives are infulenced by the choices of those around us we need these ideas.
I think that a better framework is rights and responsibilities. Rights are certain freedoms that we like to have, so in society we have agreed to not get in the way of those freedoms. those rights come with responsibilities. These exist for 2 reasons, firstly so that you dont deny others their rights and secondly so that you actually contribute to society. If you didn't contribute then there is no benefit for society to include you. You cannot have rights without responsibilites.
If you are unable or unwilling to live up to your responsibilities then you should not have certain rights, if possible those rights should be the ones being abused in your lack of responsibility.
Children have less freedoms than adults and they have less responsbilities, As they mature they develop the ability to take on more responsibilities and so gain more rights.
If someone commits a crime (is unwilling to live up to their responsibility to respect the rights of others) we take away some of their rights for a period of time. Jail takes away many freedoms. A fine takes away your right to spend your earnings as you choose.
Many of the problems I've seen in society (and my brief teaching career) seem to be due to the fact that we teach children all about their rights with minimal discussion of the responsibilities that come with those rights. highschool students have no problem making noise in class (taking away other students' right to learn) but love to remind the teacher exactly how much lunch time they have a right to when they are given a dentention for that behavior. This is an attitude I see becoming more prevalent, this idea of entitlement without having to contribute anything.
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!