On atheist morality

Life can be too queer. It’s enough to make you want to believe in god sometimes. But I won’t start that. That would be too stark a disorientation… You see, as a freelancing type, you are constantly frantic about work, about money, will I be able to pay everything at the end of the month, etc. At least if you’re me, and getting the amount of work that I am. I’d been especially frantic of late – I think it’s what made me open this blog, to let it out somehow – but now there seems to be a potentially good, fun and interesting job on the horizon. Only for a few days, but still.

I don’t believe in god. And have always been utterly convinced – and mystified when people have failed to agree – that you don’t need to be a believer to have a staunch and strong moral code. ‘How can you have morals when you don’t believe in god?’ folk ask, dumbfoundedly. But now I’m not so sure. I think my morals are based on a love, or respect, for my fellow man. And yet, not believeing in god, and not thinking we’re here for a purpose, and not thinking we’re a ‘force for good,’ makes me wonder why I should love my fellow man after all. Doesn’t my fellow man do more harm than good? Isn’t my fellow man, in fact, rather a pain in the arse? Aren’t people total stinkers to one another? But this could be just my mood talking… Look at all the wonderful things mankind has achieved, and look at how well we DO manage to suppress all our ghastly natural urges and wickednesses. And maybe I can be moral without loving my fellow man. Live and let live ins’t such a bad philosophy, after all, and yet there’s not necessarily any love in it…