(November 5, 2014 at 1:38 pm)Cato Wrote: There is no single 'atheist morality', nor is there any single 'biblical morality'; making the ethical query in the OP all very confused. As has already happened, bad moral actors (God and Hitler) are immediately invoked in an effort to demonize non-existent moral codes by association.
The ubiquitous references to Hitler in these types of discussions are distractions. Hitler's belief or non-belief in God is immaterial, because Hitler's actions are universally accepted as immoral regardless of someone's religious affiliation; notwithstanding the existence of Mel Gibson and Islamacists.
Charges that Christians are immoral because the OT God was a prick are very superficial. Most Christians don't interpret the Bible literally. I don't have data to support this, but I imagine this is at least partially due to the fact that some believers can't reconcile some Biblical tales with their sense of morality and the idea of a just, loving and merciful God. Claims that someone can't be moral without a universal law giver are equally preposterous. When it comes to ethical debate, I put moral nihilists and literal Biblical apologists on the same psychopathic tendencies watchlist.
I just wish people would quit ignoring that meaningful ethical debate has been raging for thousands of years and that it is far more sophisticated than god/no-god. Virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism don't necessarily require a god, but they also don't prohibit the idea of a god in order to be meaningful and practical systems of moral guidance.
The only difference between the atheist and the theist is that the atheist does not assign good or bad or "all this" to a super hero vs a super villain.
