Atheist moral code

[Esquilax]

The problem with with atheist morality is that it all depends on what the individual considers immoral.

"The problem with the morality of people called Lek is that it all depends on what the individual considers immoral."

You wanna argue that? Betcha I could find someone willing to call themselves Lek in the same manner you do, who'll disagree with you on one or more of your moral precepts, and then bam, you specifically would be a moral relativist. But I think we both know that's not fair, and that's for the same reason that your claim about atheism isn't fair: atheism is a single quality that a person has, not an overarching worldview like Christianity. They aren't equal concepts; atheism's opposite isn't Christianity, it's theism, which is also a single quality that a person has and doesn't necessarily entail a set of moral values with it. Both are just opinions on a single issue. Atheists are no more moral relativists as a set than Metallica fans or people who like The Wire; all three of those groups may not have unifying moral principles that they all share, but that doesn't entail that all members of that group are bound to strictly relativistic morality. You're making a category error there.

I mean, that's just ignoring the profound rudeness of just making that assumption rather than just asking; personally, I'm not a moral relativist at all, I don't think morality is subject to opinion and nothing else, making your assertion incorrect at the outset.

If someone considers murdering or stealing moral and can get away with it, he's okay.

Additionally, I'm certain I've explained exactly this concept to you in other threads, making it quite bothersome to see that you haven't learned at all what we may think, when you seem so intent on talking about it.

That goes for anything else he decides to be moral. It's hard to argue that anyone is acting immorally if you claim that morality is something that each individual decides for themselves.

I don't see anyone here claiming that but you, and you don't even have the decency to claim it for yourself, you've decided to tamper in other people's claims.

How does a society decide to establish laws that are fair to all, when everybody could claim a different morality?

How do people vote for president, when everybody could claim a different candidate?

I don't happen to think I'm making a good comparison, but it is at least a valid one.

It seems to me that they started with the conclusion and worked toward justifying it. This seems to be the case with most attempts at formulating a secular ethical theory. People start from the belief that violence and fraud are wrong then work backwards looking for ways to support that conclusion. It really isn't much better of an approach than 'Creation Science'.

Whether they worked backwards or not, that doesn't necessarily mean there's no way to work forward, and I happen to think that there is: thinking beings benefit from a society in which violence and fraud are wrong, as a simple consequence of reality, and this is sufficient justification. If you're tempted to ask me why we should use the benefit of thinking beings as our standard, I'll remind you that we all end up at axioms sooner or later. It's a part of epistemology we're unable to escape as yet.