Where do atheists get their morality from?

[Undeceived]

Do you think morals are still morals even if followed for selfish or robotic reasons? If so, your definition of moral is different from a Christian's.

Yes, yes I do, because the action is what is judged, not the motivation. Let me tell you why in short form:
1) You can't know motivation so you can't judge it, that is just ridiculous.
2) The action is what we are judging, not the motivation, somebody who saves someone else from a burning building performed a good act without their motivation being considered. They did it and they deserve approbation regardless of their motivation for doing so.
3) This would imply that such things as a bad motivation are bad, thus a moment of passionate motivation to evil is more immoral than an actual killing with good intentions. This is clearly impermissible.
4) This leads us to judge only the unknowable, not the actual action, which is ridiculous.

This is the dividing line, then. Jesus rebuked the pharisees for doing all the right things without their heart in it. Abel's sacrifice was accepted over Cain's because he gave out of love instead of duty. The widow who gave two mites was praised for her sacrifice, not her wealth given. A person who commits manslaughter today is more highly regarded than one who attempted murder, or planned rape, or nearly got away with arson. Intent is everything. Your thoughts determine your actions. If your thoughts are wicked but your actions fail to match, you will fall back on your true beliefs the moment you are put under any strain. Christians focus on the importance of morals. They are not to create a nicer world. They are to show a person the path to a cleaner heart. It is who we are that matters, not what we appear to be. Your morality would be a costume party--even harder to judge, because a Darwinist could simply mimic a Christian and say, "Look! I'm moral. I'm just like you." There's another problem. Say morality is what you do, just for a moment. You find a dollar on the floor of Wal-Mart. You keep it. Therefore, theft is morally approved by you. Now, just outside, a mugger demands, "Your money or your life!" He takes every cent you have. Is stealing right or wrong, according to you? Your actions would say right. Your belief might say wrong. Or are you sticking to actions?

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Atheists get their morals from the same place you do, from within.

Agreed. Now what decides what is 'within'?

[Boccaccio]

This is the dividing line, then. Jesus rebuked the pharisees for doing all the right things without their heart in it. Abel's sacrifice was accepted over Cain's because he gave out of love instead of duty. The widow who gave two mites was praised for her sacrifice, not her wealth given.

What a pile of tripe that is. We already know that religious people (like pharisees) are apt to do the right thing for form rather than from thinking, and to do the wrong thing for exactly the same crude reason (or lack of it).

It is extraordinary that you avoid that the tale of the widow is praising precisely her proportionate action, her giving in relation to her wealth, nothing to do with intent. Read Mark 12:42-43 or Luke 21:2-4 and show me the word "intent" rather than proportional behaviour, or do you like to make it all up?

As for Cain and Abel, read Genesis 4:2-7 and show me the word "intent"? Show me "love" or "duty" in reference to either of those two (I am reading the KJV). Rather, littered over the OT is the fact that the smell of burning flesh is a sweet savour to your primitive tribal god. In the relevant Genesis passage Cain commits no wrong until he kills Abel, after Cain's sacrifice of what he had developed in agriculture is judged by your tribal god to be less creditable than an idle shepherd burning a sheep for the stench of burning flesh. This has something to do with morality?

The questions of the basis of moral decisions have already been covered several times over in this thread, matched only by incomprehension from theists who say "but, but, ..." before objectively disappearing up their own fundaments. Perhaps you would like to address some of the questions at which your colleagues have failed instead of preaching made-up nonsense.

[greneknight]

Atheists get their morals from the same place you do, from within.

Agreed. Now what decides what is 'within'?

This is so childish. To always assume there is someone to decide what something should be is what we have come to expect of children. If a young child sees water boiling at 100 degrees, he will ask his dad, "Who decides for the water to boil when it reaches 100 degrees, Dad?"

Why do we have morals "within" us? I've read a perfectly good explanation in an article somewhere. It's got to do with our millions of years of evolution. It seems any animal that lives in communities will, after some time, have some codes of conduct. Those who are thoroughly selfish and don't observe rules of altruism will usually perish because other animals won't share their food with it in times of famine. But animals with just the right amount of altruism will be liked by others and so they might get some handouts in times of hunger. These animals pass on their genes to their young whereas the selfish bastards die before they have time to mate. Natural selection in other words ensure that the reasonably altruistic animal survives.

Over time, we develop certain codes of conduct that our animal communities enforce. Animal communities that are all selfish probably didn't survive. As evidence that this is true, altruism has been observed in the primates that live in communities.

