Where do atheists get their morality from?

[genkaus]

What search terms should I put in?

"a serious post by genkaus"?

Somehow your search function suggestion doesn't seem to be well thought out.

Please read complete sentences before responding. I said "search function or threaded mode".

On your first claim genkaus, I'm afraid you are mistaken. I believe the question of whether you believe a God exists or not dramatically transforms what you RATIONALLY consider to be the moral way to live.

No, it doesn't. Consider DeistPaladin, whose views on morality correspond to that of an atheist while still believing in god.

If you believe the God is your source of moral values, given most classical definitions of God you become, necessarily, a moral realist (ie, God exists outside of your mind, in reality, he is the source of morality, therefore morality is outside of your mind, in reality) and objectivist (God is the source of all truth. God exists outside of the mind, therefore truth exists outside of the mind).

Now this would be the case even if you believed that God existed but chose to not worship him or obey him. The mere fact that a God exists makes him the source of morality and truth, regardless of whether you are a follower or not.

So a lot of one's morality hinges on the question of atheism, and the above ought to explain how. But you already acknowledge this in your second point, which seems you are contradicting yourself: You acknowledge that morality and belief in a deity are linked. But perhaps you mean that a belief in God does not then provide specific moral propositions. Is that your claim?

Wrong. On so many levels. How is that even possible? Allow me to go through your mistakes one by one.

1. "If god doesn't exist, then he is not the source of morality" - this is what I said. What you concluded form that was "If god exists, he is the source of morality". I forget the name of this logical fallacy, but an example would be "If it's not sunny outside, the streets are not dry" does not imply "If it's sunny, the streets are dry".

2. Even if you argue from definition (i.e. defining god as the source of morality), the only thing that would tell you is "the morality of believers is based on their belief". The correct negative of this would be "the morality of non-believers is not based on their non-belief". Which leaves the non-believers open to the plethora of worldviews to base their morality on.

3. Your definition of a moral realist is wrong. A moral realist says nothing about the source of morality, he simply attributes factual nature to moral propositions. Further, just by saying that morality exists outside your mind does not make you a moral realist.

4. An objectivist is someone who subscribes to the philosophy of objectivism - a school of thought which is inherently atheistic. Try not to tell an objectivist that he actually believes in god or you'll get punched in face.

5. The sense in which you are using the word objective is wrong as well. In fact, if one does believe that god exists, then one must necessarily be a subjectivist. Firstly, the correct form of your argument would be "God is the source of all truth. God exists outside of the mind, therefore the source of truth exists outside of the mind" - it says nothing about the truth itself. Further, another argument here is "God is the source of all truth. The truth exists inside god's mind, therefore truth exists inside of a mind, therefore, truth is subjective".

6. The same argument applies to morality as well - "God is the source of all morality. God exists outside your mind, but morality exists inside his mind and not in reality. Therefore, morality is subjective".

7. Even if belief in a deity and morality are linked (which isn't necessarily the case), non-belief in a deity and morality are most definitely not linked. I guess I'm repeating a previous point here, but it bears repeating since you made this mistake atleast four times in this post alone.