meritocrat

Not true.

As someone else said there is no such thing as the 'one true freedom'. Respecting others' freedoms is simple and is the basis of society.

I could easily obtain a gun and shoot as many people as I wished. Tell me why I should NOT do that.

DRFseven

Meritocrat, I repeat, "Why is it "of course" wrong to kill or steal. How do you know that? Why is it wrong to infringe on others' rights?

You say there must be a reason; don't you have one? If you don't have one, how do you know it's wrong?"

Violent Messiah

meritocrat, kindly answer first DRFseven's inquiry regarding the basis of how you label things as 'wrong' or 'right'.

Secular Pinoy

You have not actually answered my comments. I pointed out that, even on the assumption o theism, your comment Disregarding whether you are a believer in theism or not, God's word is the basis for their morals. It is absolute is questionable. You have not given any reason for people to believe that 1) god is the source of morality(even if god does exist), 2) god has revealed his choice of moral precepts (what reason have you shown that, if god exists, that he had to reveal his word to us?), and 3) god's morality is not absolute (following from the logic of your other comment that I have highlighted).

Violent Messiah

Secular Pinoy:

I have. As i repeatedly stated, i'm not arguing that theists' TC / eight fold path / golden rule is correct and atheists' _______ is wrong. The reason I posted was to know what was the ________ of atheists.

Secular Pinoy

I understand your position regarding atheists and morals. Still, your above quoted sentences are unjustified. You have claimed it without showing that it is true, or that it even follows from a prior belief in theism. I haven't seen any response from you concerning my above points. If you cannot defend your above quote, then I suggest you say so, and drop it.

DRFseven

Secular Pinoy, VM does not, at this point, need to defend his/her position. VM has stated his/her standard and asks that you state yours.

AdamWho

However, every answer given has not been satisfactory (as far as I can tell) for VM. Given this I believe it is justified to question the motives and assumption of the question to better answer. It maybe the VM is just shopping for the answer they want or has presupposed that there is no moral foundation for atheists.
Either way; no real conversation on this topic can occur when one side just throws out red-herrings.

DRFseven

But why don't you tell what the standard is? VM has said that in his/her opinion, atheists don't HAVE a standard.

AdamWho

I gave a procedure for developing a (not THE) moral standard.
I believe it to be rational process and descriptive of how people actually develop their morals whether they know it or not.

Generally people think of morals as a list of do's and don'ts but it seems that thinking about it this way misses how we actually make moral decisions on a day to day basis.

Morals are based on the individual’s values. Since each individual may have different and often conflicting values they have to use their brain to weigh each value accordingly, this is called ethics. The balance that is struck between completing values is a guideline for their actions; these are called morals.

Whether a person knows it or not they are going through the process of weighing their conflicting values constantly to make moral decisions.

This was outlined in a previous post
This process might be unsatisfying to the person looking for a list of dos and don'ts to guide their life. However, I think that a rational process it the answer not a static list of shoulds.