Atheist Analogies #2: Morality

This atheist analogy is about "morality", or right and wrong. Different people have different views of what is moral, amoral, and immoral depending on their personal philosophy.

Where do we get our personal philosophies? The primary answer from most, I would expect, would be religious affiliation. However, it's not that simple. Society, our upbringing, friends, exposure to other religions, and even education can influence our personal philosophy. Our personal philosphy influences how we view the soul of another person.

Most of all, morality is subjective. Each person or group of people has their own views of what a moral or immoral action is. You can base your personal philosophy on objective standards, but when moral and immoral between people are subjective it renders the idea of morality as being objective useless. I can say why I consider an action amoral (i.e. actions not pertaining to morality) but it's only by my standards of morality that it is immoral. As an example, I consider drinking coffee as an amoral action, but someone who has the LDS church as primary part of their philosphy would probably consider it immoral.

It's this difference that makes it almost impossible to debate the morality of an action. In order to have a debate you have to agree on the definitions of the terms involved, and if the definitions of right and wrong cannot be agreed upon then debating whether an action is right or wrong will never be resolved.