How can one rebut the argument that atheism is inherently immoral?

Question

It not uncommon to see religious people arguing that without the moral center of a religious text, true ethics are impossible.

The reasoning goes that, without a fixed moral center, atheists are free to make up their own beliefs about what is right or wrong. And while the majority of them make the "right" choices, roughly in line with "objective" religious morality, nothing forces them to do so.

They could, for instance, adhere to the ethical arguments about stealing being the correct and moral thing to do in cases of extreme inequality. Or, in a more extreme case, justify killing other humans on the basis of their actions or beliefs.

Instinctively, this argument feels wrong to me. After all, if it's really that simple, why do so many atheists make the "right" moral choices? And why do some religious people go to great lengths to justify stealing from or killing those of other religions.

Yet I cannot formulate this argument into sensible propositions. Is there a good rebuttal?

Answer 1

The argument you want to rebut seems to come in two parts, the second of which doesn't get much attention from your idealised religious person:

• morality requires a "fixed moral center"
• religious texts are the only source of a fixed moral center.

I think the latter can be directly rebutted. Atheists could have an externally-delivered "fixed moral center" from a source other than a religious text, for instance:

• What your mama told you was right or wrong.
• The categorical imperative
• The law of the land (or, if you are required to be literal about the word "fixed", the law of the land at the time you were born. That would be a very strange and dangerous way to found your morality, but it would be a fixed moral center. Frankly, one could say the same about founding your morality on Leviticus in the modern era, where many of the instructions given in Leviticus would be criminal acts. Fortunately most believers find strong moral reasons elsewhere in the texts to override e.g. the instruction to execute adulterers).
• At a stretch, internationally-agreed doctrines like the UN declaration of human rights. However, this doesn't really speak to individual conduct, primarily it's about how governments should act, and so I'm not at all sure whether it will serve in practice as a set of moral imperatives.

The religious person might argue that "what your mama told you" might be morally incorrect, and therefore is not a moral center. For example, for all we know maybe she approved of stealing. But functionally as long as it's consistent it will serve as a source of moral imperatives, and so if the religious person argues this then they have been disingenuous. They are not really arguing that ethics is impossible without a religious text, they're arguing that true ethics is impossible without their religious text, the one they hold to be correct. Simply put two such religious people, of different religions or different doctrinal inclinations, in a room together, and leave them to rebut each others' arguments.

The former claim, "morality requires a fixed moral center" might ultimately boil down to a particular definition of morality. It does seem reasonable that ethics must progress from some set of imperatives, but it might be that the words "fixed" and "center" are being imbued by the religious person with some sacred aura that a non-religious imperative can't, in their mind, compete with. If the religious person ultimately is defining morality to mean, "following the commandments of a religion" then logically speaking they're absolutely correct, atheists aren't moral, but you can get into their axioms with them in order to establish that they're begging the question.

None of this is deep philosophy, but when the argument we're supposed to be rebutting contains the statement, "[atheists could] justify killing other humans on the basis of their actions or beliefs", as if this is something only enabled by their atheism, when in fact we observe many religious people who support war and/or the death penalty, then I don't think the philosophical big guns are really required. The argument you're presenting to be rebutted is pretty weak, and an expert could present a stronger version :-)

Answer 2

I would argue that only an atheist can be moral.

Imagine two men in a convenience store: one walks to the counter, makes a purchase, and leaves. Another has a knife in his pocket and intends to rob the store. When he gets to the counter, he notices a police car pulling up, so he changes his mind, buys something, and leaves.

Which of these men was more moral? They both did exactly the same thing, but one of them only did so out of fear of punishment, while the other did so from his own intentions.

Being moral implies taking responsibility not only for your actions, but also for your own values and beliefs that lead to those actions. Otherwise, you're not a moral person, just an obedient one.

Answer 3

As a religious person, the way I usually hear this argument presented is a little different:

1. Either morality is objective or subjective.
2. Certainly, many common conclusions of subjective morality make sense (for example, not stealing: many people appeal to a Social Contract style argument to say if everyone stole, society would break apart).
3. However, subjective morality based on either what's useful or whatever is a social norm exists at a time leads to (arguably) bad conclusions - at different times and places abuse of children was seen as socially acceptable, and scapegoating people based on race was seen as useful. This means that morality cannot be subjective.
4. Therefore, morality is objective.
5. The only rational basis for a morality that is objective is one based on moral realism, and, ultimately, belief in a deity.

