Why 'should' atheists be moral?

[Mister Agenda]

I agree we are the way we are because we evolved as social creatures but now we are intelligent enough to realise that why do we not go back to every man himself.

Because that would be stupid, as you've conceded elsewhere when you acknowledged that a society where we don't do that is better than one where we do. Broken individuals may not have sufficiently developed moral sentiments of fairness and reciprocity, senses of guilt and shame, or sufficient empathy to refrain from preying on their fellow humans; but the majority do.

'Can we avoid being moral as individuals'. Yes is the answer. I know it is wrong and immoral to steal. However, I can make my life better if I do it. The question is why 'should' I not steal it?

It isn't possible to prey on others without bad consequences. The most you can do is prey on others without getting caught. Not getting caught doesn't protect you from the knowledge that you are behaving as a parasite, a drain on society that the rest of humanity would be better off without. If you are unencumbered by conscience, empathy, and guilt you'll find a way to combine enriching yourself and hurting people no matter how intelligent you are. Our inherent moral predispositions are necessary in order to WANT to be moral. If your brain is mis-wired so you don't have them, having morality explained to you is like a blind person having color explained to them...there's only so much of it they can understand without direct experience.

"Can a murderous psychopath make a conscience decision to be moral?" I think this is irrelevant to the debate. Like I said I'm assuming everyone agrees on what is moral and people 'purposely' going out of their way to do something immoral for the benefit of themselves.

A murderous psychopath can 'learn the rules' but can't stick to them pretty much by definition. Most people who are serious criminals (murderers, rapists, career criminals) who aren't driven by desperation (like an addict's need to finance a 'fix' or a hit-and-run driver's fear of going to jail) are sociopaths, they have a personality disorder. Most people don't do bad things because they know they will 'feel bad' if they do. If you won't 'feel bad', you're likely to do something immoral to benefit yourself.

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This is exactly what I'm asking, why should someone not let themselves be the exception? Yes, it would ruin society if everyone said this but if you know everybody else isn't going to say this, which is how it is in out society, you can benefit from being the exception. Religious people would say they wouldn't do this because of God, what is the reason an atheist can give for not doing it.

What makes 'because of God' a better answer than the ones we've given you?