Hi guys, just a quick one as I've got a busy day ahead of me.

I want to bring up the issue of atheism and morality. With the recent visit by the pope to the UK the subject of religion has been in the papers and on the internet a lot this week. I've read a few things that are critical of atheism, and this morning I was reading the comment section in the Metro and I was a bit disheartened to see a fair few people equate godlessness with a lack of moral judgement.

I will be the first to put my hand up and admit that atheist morals are not religiously motivated, and as such I can see where some people whose morals are religiously motivated have a problem. For example, a Catholic is likely to see sex before marriage as a sin, but to an atheist this would be a non-issue.

But generally speaking I think instinctively we're as moral as the next person, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc. We would all see murder as a disgusting act, we would all look down on thieves inmany cases, we would all see rape as an unacceptable crime, and so on.

I don't mind atheism being criticised if the criticism is rightly due, I know I can be critical going in the other direction if I see it as due. But I think it's outright depressing to see people pointing the finger at atheism for a general decline in moral standards.

Any thoughts?

If there is one thing you can find across races, relgious beliefs, social status, it's gotta be stupidity. Of course atheists have morals!

Well as an atheist I like to kill, rape, pilage, steal, make child pornagraphy and basically just not give a fuck about anyone but myself. Oh yeah and I like to drown puppies.

To so that atheists have no morals is to say morals are absolute, only a self rightous religous person could say that especially when morals can never really be proved to be universal.

Look at the prison populations and tell me that most of them are not Christians in America.

I honestly believe that atheists have very good morals and a heck of a better judgment than half the religious people out there. Of course the lifestyle would be considered sin by most religions but then again almost everything is considered a sin.

Another thing is just how intolerant religious people can be, for example in Poland, it's just astounding.

Good people will always do good things.

Evil people will always do evil things.

But to get a good person to do a truly evil thing, one must apply religion.

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I forget who I am quoting but as I get older I find the above to be more and more true.

Most atheist morals are based on religious backgrounds. It is in religious text that our guidelines for decency are defined and that is where they come from in modern society. Killing, stealing, covetting your neighbours hard working donkey and others are seen as wrong based on those teachings.

What atheism has done is allowed people to 'move on' from laws and teachings that don't make sense and are outdated in modern society, sex before marriage is one that stands out a lot as well as same sex relationships.

I believe atheism comes from a greater understanding of the world which has happened in the last few hundred years. Science has help with this but also the indiscretions of religions that people have also moved away. Atheism should be though open to as much criticism as any faith. The morals might be seen as looser in atheism but some of these things have been going on for thousands of years, they are just more obvious in the information age.

And to get an evil person to do good things you have to apply candy :) ?

I have to quote this post because it is so damn good.

Atheists' morality comes from logic and sense. Atheists and Agnostics don't need to be told that murder, rape and theft are wrong to know it.

Not necessarily. A lot of ethical principles of Christianity were taken from the Greek philosophers (thois principles not beeing developed within a religious context).