(So the argument goes.)

As to why atheists make the "right" choice: CS Lewis argues in Mere Christianity that all humans have an innate sense of right and wrong (many others have argued something similar). Since this is something humans share, we tend to come to similar conclusions. So, it's not quite right that religious people think atheists think don't have "a fixed moral center": all atheists share a moral center with believers, and because of original sin this moral center is flawed in all of us.

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A rebuttal to all this that usually plays well is to say that people who are religious are no better then those who are irreligious. (There is a counter-rebuttal to that, I forget if it was Lewis or Chesterton: the thing that matters isn't whether a religious person is better morally than an atheist person, what matters is whether a particular person is morally better with religion than without.)

Another rebuttal would be to attempt to discredit objective morality: either that everything is just convention, and that the claim to objective morality just followed from the convention (Matt Ridley has a new book that makes this claim).

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Answer 4

I think you indicate some arguments already in the end of your question.

1. History shows that theistic and atheistic people do not differ concerning general accepted moral standards like no stealing, no killing, not breaking promises, no violence. Why is that so? Because a society, which violates these rules, is not stable, and nobody likes to live in a society with permanent threats.

2. Kant's ethics based on the categorical imperative does not make any religious premiss.

3. There exist further elaborated ethics as well as law systems without religious premisses, e.g. approaches from contract theory, spanning from Hobbes to Rawls' theory of justice in our time. Or take utilitarism as an example of a secular ethics.

4. There is a well-known classfication of the reason why children and young adults follow a certain type of ethical reasoning, see Lawrence Kohlberg's six (or seven) stages of moral development. I consider religious argumentation, i.e. argumentation by authority, to belong to level 4, "where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force." While the higher levels 5 and 6 comprise social contract orientation and orientation on universal ethical principles.

Answer 5

Firstly, simply asserting that you have some sort of absolute morality does not mean you do. So, really a religious person making this claim does not make any progress unless he/she can actually demonstrate that they have good reason to firstly believe such an authority exists and secondly that this authority is worth listening to. And that brings us on to the second point: not having absolute certainty in our decision-making should not be seen as a problem. That is the nature of human beings as well, animals, to put it crudely. We make decisions based on past decisions and experiences; our memories and senses dictate our actions. That's how it is, and unless somebody can demonstrate some sort of objectively better

Answer 6

The rebuttal is quite simple: 1. There is no god. 2. Therefore, your religion is based on an illusion, not reality. 3. Therefore, basing your morality on your religion which is based on an illusion is just ridiculous.

The religious person might find that insulting, but then they started with the insults.

Interestingly, when you say "They could, for instance, adhere to the ethical arguments about stealing being the correct and moral thing to do in cases of extreme inequality. ", well, that's what Josef Kardinal Frings, the archbishop of Cologne, said. And then "Or, in a more extreme case, justify killing other humans on the basis of their actions or beliefs.". That particular disease seems to be very common among some religious types, so anyone using that as an argument against atheism really needs their head examined.

Answer 7

Deriving a more absolute answer, the first and foremost way to provide a rebuttal is via Kant and the categorical imperative. There a two quotes I can find that describe this well from a summary from the City University of New York:

1. "The Categorical Imperative is supposed to provide a way for us to evaluate moral actions and to make moral judgments. It is not a command to perform specific actions -- it does not say, "follow the 10 commandments", or "respect your elders". It is essentially "empty" -- it is simply formal procedure by which to evaluate any action about which might be morally relevant."

2. "Since by nature (according to Kant) the moral law is universal and impartial and rational, the categorical [imperative] is a way of formulating the criteria by which any action can pass the test of universality, impartiality, and rationality. That is its only function."

Kant would agree that since morals can exists a priori, and can be discovered by following these four laws:

The Formula of the Law of Nature: "Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature."

The Formula of the End Itself: "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end."

The Formula of Autonomy: "So act that your will can regard itself at the same time as making universal law through its maxims."

The Formula of the Kingdom of Ends: "So act as if you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of ends."

None of these include the necessity of following a religion within them, but always allow us to discover, and thus do, the universally moral and ethical action. The categorical imperative also seems to point out that a moral system provided by a religion may not provide universal morals and, therefore, not create universally ethical and moral action (i.e. human sacrifice, mass murder, execution, and fully shunning individuals). Altogether, we can know a moral system and, thus, act it out in our lives through the categorical imperative without following a specific religion. This allows atheists, and those who are religious, to be moral people as long as the universally moral and ethical action is lived out.

