The difference between ethical atheism and nihlism is that ethical atheists have more faith

[Whateverist]

If naturalism is true e.g. there is no God and the material universe, more or less, is all that exists, the naturalist is faced with two possible stances:

1. Deny the existence of the reality of any morality at all - a human being is no more valuable than an amoeba
2. Ascribe some sort of arbitrary value to human beings

I believe that choice two, which is what the vast majority of atheists choose to do is epistemologically very similar to religious faith. In religious faith, people recognize a moral, teleological order of life in which value is ascribed to human beings as a consequence of them being created. In atheism, the value is simply ascribed to human life. The atheist might object that the value is not an objective fact, but only what is consider to be objective, but that completely denies the way that atheists use moral language (see, the language of liberalism).

I can't decide if you have your head in the clouds or up your ass. But in this you are on the same level with plenty of atheists. You insist on placing morality under the domain of reason, but that is not where morality comes from. No one responds to morally reprehensible behavior involving cruelty to others in a purely intellectual way. "Gee, don't they realize that their actions, if adopted by everyone, could one day result in harm to me or mine?" That isn't the way it works. It is empathy for others which makes us recoil against cruelty, and empathy operates at the level of feeling, not rationality.

There is no need to justify an assignment of value to people objectively, for either theists or atheists, if you recognize that empathy and not rationality is the basis of morality. One need not have a reasonable justification for rejecting cruelty in order to avoid what one finds unpleasant. In the same way I need not have an objective basis for rejecting store-bought mayonnaise in order to leave it off my sandwiches. In both cases I avoid what I don't like and pursue what I do. That isn't to say that rationality doesn't come into play to sort out conflicts in our empathy or tastes or preferences or desires generally. Of course it does. That in fact is the proper use of rationality, to serve feeling and come up with strategic goals for maximizing that which one is drawn to and avoid that which one is repulsed by. One just needs to keep rationality in its place.