Atheism and Morality - Is Atheism Immoral?

It is a fairly common notion that atheists are "immoral." It is my opinion that this is a stigma placed on atheists, and is the result of ignorance regarding what atheism really is. For those unaware, atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god. There are no inherent beliefs tagged along with it. Atheists, without having much ground to stand on, formulate opinions and viewpoints that often contradict traditional and religious ideals. If to be immoral, one must act against the status quo; then perhaps atheism is inherently immoral. If morality is a much more complex issue, and I believe it is, then making the argument that atheists are, at least, morally neutral is relatively simple. As a note: there is no possible way I would make an argument concluding that atheists are morally superior to any other group. This is simply not the case. Additionally, no other group is morally superior to atheists either. If an individuals feels this way, then they are simply making this claim out of ignorance to the variety of moral theories available to work off of (Kantian moral theory, utilitarian moral theory, feminist moral theory, theological moral theory, etc.).

The basis for religious and societal views that atheists are immoral is very much based in historical perceptions of atheists, and by extension pagans.

The English word "atheism" has a literal meaning, which is simply non-theism. Therefore, it is defined in most dictionaries as the absence of theism, or the refusal to believe in a God or gods. However, the Third Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary (copyright 1992,1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company) still retains an older definition which happens to be quite convenient for the fundamentalist hate-mongers:

Atheism

Noun.

1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.

2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.

3. Godlessness; immorality.

(Quote is taken from creationtheory.org)

The fact that under atheism's definition is listed immorality is how we can begin to understand how this perception has slipped into mainstream thinking. This is a rather unfortunate thing, considering how atheists by and large are fairly productive members of society like anyone else. Atheists are only immoral if we hold them to religious standards as dictated by the Bible or the Koran (among other holy books). It is not fair to pigeonhole atheists into the moral code as dictated by religion, considering there are many other "moral avenues" which can be taken. For example, I consider myself an adherent to utilitarian moral theory. While it is not perfect, it seems to be most effective for my own day to day life when I make moral choices. I will elaborate further on utilitarian moral theory and it's relation to atheism in another post, as it would require much more space then I wish to dedicate to it in this post.

The final issue related to the morality of atheists is as follows: with what evidence can anyone successfully make this claim that atheists are inherently immoral? From my own research, there is very little to support this claim. Studies which suggest this are statistically insignificant or are significantly flawed in their data collection methods. While one could certainly argue that individuals atheists are immoral (which is reasonable enough), the entire group is not inherently immoral just because they are atheists. That last statement is most important to the purpose of this article: being an atheist does not imply one is immoral.