Finding a much more pratical answer, someone being religious absolutely does not equate to morality. Let's look at a recent case with a mega-reverend, Ted Haggard. He was head pastor of a church in Colorado for years and preached a very conservative message. However, it was discovered that he had had a relationship with a male prostitute and was using crystal methamphetamine. for three years while continuing his ministry. This, and many other cases with religious figures, shows that having religion does not equate morality ("Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself," James 2:17 NAV). One can live out religion and keep with good moral practice (i.e. love you neighbor, do not kill, do not steal), but, also, it is self-evident that one can have no religion and still keep these good moral practices.

Answer 8

So, the first problem you're going to have is people (including you!) throwing around terms without agreed on definitions. To wit:

"It not uncommon to see religious people arguing that without the moral center of a religious text, true ethics are impossible."

It's helpful to separate "morals" from "ethics", and this actually simplifies the question. Let us say that "moraliy" (from "mores") refers to the customs of a people. Ethics (which at its root, refers to the nature of a thing) is a measuring of actual good vs. bad (and we'll smoothly elide what "good" and "bad" are to keep this short :-)) in a particular situation.

Almost anyone can follow morals. Atheists do it all the time. Criminals have a hard time with it, that's why they're criminals. But the thing about morals is that they're based in the past.

For a contrived, simplistic example, let's say Chaim eats pork and dies of trichinosis, and so our people evolve a rule of "don't eat pork". But 5,000 years later, pork is pretty good. Chaim's people still don't eat it, because it is forbidden. A lot of people will say that's silly, but if you look at the root of the word "religion" you find "to bind", and our behaviors and proscriptions of behaviors are what bind us together.

So, even while the health issue—the root of the moral—may be gone, it still may be immoral to eat pork, as it weakens the bonds that holds a people together. I've known a lot of atheists who adhered to a moral code precisely because they saw the value of that bond.

But what about the question of good and bad, right and wrong—ethics, for the purpose of this response. Ethics and morals can clash. If we continue our contrived example, and Chaim is starving, and he must eat pork or die, the ethical response is for Chaim to eat it. Depending on the group he belongs to, this may or may not be viewed as something that requires atonement, and some groups might kill him for his transgression (at least theoretically).

Atheists* can do this as well, i.e., they're capable of weighting the rightness and wrongness of a situation.

Atheism, however, shares with religion the trait of being used as an excuse for bad behavior. Why, it's almost as if Man contrives to justify doing bad things, regardless of whether he uses Gnosticism or Marxism as an excuse. Strident atheists may become so because, say, drinking and fornication is prohibited and they love to drink and f***.

Too, religious splinter groups often emerge as a way to allow a certain behavior prohibited in the religion. Like: divorce, having multiple wives, theft (call it "from each according to his ability"). But also, on the flip side, things like allowing music, dancing, bathing and so on.

Whether religious or atheist, it's also true that people looking to change things are the sorts who have no respect for Chesterton's fence. A really good example of this can be seen, routinely, in the area of sex, where science has drastically reduced the threat of disease or unwanted reproduction, yet there still seem to be noticeable, statistically observable effects regarding not just promiscuity but anything less than severe monogamy. (Nobody wants to hear it but if you want to be married for life, you should be a virgin and marry a virgin.) But the big jokes today are those who counsel restraint.

• To really wrap this up, I need to point out that atheists have badly misnamed themselves. They are, more accurately, materialists. An atheist merely doesn't believe in God. Many Buddhists, with a strong belief in the spiritual world, are atheists (as Buddha himself did not claim to be divine). But most modern atheists are inclined to regard any spiritual thing as bunk.

This creates a genuine problem in terms of evaluating good vs. bad: If everything is matter, then literally nothing matters. There is no "good" and "bad" without someone to say "this is good" and "this is bad".

Someone said above that social stability requires morals, but it is not possible to explain why that's important without evaluation, and evaluation requires an observer. If Joe kills Bob or Joe puts out a fire, what's the difference? On what basis do you judge "life" (which must ultimately be a mere chemical reaction) over other phenomena.

