What we are taught in childhood generally sticks around with us until we die, and it takes a major event to shift us from what we learn in childhood. Even atheists say things like "Thank God" which are completely incongruent with atheism, simply because we generally spent the first highly-impressionable 13 years of our lives around people who said such things. We also say other things which those same Christian people said around us, but I can't repeat them here without getting this answer flagged and deleted. So there's that first initial lesson taught to children by their Christian parents: people who don't believe in God are bad people. If you stay in your Church, or any Christian Church for that matter, throughout adulthood, you will do some Bible Study. Quite a lot of the Bible indicates that people who do not believe in God also commit major sins. In some cases not believing in God is the *result* of committing major sins. So what the Christian learned in childhood is reinforced: people who don't believe in God are bad people, and there are some very specific reasons Christians didn't learn in childhood as to why these people are bad people. Christians spend their entire lives being told by their spiritual leaders and their Holy Book that atheists are bad people. They see their spiritual leaders on days off from school and work, and have access to their Holy Book 365 days a year. As a result I'm never all that surprised when Christians need to be educated that "not believing in God" doesn't automagically equate to "not a good person."

I don't believe in god and I have good morals. Those people who believe that they have to believe in god in order to have morals have been listening to Dr.Laura to much and need to STOP immedialty.

If you have any morals, thank God for them. Any good thing comes from God. Whether you believe that He exists and learn His ways, or your morals came to you from your Cultural tradition or good parents, they are the same; there is no law against them. Does not matter how you learned them, they are operational in society and will bring the fruits associated with them. You reap what you sow in this life, this will affect us all whether we are believers in God or not. And maybe because of this verse... Ecclesiastes 12:14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (in Context) Ecclesiastes 12 (Whole Chapter)

Because God is holy, just, pure, and good. He is the source of morality. We human beings, on the other hand, are sinful and rebellious and have no righteousness of our own. God's Word, the Bible, says that our righteousness is as filthy rags. -In the service of the Master. Thank you and God bless you!

I am a christian, but I don't believe that you have to believe in God to have morals, I know several unbelievers who have good morals. You don't have to be a christian to have a conscience and know right from wrong.. So your view that ALL christians feel this way, is a little off:)

The Bible says, in Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God. It doesn't seperate believers and non-believers, it says ALL. ...to have morals?...everyone has morals some good and some bad...but for me, as a Christian, to judge you would be a sin. I wouldn't say that because one proclaims to be a Christian that they instantly have good morals. You know a tree by the fruit that it produces. -Buddy

The common arguments I hear spring from the idea the god is the source of all morals. If there is no god, there is no reason not to do wrong because there are no eternal consequences. If we are the product of 'evilution' then it's all survival of the fittest and it's just fine to murder anyone you need to etc. etc. It is, of course, complete piffle. Moral standards existed looooooong before Yahweh was even a little tribal god in a small corner of the middle-eastern desert. They existed in societies that had never heard of him. Moral code has developed out of our need to co-operate to survive. Man is a social animal - we cannot live long by ourselves (too slow, thin skin, average eyesight, no claws, relatively weak, lion fodder). To live in a group, the only way to survive is to sacrifice some individual desires for the benefit of the group. Any social animal shows this trait to a degree. Humans just developed it to a high level of sophistication with our better brains. The other reason it is piffle though, is that morals have changed significantly over the millenia, even though god's supposed to be "the same yesterday today and forever". Most christians struggle with, reject or just ignore the violence of god in the OT. Back then, it was considered reason to think god was just GREAT! Why the change? Our society has adopted a very different moral code. Religion helps inform that code, and society helps inform the religion and so on - but moral codes are still made up by us - not delivered to us from Sky Daddy on carved stone tablets...

I am a Christian, but I do not believe we have the corner of the market on morals. God is still present in this world and influencing people even those who do not believe in Him. But morality will change from person to person and culture to culture if it is not based on God's revelation through the prophets and Christ. That is why there is no common morality throughout the world.

I don't know. Maybe it helps them think they are better than the rest of us? When I left the Christian faith, I lost some friends who didn't understand that I was still the same person, I just didn't worship a Christian God anymore...

I'm a Christian, and I know alot of non-Christians who have great morals. I'm not sure if I know any Christians in my small circle that feel that way. In fact, alot of non-Christians have BETTER morals than some Christians.

The question isn't do atheists have morals, because obviously they do. The real question is is Where did they get these morals? If there was no God would these morals have naturally developed? Atheists have morals, but did they get them atheistically? Doubtful.

