Where do atheists get their morality from?

[Jackalope]

We all ultimately get our morality from religion. No matter how much many will say that religious law does not affect their morality, they are still affected by thousands of years of religious law becoming secular law. Even if the religions behind those laws are long extinct, their legacy still remains.

I can see why you would think this, and why it intuitively would seem so. There may be a degree of truth to it as well, in that culture is shaped by common values (which can be informed by religious doctrine). In cultures where there is a dominant religion, cultural values will tend to follow the values of the dominant religion, and some of those values will find their way into law.

I certainly don't deny that religion has played some role in the development of human morality and law.

HOWEVER... In many cases, acts which are proscribed by religion are also proscribed by humanistic value systems, seemingly because we are empathetic beings who value our own well-being and therefore are supportive of laws and customs that forbid certain acts (e.g. theft, murder, assault, rape), at least within our own cultural group. (I'll admit that historically, humanity has not been consistent at applying those values to people who are "not like us".) This is evidenced by observing cultures who proscribe such acts, and who have not been exposed to religion (as it is familiar to us). I don't have a cite handy, and can't recall the specifics, but I do recall an aboriginal culture that had no recognizable concept of deity, but who nonetheless had developed a system of cultural mores overlapping those influenced by Abrahamaic religions. Then there's the animistic / shamanistic cultures which I am not sure fit into the religious mold as we imagine.

It is not necessarily so that religion informs our sense of morality and law and that humanistic values evolved as a result. It's possible that primitive humanistic values predated religion, and religion was built in part on those values.

As religion predates recorded history, this seems to be a question with no clear answer.

(*) I'll note that the young earth creationist viewpoint could likely not find anything to agree with in the above. My post assumes an audience that accepts that human culture is much older than the YEC view, and that the Biblical account in Genesis and elsewhere does not mean that all of humanity was descended from two persons with direct or indirect revelatory knowledge. I don't see much purpose in discussing this issue with someone who holds that viewpoint, as there will be little common ground to start from. (While I don't personally believe the creation story, or believe in revealed knowledge, I would not make those points of contention for the purposes of this thread.)