I spent some time talking to an atheist millennial recently. He considers himself a moral person, and he is very helpful to others. I asked him to define morality, and he said that morality was feeling good, and helping other people to feel good. I was trying to think of a way to punch a hole in his feelings-based utilitarianism. How could I show him that happy feelings are not a good basis for morality?
Now, you’re probably thinking that abortion is the most obvious example of something that is morally wrong – it’s just killing a baby because adults don’t want to take responsibility for their foolish pursuit of pleasure. But atheists typically don’t think of unborn children as people. They usually believe in naturalistic evolution, and they are committed to a view of reality where the universe is an accident, human beings are accidents, there are no objective human rights, and biological evolution progresses because the strong survive while the weak die. So you aren’t going to be able to generate a moral standard that includes compassion for weak unborn children on that scenario. If the rule is “let’s do what makes us happy”, and the unborn child can’t voice her opinion, then the selfish grown-ups win.
Instead, I decided to focus on fatherlessness. I asked him whether he thought that fatherlessness harmed children. Surprisingly, he said that it didn’t, and that he had a relative who was doing a great job raising fatherless kids. I asked him if he had ever looked at the research on what father absence does to children. He hadn’t. Then I asked him if a system of sexual rules based on “me feeling good, and other people around me feeling good”, was likely to protect children. He went silent.
Well, that was the end of that conversation. And I think it was a nice window into how millennials – who are absolutely clueless about what research says about sex, dating, marriage and parenting – think about relationships. They’re making decisions based on their feelings, then acting surprised when their “common sense” decisions based on happiness “in the moment” blow up in their faces, and destroy the lives of their children, including their unborn children.
Unfortunately, young people are having children outside of a marriage commitment more and more.
Far-left Bloomberg News reports:
Forty percent of all births in the U.S. now occur outside of wedlock, up from 10 percent in 1970, according to an annual report released on Wednesday by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the largest international provider of sexual and reproductive health services. That number is even higher in the European Union.
The EU has a higher rate of fatherless births because they have high taxes and big government to allow women to have children without having to commit to a husband:
The EU likely sees more births out of wedlock because many member countries have welfare systems that support gender-balanced child care, said Michael Hermann, UNFPA’s senior adviser on economics and demography, in an interview. Public health care systems, paid paternal leave, early education programs and tax incentives give unwed parents support beyond what a partner can provide.
More welfare and more government services make it easier for women to pursue relationships with men who aren’t interested in marriage. Hot bad boys who give them all the tingles. Big government makes those boring, predictable marriage-ready men dispensable. Big government also makes it much harder for a man who does marry to afford a stay-at-home mother for his kids, because he has to pay higher taxes for big government.
More:
The data show such births in the U.S. and EU are predominantly to unmarried couples living together rather than to single mothers, the report says.
[…]Jones also noted that the rise in births outside of marriage is closely correlated to delays in childbearing. “Women are claiming their ground professionally,” she said. “Delaying motherhood is a rational decision when you consider the impact it can have on your career, and that’s contributing to this trend.”
[….]The traditional progression of Western life “has been reversed,” said John Santelli, a professor in population, family health and pediatrics at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. “Cohabiting partners are having children before getting married. That’s a long-term trend across developing nations.”
Regardless of marital status, more couples are choosing not to have kids at all. The U.S. fertility rate hit a historic 30-year low last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hermann said the rise in births outside of wedlock has actually mitigated the decline in fertility, which “would be much steeper if women weren’t having children outside marriage.”
What’s interesting about this anti-marriage article is that they have nothing to say about the research showing that cohabitation – and also marriages that occur after a period of cohabitation – are inferior to no-cohabitation marriages. People who are serious about self-control, and who are serious about committing through thick and thin, tend to have longer lasting marriages. But we don’t prioritize chastity, fidelity and self-sacrificial commitment anymore, because that relationships that require self-denial make us unhappy.
The article concludes: “We can’t go back to the ’50s”. Right. Because if feelings-based “morality” is assumed, then any choice between adult happiness and children’s happiness will favor the adults. Today’s young people carefully AVOID any evidence that contradicts their new “happiness-morality”. They act surprised when their unstable relationships dissolve, leaving children separated from their fathers. Marriage requires that both partners have a system of morality that puts the commitment above happy feelings. People have to be accustomed to doing things that feel bad, just because they are good and moral things to do according to an objective standard of morality. The new atheist morality of happy feelings doesn’t develop the character needed for commitment.
