Why 'should' atheists be moral?

[mralstoner]

I am an atheist and am also a moral person. I am not trying to argue that we should not be moral but am looking for someone to give me a good reason on how to answer this question to religious people because I can't think of one myself at the moment.

It's very simple. When you take away blind adherence to tradition/religion, the only arbiter of good and bad is human desire i.e. the pursuit of happiness, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. So, as atheists, happiness/pleasure are the end goals of our behaviour.

Morality is about rules of behaviour. When we look at morality anew, through the prism of the pursuit of happiness, we can see that some rules promote happiness, whereas others are best left behind.

So, to argue for or against moral rules, you have to argue that they promote happiness. Who's happiness? Well, obviously your own first. But to convince others of the usefulness of moral rules, obviously you need to demonstrate it will promote happiness for them too. (This gets a bit hard with folks who don't recognise the pursuit of happiness).

So does that mean we should rush to remake morality anew, according to the new arbiters of pleasure/pain? Not necessarily. Rushing might not be a good idea at the moment. Our world is already in great flux at the moment, massive demographic and cultural changes are taking place within the West, and power is shifting from America to China etc. The world is increasingly an unstable place, and trashing moral traditions might destroy social cohesion at a time when we really need it.