Atheists, what do you base your moral code on?
I've read a lot on R&S that suggests religious people feel they know who they answer to, so they are moral, but atheists only answer to themselves, so they are destructive hedonists. I don't see this, when I look around. So all you atheists living good, productive lives--will you share what guides you?
Personally, I feel like humans have an instinctual moral code. We're a social species (we live in groups, we need each other) so there's an automatic distaste for actions that would cause chaos in the community and threaten our survival. On a gut level, I believe an atheist believes stealing is wrong the same way a religious person believes stealing is wrong.
We only get into conflict about whether or not sex is dirty before marriage or whether gays should be left in peace--secularists see these as victimless crimes and have no objection. (I'm clearly a champion of moral relativism...a jaywalker is just not as bad as a murderer, no way.)
Evolution has caused us to have, as social mammals, two primary social instincts/predispoitions -- empathy and altruism.
Together, these are the basis of the golden rule.
That is the foundation. Every human culture or religion has shared this foundation, in fact only two phrase it uniquely.
Classical: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Buddhist/Negation: Do not do to Other what would be unpleasant, in the same circumstance, to the Self.
Satanic/Reactionary: Do unto others as they've done unto you.
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