On Living an Ethical Life in the Absence of an Afterlife
A thought for the day:
I thought that if I became an agnostic I would have no grounds for ethical behavior. I’d have no moral compass. And I thought that that would probably lead to become a completely licentious reprobate. But as it turns out, that’s completely wrong. I think I actually have more of a sense of the meaning of life now than I ever had as a believer. There are lots of reasons to behave ethically. I think many of us are simply hardwired to want to love our neighbor as ourselves. And to try and do unto others as we’d want them to do unto us. And I think that since life is all there is – this life is it, that after we die we no longer exist – that we should grab life for everything that it can give us. And we should live life to it’s fullest and should enjoy it as much as we can because this is not a dry run for something else. This is it and we should help other people who are suffering now so they too can enjoy life. And so, in fact, my giving up on the sense of an afterlife has made this life for me much more meaningful.
From Bart Ehrman, author of Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them), speaking to Terry Gross last week on Fresh Air.
In his book, Ehrman says there are irreconcilable differences among the gospels. Ehrman discusses those differences, and what they tell us about Christianity, in that Fresh Air interview.
6 Responses to “On Living an Ethical Life in the Absence of an Afterlife”
This comment reminds me of something i heard Randy Pausch say about finding meaning in LIVING. . .He is the one that wrote the book The Last Lecture. He was a Professor and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the book is the last lecture he gave to his student. I heard the lecture and truly it was powerful and so affirming of life. . .
I've never understood the assumption that agnostics and atheists would necessarily have more difficulty leading ethical lives than anyone else. I have serious doubts about the underpinnings of Christianity and Islam for example, but I have strong moral beliefs, love and respect my fellow humans (well, most of them) and have an awe and appreciation of the universe around me that I think rivals anyones. One of my concerns about the idea of an afterlife is that I fear it may provide some people with an excuse not to try their hardest to help preserve the earth in as natural a form as possible, as though they are somehow going to be “bailed out” if we succeed in ruining it. While I find that to be a disturbing cop-out, I do admit to finding the idea of accountibility in the afterlife to have a certain appeal.
Also thanks to river for the tip on the Randy Pausch lecture, sounds interesting…
A true athiest merely has a different view on life. He or she doesn't find the religious belief structure particularly threatening at all. The religious view that there is an afterlife is something that simply makes no sense or seems so unrealistic. It is the religious who feel threatened by those who don't believe in the creator concept or the afterlife. As for the difference between right and wrong and the value of giving to others, o the quality of living a good life–well, that is more a matter of common sense. The origin of one's moral compass probably comes from that person's parents and/or teachers, allowing of course for what in those teachings that the person in question agrees with.
If Camus could come up with morality and ethics, who need the Spaghetti GOD to give us ethics and morality. Sartre and Camus fought the Nazis, while the Catholic church kissed their ass…
I doubt if W ever read Camus, maybe Jesus comics…
One big misconception that a lot of atheists and agnostics have about religious believers is the idea that the ethical or moral foundation of believers is based on the afterlife. I suppose that's true for some religious believers, but that's certainly only a portion.
Those atheists who assert that they can live by a fixed set of moral principles should realize that many or most religious believers feel exactly the same way; in both cases, people are attempting to align their lives and actions toward the 'greater good' but for believers that abstract 'good' is represented by a Being.
I think the atheists who choose to see religious believers as having a childlike motivation to do good only because they're going to be rewarded or punished in the afterlife are just as disingenuous as believers who refuse to see that atheists and agnostics can live according to a moral framework. We'd all be better off, and better able to coexist peacefully, if we'd see each other in the best light possible instead of the worst.
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