For me this is one of the great questions of the human condition. Can we find a replacement for religious/faith based morality? Now I know full well that many here will state they are fine with morality and I get that. I myself while not Atheist feel no need for any unprovable force or being to act with what I feel is a moral compass as it were. The more vital question I think is the morality of the group. As long as there are disparate groups competing for resources the morality of the group becomes of vital importance more vital I think then the morality of the individual. For as much as an individual may want this to not be true the group always inevitably wins. I think the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a start. But I think ready access to resources within a society and the fair distribution of said resources define the real level of morality allowed within a society. How quickly does morality falls apart in nations were the rule of law and the access to resources fall apart? Another aspect in favor of morality is exposure to other cultures and types of people outside ones racial/ethnic/local sphere. And of course education and free access to information. The rise and expansion of the positive gains of science, invention and reason based governing correlates well with the rise of human rights. We are in a race were our technology and knowledge keeps pace with our destructive tendencies. Now though it seems if reason falls behind dogma and tribalism (religious or not) morality will matter little against Nuclear Winter and global ecosystem collapse. Our species corpse will be dead God or no God, morality or immorality.

because believers will just say "no, they are holy words" and the argument goes nowhere.

I have used as an explanation to a religious person of why I don't believe them, but that doesn't actually counter their point.

Lot of The so called Christians pick and choose what they believe. When it is convenient they will forgo give moral and ethics!

Check this out I wrote it!!
[conatusnews.com]

And this
[theatlantic.com]

The latter is what I based my piece on.

I've used that EXACT argument. And then I realized there is no arguing with the brainwashed.

It’s so untrue because a lot of so called religious people do horrible things! Just look at the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal.

It provided order for the tribe to live by. Did you ever notice the first 4 commandments are just about god? I could never understand that.

you haven't seen the arguments against that? i've MADE the arguments against that. one doesn't need a big inconsistent fat book to be moral. morality comes from within. a lawbook isn't a morality book. there may be coinciding principles but that doesn't make them the same thing.

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I’ve heard such arguments made and I’ve said the same thing often. I’m amazed at the number of people who become disturbed if someone questions or doesn’t believe something that is written down in what is supposedly an authoritative book. It doesn’t have to be religious scriptures. Such books as college texts often contain questionable statements. I’ve seen cases where teachers are unable to persuade certain students that something written in a text was incorrect.

IMO people should write their own holy scriptures, make their own mathematical formulae, and create their own texts. In the matter of morals, we should follow our own inner voices.

It’s easy to see other people doing group-think for subjects that we know, but to what extent do all of us fall into that same trap for subjects that are new to us? There are numerous examples of supposedly smart and open-minded people clinging to some dogma and later having to eat crow.

This is a very old argument that the religious keep going on and on with. Morality is simply a societal outreach of the structure of your laws and rules. This is why it keeps changing and also why it is different in other parts of the world.

Watch Matt Dillahunty of The Atheist Experience. He regularly debates on the topic of morality, and his response to people who say to use the Bible as a source of morality are excellent.

Well what I find interesting is that the bible says things like that if a woman who is promised to someone for marriage gets raped in a town than both her and her rapist must be put too death whereas if a woman who is not promised to be wed gets raped than the rapist must pay her farther and marry her. It also indorse’s slavery (or at the very least is indifferent to it) and that’s in both the new and Old Testament and I find both of these things (for lack of a better phrase) morally abhorrent

Morality, to me, is actions taken to cause the lease damage to scociety (or an individual depending on situation) I can. I don’t need a holy book to tell me that.