If you read enough articles, and watch enough videos, created by the religious they’ll often mention one of the following with regards to atheism:
Without a higher power and moral law giver, how can you have a set of moral laws?
and
You’re just an atheist and rejecting god because you want to be bad and just do anything you want to do.
As a life-long athiest, I’ve got to say that I find these two statements quite insulting.
The first statement seems to suggest that it would be entirely impossible for human society to generate it’s own moral code, and for the same society to judge whether its individual members had acted in accordance with said code. Humans are social creatures that like to live in social groups. For a group to survive each member of the group must act in a manner that is generally conducive to the common good. Thus you can pretty much guarantee that such acts as murder, assault, rape etc would be high on the ‘NO’ list.
Quick aside… It’s interesting that there is no mention of rape or assault in the ’10 commandments’. This would seem to suggest that they’re OK. God will punish me if I steal a loaf of bread, or get jealous of my neighbours new BMW. However, he seems less worried about me beating my neighbour up and raping his 18 year old daughter. Please note, I am not saying that christianity says these things are OK, just pointing out that if you don’t bother to take a closer look at the wider picture you can make a big mistake.
Back on topic… It should be obvious to anyone who actually thinks about it that any cohesive society will quite naturally over a period of time arrive at a set of moral laws (which may or may not be codified into actual Laws) that allow the society to prosper. Those that are unable to follow the moral laws of their society will be ostracised.
Onto the second statement… Given that I have been an atheist basically all my life it doesn’t entirely apply, but let’s assume it does. The premise seems to be that I’m rejecting gods moral code so that I can perform immoral acts with impunity. Well, lets see how well that holds up. Most of the biggies are covered by the laws of pretty much every country on the planet, and in most places the police force is sufficiently good at their jobs that I’m unlikely to go unpunished. Thus, even if I was inclined to murder, rape, assualt, theft etc, there would certainly be consequences to my actions. Even the ‘minor’ morals that go towards making me a generally nice person and which aren’t normally covered laws cannot just be ignored. If I was someone who didn’t reciprocate the kindness of friends and family, who didn’t help the less fortunate when I could, and didn’t give back to the community in which I live, then I’d quickly find that I would become an outcast.
Hopefully, I’ve demonstrated the point, that morality is innate in our own nature and the nature of the society in which we live.