And, to boot, who are YOU? The momentary delusion of consciousness created by electrical impulses in a brain? Why am I even trying to communicate with you? =)

But, really, this is something that materialists just glide over. You can see it in this recent popular thing about Star Trek transporters (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI). He has to dismiss the ghost, but then comes up with the concept of "the conscious brain". This is the sort of magic materialists fall back on to justify being good and moral—something we can all be grateful for, and which suggests, perhaps, that Man, regardless of his moral and ethical structure, has a drive to be good. Because if we are nothing but arrangements of particles, it really doesn't matter if we're killed every time we step into the transporter.

Anyway, as religious people point out, it is totally possible for an "atheist" to discard all morals and ethics, and do whatever he thinks his best for him that he can escape punishment in attaining. But these people are called sociopaths, and they're perfectly capable of pretending to be religious.

Answer 9

All of the reasonings you mention start from an assumption of moral absolutism: the belief that there is indeed a universal "right" and a universal "wrong" which is common to all agents. If one believes this, and believes that the particular moral code they claim to follow is the one and only true moral code, it's easy to see why one would come to the conclusion that anyone who does not profess being bound to that particular moral code must be less moral.

In anything less than this perfect case, cracks in the argument start to form. If you are unsure whether your particular moral code is exactly the true one, you may be put into situations where the difference between your moral code and the true one become important and you repeatedly make the same moral choice over and over. From this perspective, a moral code that can move a little is capable of becoming more optimal. (This is highly related to a traditional religious claim that the universe as a whole is good, or just, or a similar claim. Otherwise the universe is in a position to take advantage of one's fixed nature).

Likewise, if you are incapable of perfectly following your moral code, it may not matter whether it is true or not. Consider a moral situation resembling the phase "the straw that broke the camel's back." Perhaps you are capable of acting morally through situations X, Y, and Z, but if you have to handle X, Y, Z, and W, you start to falter, and end up acting immorally in all 4 situations. A flexible morality may falter in W, but be able to adjust so that X, Y, and Z do not cause immoral behavior.

There is also the other side of the argument: moral relativism. If indeed the true moral code is different for each individual, you may find yourself being less moral because you simply don't understand why your moral code isn't shared by all.

Finally, consider that most moral "dilemmas" are in the form of very cut and dry yes or no choices. In the real world, there are many fuzzy regions where you may have more choices than that, and the best answer is less clear. You "know" its bad to steal, but they stole it from you first, so maybe stealing from the thief is okay?

In all, if you assume you are a perfect being with perfect knowledge of morality, and the universe is ruled by moral absolutism, those who do not agree with you are inherently less moral than you, atheists included. In other situations, it is less clear.

As a fun final takeaway, if one explores formal morality, where ones moral code is codified into a formal system, one can run into all sorts of interesting logical trickery, such as those discovered by Tarski and Godel. As a result, we find all major moral codes have some situations they do not handle in a formal manner, or we find they elect not to prove the morality of their code in a few key situations.

Answer 10

Well the religious person isn't entirely wrong. We could imagine a hypothetical sociopath who believes in a religion. A religion where he will be punished in the afterlife for his crimes. He might be afraid of this, and therefore avoid committing crimes.

It doesn't even matter if the religion is true. The belief it is true has stopped a crime. A person could make a consequentialist argument that belief in religion has a net benefit on society. Regardless of whether or not the religion is true. I'm not sure if that's a correct argument, but it's valid.

However I'm not sure if that's really what you are asking. Perhaps you are asking something along the lines of "why aren't atheists sociopaths? What reason do they have to not do bad things?"

And that's because atheists still have empathy. When you see your friend hurting, you hurt. When you hurt someone, you feel guilt. We, as humans, have some kind of fundamental desire to "be moral", whatever that may mean. Regardless of what god we believe in, or whether or not we fear punishment.

An atheist might say that those feelings come from evolution. Perhaps humans that were excessively mean were banished by their tribe, and didn't pass on their genes. But the origin of the feelings doesn't really matter. The point is that they exist, and aren't connected to what religion you believe.

