Atheism and morality

[FallentoReason]

A similar account can be given of the development of a sense of god and belief in god - such dispositions have (or may well have) conferred some evolutionary advantage on those who have it. But you wouldn't for one moment accept that in this way one can show how evolution gives rise to a god. It shows only how evolutionary processes may give rise to creatures who have the impression there is a god. So too for morality.

Firstly, I understand what you mean when you say morality and the notion of a theistic god are similar. What I find bizarre is that for one of those you're perfectly fine with saying that it's 100% fabricated with no basis in reality, but for the other, you're wanting to plant it on something solid in such a way that atheism is no longer a viable foundation. That's called special pleading, since from your own point of view you rationally have a defeater for believing either god or morality to be real (if I've correctly understood the above).

Secondly, I think something needs to be clarified before this thread can go any further. What is it for morality to "exist"? Let me explain. A similar example of morality would be money; it deals with physical objects made from trees and splatters of ink which we then call "money". But does it exist? Is currency actually a thing? No, I'd say that it's a concept which we've all agreed on. We have collectively decided to value these bits of paper and ink in such a way that it makes people give us things in return for this colourful paper. Likewise with morality, it deals with physical things (us) but the "value" which we assign actions with doesn't "exist" per se. Punching someone is nothing more than the molecules forming my fist coming into contact with the molecules forming someone's jaw. But we see this "transaction" as "morally bad", and just like the concept of money was something we realised would be integral for the functionality of society, so too did we realise that hurting your fellow human would be inversely integral for the functionality of society.

If my reasoning above is sound, then I'd say that your search for this place where morality "exists" is a lost cause. Furthermore, if morals were to exist independently of us, it would make them an objective truth which surely means we could a priori derive a list of do's and don't's. In the history of humanity, such a mythical set of morals has never been found which strongly suggests morality began with us i.e. evolution.