If you ask an atheist millennial, they think they are doing a great job of being “moral”. They don’t see the messes they are making for children as something that they are causing themselves, with their own foolish feelings-based decision-making. They think they know everything about relationships through their feelings. They think that they are exempt from the patterns of cause and effect in the peer-reviewed research.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
As a secular person myself, I too disagree with him. His mortality is the Lefist everything is relative, just what makes you feel good stuff…
I think morality can be made on objective criteria, such as not harming others. Belief in evolution does not impede morality just because it can be used as an excuse by sick people. Science cannot determine our morality for us, we must make that judgment on our own. There are things proven to be better for humanity, such as Western values and not 3rd world ones in an objective measurable way depth empirical data into quality of living, mortality rates, diseases etc…. Not to mention, they’re all coming HERE!!!
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Also, there is supported data about the detriment of broken families and fatherless children being more likely to be dysfunctional and gave a higher prevalence of mental disorders
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I think basing morality on objective criteria is a start, though then comes the issue of proving which criteria is best. Even picking things such as “what helps humans flourish” makes the assumption that we are supposed to be flourishing in the first place.
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I wonder where his obligation to “feel good, and make other people feel good” comes from.
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He imposes it on himself, to project to others, so that he will look good to them, and then feel good about himself.
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Leftist virtue signaling…
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ask him why he considers his definition of morality the right one
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Yes, I did that as well.
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Ask him if he’s a good person then ask him if he’s lying. If lying to you makes him feel good, then why tell the truth? If the lie helps you feel good or leads to acting altruistic, then why tell the truth? Often times telling people truths or hard truths hurts at first but gives them more understanding of reality. If the truth sometimes doesn’t feel good, then technically it’s immoral in his worldview.
Now, he might say, “but if I get caught in the lie or called out then that might hurt or make me feel worse.” To which you could just reply “then not getting caught is a higher priority than truth or falseness.”
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My argument to a leftist has likely devolved. If they argue feelings are a good basis.
I skip facts and stags because they never seem to listen to me about it.
I will ask them questions like so feelings are the basis. And since feelings are really just positive chemical states in your body as long as that is making you feel better and others Ina better chemical state it is good.
By that standard if I miss a meal or I am sick and tired I am in a negative state, are morals now different due to my state.
Also if they create a drug that makes you happy no matter what and put it in the water now you can morally do anything to people becaue they will be happy.
Few of them get the point but I will just state changing feelings of the moment are not a good system to define rules becaue there is no standard from moment to moment how anyone will respond. And morals won’t work in any system where something as simple as a bad day will affect what makes us happy thereby changing what is moral at the moment
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The low birth rate amongst the current generation I would take to be good news among the current generation due to their inability to spread their insanity upon innocent children, but for two reasons:
1. A major contributor to the low birth rate is abortion. This, of course, is a moral abomination.
2. They cannot be satisfied with their dysfunctional worldview only being held by themselves, so they force it upon other people’s children in reeducation centers (can we really call them schools anymore?).
Otherwise, I would think a low birth rate would be cause for celebration. The evil hedonists commit generational suicide, while the Christian remnant actually has children and raises them in godliness to restore sanity and goodness to society.
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Might ask this AMM what he would say to a serial killer who told him he got a kick out of (it made him ‘feel good”) killing and dismembering other humans…
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I agree with your point but few of them seem to even listen to logic.
I find that makes me willing to wrap up a conversation quicker, if it is obvious to me they are close to logic and not even listening to anything they don’t like
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Why are you people upset with this situation. For a man to marry in today’s, marriage 2.0 climate, he has to be a fool.
Feminism is the biggest contributor to this outcome. Unfortunately ,
the children are the ones who suffer.
We at at a period in time where the cohabiting couples, are comprised of people who are products of single parents, (mostly women) and divorce.
Why would one think that getting married is the answer????
Traditional marriage is dead!!!! Seriously considered cohabitation, is an alternative. There are probably a lot more successful cohabitations
than you think!!!
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Um, because of the research I cited showing that cohabitation is more unstable than marriage. I am well aware of the dangers for men in marrying.
My solution to this problem (personally) is lifelong chastity and MGTOW. MGTOW is an option that does not get involved in marriage, does not harm children with unstable cohabitation, and does not dishonor God’s commands (read 1 Corinthians 7, which recommends MGTOW over marriage).
So calm down.
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Here are studies that do not correlate to yours!
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120118101335.htm
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/200902/no-getting-married-does-not-make-you-live-longer
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I’m not interested in whether cohabitation makes you happier or makes you live longer. I’m interested in whether it is stable. It isn’t. And that harms children who get caught in the mess.
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Divorce is a mess too!!!
I am way older than you. With what I am seeing in my area,
tri-state, that is, MGTOW is probably the best solution.
Unfortunate though it my be!!!
Why men are still getting married, is beyond what I can comprehend.
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I’m an evangelical Christian. Sex outside of marriage is absolutely prohibited. So, MGTOW it is, for me.
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