On morality and religion

Or, in which dmmaus not only demonstrates that he Gets It, but explains the issue of religion as the supposed basis of morality much more eloquently than I have ever managed to do:

Atheists, he said, need to find a moral direction from within.  We need to examine our own values and beliefs in the context of human society, put some thought into them, and behave in ways that accord with what we decide is the moral way to act.  There are various expressions of moral codes that work in this context.  A simple one is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  You don't need to believe in God to think about that and decide that yes, if everyone lived by that simple maxim, the world would be a nicer place.  You don't need God to be nice to people.  You don't need God to have morals.

Strongly religious people, on the other hand, get moral direction from the authority of God.  God tells them how to behave, and God is the most important thing in their lives, so there's their moral code right there.  They never have to think about their morals, because they are decreed from on high.  They never have to go through a logical argument with themselves to decide that they should be nice to other people - they're just nice to people because that's what God says to do.  If they never have to internalise their values and derive their own moral code, then it's not even something that they realise can be done.  When a person like this looks at an atheist, they don't realise that the atheist has probably spent time (more or less consciously) to produce a moral code that they endeavour to live up to.  All they see is someone without the moral code of God.  They don't realise that there are other ways in which one can be a moral person.  So they conclude that the atheist has no morals.

This relates to a question which I have asked, on occasion.  Often, what happens is that the people to whom I ask the question look at me strangely, as if the question makes no sense.  Yet it's not a complex question:

"Which is the better — to perform a good act out of hope of eternal salvation; or out of fear of eternal damnation; or for neither of these reasons, but merely out of a recognition that it is in fact the right thing to do?"

But the explanation on IWC is a much better explanation of the issue.