Why 'should' atheists be moral?

[robvalue]

Very interesting discussion all round.

I think the problem lies with what exactly is meant by "should". It's very vague and contextual, so maybe the first thing to do is ask the theist to define what they mean in more detail. Often this is a good tactic against any theist argument, as they won't have given much thought to the terms they use, but are just parroting nonsense arguments they have been fed.

I think it's representative of the fact that indoctrination makes it really hard for the theist to grasp what atheism is. They can't get their head around the idea of "no religion" because they can't imagine life without it. Its kind of like a football enthusiastic not being able to grasp someone not having a favourite team.

Theists oftentimes view it as making a binary choice, say Christianity or the religion of nothing/science/evolution. They don't realize they are making a ridiculous and indeed false dichotomy as they are atheist against all other religions just like we are without beating themselves up about that.

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Also it's very easy to prove that a christian for example is more moral than their God, or has no morals at all.

Ask them if they think slavery is OK. And stoning people to death for collecting sticks on Sunday. Or forcing women to marry their rapist. Or being punished for what your ancestors have done.

If they say these are not OK, they have made their own moral judgement, and that makes them superior to the God who supports these things. If they say they are OK, they have abandoned morality completely and just do what they are told.

This makes the huge flawed assumption that the instructions they are receiving really are "good" things to do. How can they distinguish between a good god who tells the truth, and an evil God who lies? Hint: the comeback to any objection to this is, "Well isn't that exactly what a lying God would want you to think? You think God is all powerful but is not capable of tricking you, a mere mortal?"

Or, "You claim God can't lie? He did a pretty good job of that regarding the apple debacle. Here he got outwitted by a talking snake, who actually told the truth but got painted as the bad guy."