Answer 11

The core of what you are asking lies in who is defining what is moral. The secondary issue here is that the assumption is being made that any decision or action is either wholly moral or wholly immoral. Lets address the core issue. Morality, in an almost over simplified definition, is the distinction between what is right and wrong. Right and wrong do not have a universal definition when we are talking about their definition by religions. Some might argue that right implies good intent and wrong implies bad intent. This is probably about as close to a universal right and wrong as most people will agree on. However, in the context of religion and religious texts, any religion that disagrees with another is inherently propagating immorality in the eyes of the first religion. Now for the secondary issue, is any decision wholly immoral or moral? This is linked to the definition of moral but also considers intent. It isn't a stretch to argue that someone who decides for them self whether some behavior is appropriate is more likely to make a more moral decision than someone who acts purely based on what they are instructed to do by their version of moral, as decided by their religion. Basically what this is saying is that free thinking or questioning your religion is inherently immoral. It is saying that if you aren't following a religion, unquestioningly, then you are inherently unable to make a decision based on good intent.

Answer 12

You cannot, at least not under their definitions.

You did not specify what religion are you talking about, but from the Christianity point (the ones who make emphasis on criticizing atheitsts' morality) God is the source if good (and bad) and so if you don't believe in God, you have no such sense of morality, so I will assume that (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Usually, morality is defined in terms of the society you live in (so the initial answer is: yes I'm a moral person in terms of the society I move in, if you are). This means: you can distinguish doing the right thing or wrong thing depending on the society or group you move in.

I will assume you, or someone close to you, is an atheist.

You have your own principles, and the main of them is that you do not believe on any kind of god, spirit, or goblin. Perhaps your morality (which is like a skill or trend you have) is defined in terms of the world you move on: you don't kill, you are not a sex-offending person, you don't steal...

It is not that you have your skill somehow diminished wrt to the religious people, but as for christianity, moral is based on bible commandments. This means, your morality -from their viewpoint- should make you obey stuff like this in the worst case.

Depending on the christianity school (say) they follow, they will try to bury you with their comments (you deserve hell), or just try to measure their accusations against you (you are partially immoral, you commit this sins a, b, c...), but remember always something: They accuse you of being immoral under their own moral principles, which you:

• Cannot rebute them (referring mostly to totally morality-accusing christians) under their principles, if you do not believe in God. They also "live" in a society where believing in God is right.
• Cannot rebute them (referring mostly to partially morality-accusing christians, since for the totally morality-accusing christians you are already dead in the previous point) under their principles, if -aside from being a non-believer- you do or support doing something against their belief. E.g. I'm an atheist, but I don't support abortion when mother's life is not on risk. They can think worse about my morality for partially supporting abortion, and will think even worse about morality of people fully supporting abortion. They use to take Romans 2:14 as a reference for what I said (there are similar references).
• Can point a contradiction (e.g. Deuteronomy 13:9 and the principle of not killing), and so show them their morality is arbitrary. Get them angry, the discussions reaches a dead end, and perhaps it is time to fight.
• Can rebute them under your socety's principles, since both you and him usually live in the same kind of society (perhaps even the same country), where killing is bad an illegal, the same for raping and stealing/robbing.

Finally: why would you care about them? If they accuse you of being immoral because you are atheist, they are not willing to leave a space or gap to try to understand your terms, since they are inherently wrong for not being based on true God's belief (even different christianity schools have a different meaning for that true I said).

Answer 13

It seems to me that the simplest refutation goes like this:

There exists at least one moral-centered religious-text religion in the world that asserts the morality of killing non-believers of that religion, including theists of other religions.

You can't simply declare the entire religion immoral, as they do believe in God themselves, and are thus theists and not atheists.

Therefore the problem of morality vs. immorality, and the problem of relative morality, are not problems of theism vs. atheism. Because differing moral-centered religious-text-based religions themselves have contradictory absolute moralities.

Answer 14

Because Atheism does not contradict our reasoning as Faith does.

Believing without proof or verified reasoning provoques the person at subject to defy his/her own comprehension. Daunting I might call, and this doctrine doesn't stand there just to believe; it is directed to the "weak minded" who cannot comprehend what is done to them.

Answer 15

The best rebuttal of a position is to ignore it. If you are a Theist, you have your reasons for (perhaps) following a religious text based on your understanding of it and all the related issues. If you are an Atheist, you have your reasons for your choices, perhaps even based on religious texts. Both people are deciding for themselves. This is inescapable, and therefore there is no reason to label or to distinguish which is "better". They are the same. If you follow a math textbook and I come up with math principles myself, is one better than the other?

If you argue that people cannot come up with moral truth but can understand it if they read it, then you are arguing for something extremely dangerous, because someone who could manipulate the text would have absolute control. (1984, anyone?)

