Moral standards

[Whateverist]

No it wouldn't be any different if an atheist was exploiting old people to the point where they had to make do with too little to eat or without all their meds.

Same goes for anyone, theist or atheist, who makes it a point to talk down homosexuality, sexual promiscuity or drugs when they themselves are indulging what they call a vice. Religious or not, it is a good idea to have your own house in order if you want to chide others on their behavior.

(You haven't addressed my chief point: that morality is like so many other phenomena in which we find our sensibilities align quite nicely with the vast majority of our peers.)

Your point here seems to be that morality is "practicing what you preach" but if one professes that killing anyone who stands in the way of a goal and gaining power at all costs is a moral action, when they practice what they preach are they being moral?

My suggestion was that you won't find this kind of variation. No one who kills anyone who stands in their way is not going to stop to contemplate whether or not doing so is moral. If you see it differently perhaps you can name some famous people who have acted this way and also argued that they are good people.

And as for me addressing your point where the vast majority of peers agree upon morality, this idea is quite questionable. Should morality be put to a vote? Mob mentality? I think that you and I would both agree that a Nazis society is an immoral one even if the majority supports it. Or that slavery in the early United states was wrong even though the south fought to keep it.

Morality cannot be just a vote because even the vast majority can come to terms with an immoral. So I might ask you from here, when you are in the minority, what do you base your morals on?

Swing and a miss. Did I say anything about putting it to a vote? My claim is that people's sensibilities regarding what is pro- and anti-social are largely compatible. As a separate matter, we do in a sense put it to a vote to determine what shall be the law of the land. That determines what agreements are in place and what the enforcement shall be, even though we can go on talking about whether a particular law is a "just" one or not.