You don't need a god to know that hurting people is wrong. Even chimpanzees comfort each other and get upset when things are unfair. Cultures all over the world came up with their own version of "treat others the way you want to be treated."
Empathy, fairness, and cooperation show up in our closest animal relatives, long before any religion existed. Rules like the Golden Rule appear in many cultures with different religions. And the question "is something good because God says so, or does God say so because it's good?" is a problem for everyone, not just atheists.
"Without God, there's no right and wrong. Atheists can do anything they want."
First, the plain facts about people. In a large 2024 Pew survey of religious "nones" in the U.S., 83% said wanting to avoid hurting others is a key factor in how they decide right and wrong, and a large majority said a person can be moral and have good values without believing in God.1 That's what nonbelievers say. The next sections look at the evidence for why that works.
1. We see the roots in other animals
Primatologist Frans de Waal has studied chimpanzees and bonobos for decades. He argues morality builds "bottom up" from old social instincts rather than coming "top down" from God or pure reason.2 Some of what he and others have observed:
- Comforting. Chimps embrace a distressed companion, much like human children comfort someone who is hurt.2
- Making up after fights. De Waal discovered that chimpanzees reconcile with kisses and embraces after fights.3
- Fairness. Monkeys and apes protest unequal rewards. Chimpanzees sometimes refuse a grape until a partner also gets one. De Waal reports that in an "ultimatum game" (a test of fairness used with humans), chimps gave results much like humans'.2
- Helping. In one experiment, chimps preferred a choice that rewarded both themselves and a partner over one that rewarded only themselves.3
De Waal himself says he is "reluctant to call a chimpanzee a moral being," because chimps don't reason about universal principles. He says they have "all the ingredients" that humans use to build a moral system.2 That's a more careful claim than "animals have morals," and it's the one the evidence supports.
Try it: feel your own fairness instinct
You're the second player. Someone has $10 and offers you part of it. If you accept, you both get paid as offered. If you reject, both of you get nothing. Logically, any amount beats nothing. Try a few offers.
If an unfair offer annoyed you even though refusing cost you money, that's the kind of fairness instinct researchers study. Nobody gave you a rule. It's in the wiring.
2. The Golden Rule shows up everywhere
"Treat others as you want to be treated" is not unique to one religion. Versions appear in many places, often hundreds or thousands of years before Christianity:4
| Where | Approximate date | Wording |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient Egypt, The Eloquent Peasant | c. 2040–1650 BCE | "Do to the doer to make him do." |
| Thales, Greece | c. 624–546 BCE | "Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing." |
| Buddhism (Udanavarga) | 6th century BCE tradition | "Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." |
| Confucius, Analects | c. 500 BCE | Don't impose on others what you wouldn't choose for yourself. |
| Leviticus 19:18 | (date uncertain) | "Love your neighbor as yourself." |
| Mahabharata (Hinduism) | c. 400 BCE – 400 CE | "Do not to others what you do not wish done to yourself." |
| Matthew 7:12 / Luke 6:31 | 1st century CE | "Do to others as you would have them do to you." |
This isn't a point against the Bible. It's a point about people. Different cultures, with different gods, kept arriving at the same core idea. That's what you'd expect if the idea comes from how humans live together.
3. The Euthyphro question
Over 2,000 years ago, Socrates asked a question in a dialogue with a man named Euthyphro. Here it is in modern form: Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it's good?5
- If it's good because God commands it, then "good" depends on God's say-so. If God had commanded cruelty, cruelty would be good. That seems wrong.
- If God commands it because it's good, then goodness exists apart from God. We can understand it, and we don't need God to define it.
Many philosophers of religion answer that this is a false choice. They say goodness isn't something outside God, and it isn't arbitrary either; it's grounded in God's own unchanging, loving nature. God commands what flows from that nature. Critics reply that this just moves the question one step back: why is that nature good? Reasonable people still disagree here.
4. "But what about Stalin?"
This is a fair question and deserves a straight answer. Regimes like the Soviet Union and Maoist China were officially atheist, and they committed terrible atrocities. Believers have committed atrocities too, in the name of their faith and for other reasons. The honest takeaway: atrocities come from unchecked power and from ideologies that put the group above individual people. Atheism is only the absence of belief in gods; it has no teachings that tell anyone to do anything. Critics reply that those regimes weren't merely atheist, they actively suppressed religion as a rival to the state. That's true, and it's why this site argues for open questions and free thought for everyone, believers included.
5. "Is morality just a feeling, then?"
This is the sharpest form of the challenge. If morality evolved, is it just a feeling with no real truth behind it? A common reply is that where an idea comes from doesn't decide whether it's true. Our sense of math also evolved, yet 2 + 2 = 4. Many atheist philosophers ground morality in suffering and flourishing: it matters, objectively, if a being can feel pain. Others disagree and think moral truth needs something beyond nature. That's a real, ongoing debate. You don't have to settle it to know that torturing someone for fun is wrong.
Sources
- Pew Research Center, Religious "Nones" in America (2024): 83% cite wanting to avoid hurting others; 82% cite logic and reason; vast majority say one can be moral without God.
- NPR / Science Friday, Searching For The Roots Of 'Right' And 'Wrong' (interview with Frans de Waal on The Bonobo and the Atheist, 2013). Also WAMC's transcript with his "reluctant to call a chimpanzee a moral being" remark.
- Big Think, 95% of your behavior is primate behavior (Frans de Waal); NPR, Frans de Waal: Do Animals Have Morals?
- Wikipedia, Golden Rule: dated examples from Egypt, Thales, Buddhism, Confucius, Mahabharata, Leviticus, Matthew and Luke.
- 1000-Word Philosophy, Ethics and God: the Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma (the page is a summary that introduces the dilemma and links to the full essay).