So be positionless. The argument is not worth answering, just live your life. No person and no book can save you from having to understand and decide for yourself.

Answer 16

Morality is about how to solve problems in living: choices where people have conflicting ideas. For example, should I take a job repossessing property from debtors who can't or won't pay? Many think it seems mean to take stuff from poor people, but it also seems wrong to deprive lenders of their rightful property.

No fixed set of ideas can solve all moral problems for various reasons. New theories about how the world works may seem to bring current moral principles into conflict with one another. New technologies may open up new opportunities to do things that formerly were not possible and bring up new moral problems about when we should use the technology, e.g. - nuclear bombs and abortion.

Any book only contains a finite number of ideas and the authors can't anticipate new technologies and explanations, so no such book can answer all moral questions. Some books may have a lot of good content and solve a lot of moral problems, but even understanding such books requires recreating the explanations in that book for yourself constrained by keeping your ideas consistent with the book. And applying such ideas to your particular situation requires thought even in the absence of new technology and knowledge.

There are problems with the idea that god is the source of morality pointed out in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro. If some moral act is good just because god says so, that's a bit unsatisfactory. If it's good for some other reason and god advocates doing good for that reas, then that other reason explains why the act is good rather than god.

Living a better life than you could by following tradition and religious books would require having good ideas about epistemology and improving on religious books and traditions. Most secular people have bad epistemology such as inductivism, which was criticised by Popper and his followers: see "Objective Knowledge" by Popper chapter 1, "Realism and the Aim of Science" by Popper chapter I, "On the sources of knowledge and of ignorance" by Popper in "Conjectures and Refutations" and "The Fabric of Reality" Chapters 3 and 7 and "The Beginning of Infinity" chapters 1,2 and 10 both by David Deutsch. And secular moral philosophy is a train wreck with very few exceptions: secular philosophers have almost all tried to tear down tradition and replace it with ideas that couldn't stand up to determined criticism, e.g. - the advocacy of socialism despite its refutation by Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand. The average secular person is coasting on what remains of religious moral traditions and couldn't explain a moral idea if his life depended on it.

The standard religious and secular moral traditions are both deeply flawed and need to be reformed. A start at such reform has been made by William Godwin and Ayn Rand, there is a small amount of moral stuff by Popper and David Deutsch, and Elliot Temple has written some good material, see

http://www.fallibleideas.com.

Answer 17

A short argument that I find convincing is that people are free to choose their religion, which dictates which moral code they adhere to. While atheists do not choose their moral code based on a religious text, the choice is there for both the theist and the atheist. The theist has just chosen a "popular" code of ethics, rather than constructing their own based on observation and experience.

Both religious and atheistic ethics center on axioms about what is good and right; the assumptions exist for both though their motivation may be different (one is based on God's will, and the other centers on the developed moral code of the person). To say one of these is correctly moral and the other is not assumes that there is indeed a God with a moral code, and that these morals were correctly communicated to the religious community maintaining that code (not to mention the plethora of religious moral texts with differing messages, how do you know you follow the right one?)

This argument is not meant to imply that there is some moral superiority to the morals of an atheist, but rather to say that both atheist morals and those that are religiously motivated are both equally lacking in "true ethics," they are both based on assumptions that cannot be proven.

Answer 18

It seems to me that we can associate and even define the term morality as a kind of order. We often use the term "moral code" as a recognition that morality is a system of some kind. For instance, most people (ok, probably all of us :-) consider murder to be morally wrong. Yet killing for self-defense can be morally justifiable. In short, I'm trying to demonstrate that morality has an order to it. It is a coded system with rules because the taking of human life is not always morally wrong.

Now, if we can successfully go here, then the next part of our argument is simple:

Order is a universal.

One has only to look around and observe in order (ha!) to discover that organization and pattern is everywhere. As a basic example, note that our solar system is a system, an inherently ordered thing. Acorns become oak trees, and fertilized human eggs become humans. Organization seems obvious when we simply look around.

Now I do not suggest by this that there is a higher intelligence (i.e. gOD or what have you) that has implemented or informed this order. I'm simply stating that order exists.

Since order exists then, and morality is a kind of order, than whether or not one believes any particular religious teaching is essentially irrelevant. An atheist simply recognizes that there is order to the universe and the world at large. Thus the moral code is universally available to all humans, regardless of religious belief.