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Home » The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints » Current Church Doctrine » Can an Atheist be Moral?
Re: Do what is right or do what is legal? [message #306 is a reply to message #301] Mon, 25 April 2011 17:57 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Seeker is currently offline  Seeker
Messages: 244
Registered: June 2010
Location: Las Vegas
Senior Member
Good comments and well expressed.

In the dictionary I looked up "moral" and found that none of the definitions for "moral" include God. But they include thing like:
Quote:
of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/moral

I looked up immoral and found the God was not mentioned there either. I found things like:
Quote:
violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics. - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immoral


This leads me to conclude that the founding fathers who say that morality requires a belief in God would say that morality or Right and wrong is determined by God. And that without God, morality cannot exist.

Morality, (distinction between right and wrong), must be defined by someone, either society or God or ???.

If you say only God can tell us what is moral then we have to ask who determines what God says. Many murders, inquisitions and holy wars have been accomplished by those claiming to teach God's morality. So, if morality, (distinction between right and wrong), is determined by God, then no one knows what is moral except for what God has told them in personal revelation, not through man. And to believe a man without God telling you what is moral is to believe in a man and not in God and so is immoral.

This personal revelation by which the believer received his morality is the same way that an Atheist comes to understand truth as well except that he calls it intuition, understanding conclusions or some other form self realization which negates the source of the information but recognizes the validity, power and correctness of the information.

So, what if morality was defined by natural laws that existed from the beginning and were discovered by our God or taught to our God by someone greater or more progressed?

What if the natural unbreakable laws which define true morality could be discovered by observation and contemplation? Could someone conclude the moral law based on natural laws while at the same time be sickened by the corrupt morality being taught and followed by every God fearing church that has ever existed on the earth?

Regarding the atheist who is immoral only in that he has no knowledge of a God but live the Godly life as inspired by God, Does God reject him or accept him?

~ Seeker

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