There are several reasons I think. Some believe you need to fear the Big Cop in the Sky to be good. Other have been taught that atheists and heathen and devil worshipers and evolutionists eat Christian baby hearts. (OK a mild exaggeration - I meant that figuratively.) Other are simply arrogant pricks who look down on everyone else.

I am one Christian who doesn't believe that. I have lots of non-Christian friends who have morals.

I think the tendency to think along those lines stems from a basic and instinctual pessimism. Some people don't think humanity can handle itself without an authority figure like God, because deep down they really don't know whether we are special, whether we are some higher life form that calls for justice and honor and truth or if maybe we are just tool-making animals. They don't know what you get when you strip a man down to just another animal, whether we are angels or just sacks of meat working on autopilot to survive. They don't want to know, because they are afraid of the answer. "I know you would like a God to come down and feed you, and punish you." Margaret Atwood had it right; people don't think they can cope on their own.

Lack of perspective (to put it mildly). Brainwashed by religious leaders to state it bluntly. Example: 1) I believe myself to be moral 2) I believe God directs my (or my groups) decisions, and dictates specific groups of moral rules (laws). Therefore, God is required for a sense of morality. Since I know the mind of God, it matters not what others think or believe because they are wrong. Scary isn't it?

That's not necessarily true from what I've seen.

They don't believe that Atheists have no morals but they do not know what an Atheists morals are. As a Christian (monotheist), I know where other monotheists like other Christians, Jews, and Muslims are coming from. I know at least the basis for their standards of morality. I even know somewhat where Hindus, Buddhists, and other "Eastern" religions are coming from. But this is not the case with Atheists. Each one has to assemble his own code of morality. What does each one think is good and evil? And why? What if some important thing to me like the dignity and value of human life is not valuable to him or her? This unknown quality of Atheists is what creates fear in some Theists. With love in Christ.

You have a good question, because a lot of people think that, wether christian or not. I on the other hand, being a christian think this... all people when they are born have a basic instinct of morals. People in tribes in Africa, who have never heard about God know that killing is bad, as well as stealing and the lot. It's been placed in us. You can see it in a child when they've done something wrong, their guilt is present and obvious before anyone says anything. God, however also gave us free will. The ability to choose to do right or wrong. That is why there is so much evil in the world. God cannot and will not force His hand in our lives to stop this, because of our free will. Morals are in believers and non-believers...hope this helps

I think Christians view their own path as being a difficult one, and those who stray away from that path are immoral. It helps motivate them to stick with it even when they have doubts, because they are worried that once they fall off the edge, there's no going back. So when they look at another person who is not a Christian, they can't evaluate their choices objectively, they just see a person who isn't on the "right" path, and judge them to be immoral. I have this problem because I am a non-Christian, but my family are mostly devout Christians, and a lot of the time I make very difficult moral choices and go to a lot of effort to be a good person, a lot of the time even more effort than my Christian family members might, but then my family can't respect what I'm doing and just see me as a heathen non-believer hedonist.

The reason I hold to is that morality makes no sense without a god to define it. Morality just becomes subjective and the term good becomes quite meaningless. Of course Atheists have morality, but thats there are only 2 possible reasons for that. The first (assuming God's existence) would be that like every other human, they have been created with a conscious but stiffled sense of right and wrong. The second (assuming God's non-existence) is that they have inherited a random and ultimately meaningless set of laws from Theists through culture, who in turn gained them through evolution. The laws to not point to any true indication of right and wrong. In effect, morality does not truly exist. To say that Theists think that atheists are immoral people is to completely misunderstand the argument. We just rightly point out that you have no basis or definition of objective morality.

God is considered (by believers) to be the architect of morality. As the creator of all humans, he has the final say on what is and what is not right and proper. We can (and should) question why our "creator" didn't allow us to establish our own set of values (but in reality, we did), allowing that our choices and abilty to govern our bhavior will ultimately determine whether we fail or succeed as a species. Most followers the Abrahamic faiths will insist that morality would be non existent without a belief in God, more specifically, having first come from God. Those religions lack faith that their God created us, like ever other creature, strong enough to make it or on our own or face extinction

You don't need to believe in God to have morals, this is part of Christian teaching: all people have a conscience as a moral guide. Some noted atheists have written whole books to try and "prove" this, when it is not in dispute. Whether SOME Christian people claim what you claim, I cannot tell. There are some things expected of Christians over and above the moral law (Love your enemies) but otherwise we all have an in-built moral guide and we all either follow this guide, or not, whether we are Christians or not.

They don't!

I know of no Christians who think that. If there are any, they are wrong.

They don't. Back to the drawing board!