Religion provides a readily understandable answer as to why we should behave morally: Be Good or God will punish you in the Afterlife. (Note, I use God, Good and Afterlife generically. No particular religion is implied). Conversely, it is less clear in the absence of belief in God how one establishes the fundamental principles for the basis of moral behavior. Rather than do the intellectual heavy lifting necessary to grasp atheistic moral principles, many people decide they simply can't exist and that atheists, by definition, have no fundamental moral grounding for their behavior. . . .

The basis for this belief is not that atheists want to be bad or abhor good, there are many reasons within their varied beliefs which would persuade them to be "good", according to the standards of law where they live or sociocultural influences. What some people think is that morality can not exist apart from that which is found in the Bible, for instance. They think that without the guidance of the Bible men will inevitably turn to doing what is bad, and that men are inherently bad. The irony is that this is Satans accusation against man in the Bible. Satan believes that men are bad, and should be destroyed. He also thinks God is bad, but that's a whole different story. What the bible actually says on the subject is that men can be good without the law, that their own conscience bears witness for or against them, as the case may be. .(Romans 2:12-16) 12 For instance, all those who sinned without law will also perish without law; but all those who sinned under law will be judged by law. 13 For the hearers of law are not the ones righteous before God, but the doers of law will be declared righteous. 14 For whenever people of the nations that do not have law do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves. 15 They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused." Unfortunately many who profess to be Christians really are not "doers of the law". These ones, as the Bible says later in this verse, are causing "the name of God to be blasphemed among the nations".(Romans 2:24) By their poor conduct and perversions of judgement, inaccurate interpretation of scripture, thay have given God a bad name by associating themselves with him, and also given the Bible a bad name, so that these people of the nations are pushed away from it. Yet they have no superiority over "people of the nations", or non-christians, since they are themselves imperfect, and can only achieve salvation through undeserved kindness. They also have no superiority by having knowledge of the law, unless they have faith in he message and actually put it into use, make changes in their life an try to do good. (John 15:14) "You are my friends if you do what I am commanding you" When they are trying to teach these outsiders to do what is written in the law, they also teach themselves the law, and are required to do it, are they not? So when they do bad things, what advantage do they have? (Ezekiel 3:20) "when someone righteous turns back from his righteousness and actually does injustice...for his sin he will die, and his righteous acts that he did will not be remembered" So, in conclusion, men can be good without the law, or bad. Also, men can be good with the law, or bad. The law is good, always was, always will be, but some who profess to follow it do not know it, do not apply it, and misrepresent it to many. As the Bible says, men without law who follow it by nature actually prove the law, and prove Satan a liar; they prove that man is good and worth saving.

Lots of people believe that Atheists are bad people. So, they wrongfully believe that lack of morality should be one of their personality traits.

Well there is no basis for that claim at all I was an atheist once and I can tell you that is false. But perhaps you are misreading what they are saying. An atheist has no set in stone moral codes. See a Christian has to operate by the bible as his book of morals and if he doesn't he's a hypocrite (And there are a lot of hypocrites out there) an atheist doesn't have this problem. See I was an atheist once and even then I thought pre-marital sex was probably a bad idea. But I didn't have a lot of conviction behind it. So it was my intention to wait until marriage but if a hot girl wanted to sleep with me I could easily just thrown that moral code out. I'm not saying you particularly would do this but an atheist can change their moral codes to suit them. Now that I'm a Christian I can't change my moral codes to suit me. If a hot girl wants to sleep with me and I give in then I have sinned and that will be on my concious for the rest of my life and trust me I will take the guilt with me to the grave too. Because the set of morals I subscribe to says its wrong and I did it anyways. An atheist makes up their own morals and can change them at a whim without ever being a hypocrite.

It's the difference between absolute morality vs situational ethics. Or, in computer terms, it's the difference between a database and a program. People of religious faith believe in Absolute Morality. The concepts of right and wrong are given to them in a list from on high, and for them to find out what is moral or not is by doing a mental database query- look it up. Without faith, we have Situational Ethics. We evaluate each situation by a number of factors- what happened? What was the motivations? what were the consequences? what is the societal impact? who might this effect? For us, it's not just a look-up table, but a process of applying logic and reasoning (our internal programs) to the situation to reach a conclusion. When the faithful look at us, they are confused. We have no database, so we have no morality! They don't get that we don't need a database when we have well-written code. :)

The idea of a God is necessary to some. To others, it seems clear that to be intelligently human is to be GOOD. To try to make the bit of world that we CAN influence into a decent bit.

Its propaganda they tell themselves to make us, "Them". If we're not with them, we're against them, so they need something to make us apart from them. People make up their own "facts" and cling to them as if it would give them eternal life- it's really sad.

All generalities are false. Sometimes an Atheist is more moral than a Christian, or it can be the other way around. No person should be judged on solely their opinion. Personal beliefs should be allowed to be personal and respected.

Easy - make the godless heretics seem like evil wicked souls with no morals and you can denounce them to the flock and stem this rising tide of Atheism and falling church profits. Simple ;) Crazy argument though I mean if I do something good I do it because I have reasoned it is a "good" thing to do, a moral thing to do. It doesn't benefit me but via compassion and so forth I do it for the good of others. BUT becuase I don't do it to please God does that make the act immoral? EDIT: Another thought occurs that it is the last chink in the armour. Religion cannot win on metaphysical, scientific or rational lines so they go for the last refuge - "those that don't believe aren't misguided or anything like that, they are morally vacant scum that should not be listened to because they don't know right from wrong." Classic Ad Hominem in the light of the failure of any other argument to prove that they are right.

sorry another mispost I really need to go to bed...

mispost

Because there seems to be some religious people that think ..if you don't follow their beliefs, you are immoral... plain and simple and simply not true

Psalm 14 for the christians. The respective holy books for the other religions.