Morality Study - People of Faith vs Agnostics/Atheists

I encountered an interesting study on morality. Its a comparison between responses between people who I dentify themselves as religious and those who identify themselves as atheist/agnostic. Many religious people contend that atheist/agnostic individuals are immoral due to the fact they do not believe in a god and even go so far as to insist that without religion society would become immoral and all hell would break lose.

Below I will give three situations. I would like to hear what you would choose in each situation and if you have faith or not. As well why you made those choices You can post anonymously if you feel uncomfortable about people knowing your beliefs. Tomorrow I will provide the results of the study.

Situation A

A train carrying five people is about to crash and all the people aboard will die. You are standing near a switch which would direct the train onto a side rail where a man is walking. The man's body would stop the train which would save everyone aboard but unfortunately would kill the man walking on the side rail.

What do you do?

Situation B

A child is drowning and you have the opportunity to jump in and save the child but you would get your trousers wet.

What do you do?

Situation C

Yo are a doctor and five people are dying in a hospital and organ transplants would save them. They all need different organs. There is a healthy man in the waiting room. If you took his organs five people would live but he would die.

What do you do?

I look forward to your repsonses.


UPDATE

Actual Study Results as promised.

These numbers were identical for both Religious People and Agnostics/Atheists

Situation A

Scarifice man to save 5 people - 90%
Wouldn't sacrifice man to save 5 people - 10%

Situation B

Save the child - 97%
Wouldn't do it because would make trousers wet - 3%

Situation C

Sacrifice man for organs to save 5 people - 10%
Wouldn't sacrifice him for organs to save 5 - 90%

As can be seen the reponses were the same for both religious people and agnostics/atheists.

Personal Note

I found it strange, personally, the discrepancy between Situation A & C as I found no difference between these situations. Both involved sacrificing someone for the sake of many yet there was no difference in the results between religious people and agnostics/atheists on both these. In situation A the majority found it ok but in Situation C it wasn't yet it is the same type of situation. Situation A was a religious allegory yet atheists/agnostics also would sacrifice the man for the sake of saving 5 people. Goes to show, morals are inate to human beings not religion, even in the complexity that such decisions entail. Recommend this Post