After aeons of evolution, we humans develop a strong sense of right and wrong based on these codes because of our community living. That becomes our conscience.

You don't need a bogeyman in the sky to develop this morality within us.

[Angrboda]

This is the fundamental divide between what is known as Virtue Ethics and other forms of ethics, being the notion that the aim of ethics is to guide people to becoming virtuous beings, first, and that an ethically good world would result from this effort. Such great thinkers as Socrates, Aristotle, the Stoics, Hume, Aquinas, Lao Tzu, and Confucious emphasized some form of Virtue Ethics. I don't think Virtue Ethics can be considered in isolation, but it is not without its supporters outside the Christian traditions.

Virtue ethics describes the character of a moral agent as a driving force for ethical behavior, rather than rules (deontology), consequentialism (which derives rightness or wrongness from the outcome of the act itself rather than character), or social context (pragmatic ethics).

The difference between these four approaches to morality tends to lie more in the way moral dilemmas are approached than in the moral conclusions reached. For example, a consequentialist may argue that lying is wrong because of the negative consequences produced by lying — though a consequentialist may allow that certain foreseeable consequences might make lying acceptable. A deontologist might argue that lying is always wrong, regardless of any potential "good" that might come from lying. A virtue ethicist, however, would focus less on lying in any particular instance and instead consider what a decision to tell a lie or not tell a lie said about one's character and moral behavior. As such, lying would be made in a case-by-case basis that would be based on factors such as personal benefit, group benefit, and intentions (as to whether they are benevolent or malevolent).

In contrast, an ethical pragmatist would judge the morality of the lie based not upon properties of the individual moral agent, but upon those of their society. The lie would be deemed immoral on the grounds that their society currently deems it immoral for various reasons (which may include the application of virtue ethics, consequentialism and/or deontology, as well as other reasons yet to be explicated), and that society is progressing morally, much as it progresses scientific knowledge (potentially over many lifetimes).

[Red Celt]

These animals pass on their genes to their young whereas the selfish bastards die before they have time to mate. Natural selection in other words ensure that the reasonably altruistic animal survives.

Just a small correction. Reading that, it looks like you're suggesting that social altruism is a genetic hand-down. It is more likely to be cultural (nurture rather than nature), but the end effect is the same. Antisocial animals fare poorly amongst social animals.

[Norfolk And Chance]

Agreed. Now what decides what is 'within'?

Your brain.

[The Grand Nudger]

Abel's sacrifice was accepted over Cain's because he gave out of love instead of duty.

Abels sacrifice was "accepted" over Cains because the culture that wrote the fairy tale valued their particular way of life over that of their agricultural neighbors. It served the purpose of value-commentary (with the official stamp of a god no less) for a people with a vested interest in herding animals. It also went a step further to try and claim the success of those neighbors for their own patron god in "the mark of cain", a curse of success and wealth. Learn your own fucking mythology so you don't butcher the only redeeming narratives, eh?

[Angrboda]

In Romans 2:14, the Apostle Paul said that the Gentiles, who had not received the law [of Moses] or, in other words, a revelation from God, had nevertheless sometimes done "by nature the things of the law" and were therefore "a law unto themselves."

If this doesn't mean that Paul believed that the Gentiles who had no divine revelation had discovered morality on their own, then pray tell what does it mean?

—

Last summer, when the story about the Lakeberg twins first appeared in the newspapers, the article was clipped and mailed to several fundamentalist preachers known to believe in absolute morality. An accompanying letter asked them to explain what the Bible had to say about the dilemma that the parents of those twins were facing. The twins were joined at the chest and shared a common heart. Surgery would mean that one of the twins would have to die, and subsequently this was the decision that the parents made. The absolute moralists who received that letter were asked to state what their god of absolute morality has revealed to us in this matter.

Not a one of these preachers has yet answered that letter.

— (Jan-Feb 1994)

[Polaris]

It is impossible for an individual living in society not to have their morality influenced by the countless millennium religious doctrine has interwoven among secular laws. You can try to deny that religion has influenced how you live your life, but you can also deny that the earth revolves around the sun....your denial does not either any less true.

Morality is not something that is inherently innate as some would like to argue, but is in fact nurtured which is why you don't see the same type of morality preserved in every culture. The current morality of a generation is ultimately built upon the sum of morality before it....think of it as an evolution of morality....the moral cues deemed desirable are preserved whereas the less desirable moral cues are dismissed.

[SeekerOfKnowledge]

Totally can answer the OP's question. Evolutionary Psychology can explain this and so much more.