{"id":887,"date":"2011-12-28T16:10:32","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T06:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=887"},"modified":"2011-12-28T16:10:32","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T06:10:32","slug":"approaches-to-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=887","title":{"rendered":"Approaches to Morality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Question from V:<\/strong><br \/>\nWell, obviously you reject God.<br \/>\nAs such i must assume you reject god-given moralities, and moral rules.<br \/>\nAs such i would like to ask what are the moral rules you accept and your rational justification for them.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nThank you.<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<strong>Answer by <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/smartlx\">SmartLX<\/a>:<\/strong><br \/>\nI would say that I reject the idea that a God exists, rather than God himself.  Rejecting God directly would require the assumption that there is a God to reject.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nI covered the basics of atheist morality in a <a href=\"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=776\">piece<\/a> I wrote a few months ago.  Read that if you like, but the main point I like to make is that you and I have two choices:<br \/>\n1. The heuristic approach: use the common qualities and shared experience of all (or most) humans to create ethical standards which are applicable in as many situations as possible.  Constantly verify that adherence to the standards is beneficial to people, and revise the standards if it isn&#8217;t.<br \/>\n2. The absolutist approach: declare that one specific set of rules applies to everything, everywhere, and is supported by the authority of an all-powerful being &#8211; despite a complete lack of evidence for that being, or that if the being exists he\/she\/it actually <em>endorses<\/em> these rules.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nIt might be great if we all had a set of absolute, unchallengeable rules that guaranteed a good life <em>and<\/em> afterlife.  It might also be a nightmare, as it is in various theocracies (Iran) and pseudo-theocracies (North Korea), but it would at least give a feeling of security.  Unfortunately, until the absolute authority and eternal protective power of a deity is certain, nothing about such a system is truly absolute.  Better to work with what we know we have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question from V: Well, obviously you reject God. As such i must assume you reject god-given moralities, and moral rules. As such i would like to ask what are the moral rules you accept and your rational justification for them. Thank you. Answer by SmartLX: I would say that I reject the idea that a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=887\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Approaches to Morality&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","tag-morality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pB6tr-ej","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}