Where do atheists get their morals from?

[Scipio]

Where do atheists get their morals from?

God. 

I laughed, I admit.  Viking's original post assumes so many facts that it's essential immune to logic.

[Viking]

I gotta point out that going by this story the "certain priest" and the "Levite" are not his Neighbor and excluded from the new universal in-group. Be moral to those who are moral to you? The parable is an answer to the question of "who is my neighbor", it's not the priest or the levite, it's the guy who earns it by behaving well. This is NOT creating a universal in-group. It is re-defining the in-group.

Except that from the Samaritan's POV, the victim was not a member of any in-group.

Again, the question is "who is my neighbor" clearly the priest and levite are not his neighbor. The question is not how should we behave towards random people. Your membership of the in-group, according to this parable is contingent on your behaviour.

[Viking]

I don't know, have you tried getting some clay, sand and water to go along with that; then you could build something really lasting. 

edit;
meant in reply to Viking's 2nd to last post, which I failed to quote.

you are going to have to be more specific, I have no clue what you are referring to.

[Viking]

Where do atheists get their morals from?

God. 

I laughed, I admit.  Viking's original post assumes so many facts that it's essential immune to logic.

I don't like being wrong, can you mention a few of them so I can be less wrong next time? No need to mention all of them, but can you at least mention one of them?

[Admiral Yi]

Again, the question is "who is my neighbor" clearly the priest and levite are not his neighbor. The question is not how should we behave towards random people. Your membership of the in-group, according to this parable is contingent on your behaviour.

Jesus instructs his followers to do as the Samaritan did.  What the Samaritan did was render a kindness without first investigating whether the victim was a member of his in group or not.

For your interpretation to work it would have been necessary for Jesus to instruct his followers to go find this hypothetical Samaritan and be kind only to him.

[Razgovory]

Are you hearing stuff that's only in your head or what?  Nobody is trying to find "God in the gaps".  In fact nobody has brought up actual science (you brought up pseudoscience).  First of all, I'm not a Lutheran I'm a Catholic, which has never been big on literal interpretations of the bible.  This is neither a new thing, nor a minority view.  Second, I don't think Lutherans believe you can't eat cheese burgers.  You pick and choose bible passages without context and assume that's what Christians believe and then insult people over it.

The reason why you can't understand why everyone isn't a biblical literalistic is because you are to goddamn lazy to actually find out why.  There are hundreds of religious doctrines on why people believe things, but you don't take the time to actually learn what you are arguing against.  When you get like this you are no better then a creationist who hasn't actually bothered tor read modern evolutionary theory and instead cherry picks quotes and ideas from the last 150 years and says he can't understand  how someone can be a Darwinist and not a eugenicist and a racist.

[Neil]

When you get like this you are no better then a creationist who hasn't actually bothered tor read modern evolutionary theory and instead cherry picks quotes and ideas from the last 150 years and says he can't understand  how someone can be a Darwinist and not a eugenicist and a racist.

Excellent point.

[The Minsky Moment]

The fact that the creator of the world had created me personally as part of his plan for the continuation of the universe and had put down the information I needed to fulfill that role in a book and that my reward if I performed my part would be eternal happiness and my punishment if I failed would be eternal torment would be the most significant single fact in the universe rendering everything else irrelevant. What I cannot understand is how someone who actually believes there is a god cannot be a radical fundamentalist biblical literalist.

someone can explain that to me I'd be eternally grateful; because until I get an explanation like that I can only conclude that professing believers are all lying amoral scumbags

If you believe all the things in the first sentence, then you are a fundamentalist literalist.
What you don't seem to realize is that there are people who consider themselves religious who don't believe all of these things.
You also don't seem to take into account the possibility that some people aren't that swift and don't fully understand the implications of what they profess to believe.  Being less than the brightest bulb is nothing to boast about, but it doesn't make a person a "lying amoral scumbag"

The strawman fallacy gets thrown around a lot pretty loosely, but I have to say there seem to a bunch of them littered around in this thread.
It's typically the case that in order to refute an argument effectively, you have to really understand it as from the opposing POV - sometimes that can be difficult for particularly repugnant views, but the danger of not doing so is just talking past the other side or bashing down strawmen.

Also I concur with those who raise their eyebrows at the notion that universal morality is genetic.  Certainly if one is arguing from a rationalistic perspective, a claim like that should come amply accompanied by scientific evidentiary support.

[Viking]

Are you hearing stuff that's only in your head or what?  Nobody is trying to find "God in the gaps".  In fact nobody has brought up actual science (you brought up pseudoscience).  First of all, I'm not a Lutheran I'm a Catholic, which has never been big on literal interpretations of the bible.  This is neither a new thing, nor a minority view.  Second, I don't think Lutherans believe you can't eat cheese burgers.  You pick and choose bible passages without context and assume that's what Christians believe and then insult people over it.

The reason why you can't understand why everyone isn't a biblical literalistic is because you are to goddamn lazy to actually find out why.  There are hundreds of religious doctrines on why people believe things, but you don't take the time to actually learn what you are arguing against.  When you get like this you are no better then a creationist who hasn't actually bothered tor read modern evolutionary theory and instead cherry picks quotes and ideas from the last 150 years and says he can't understand  how someone can be a Darwinist and not a eugenicist and a racist.

I'm not too god damn lazy to find this out. Nobody answers the question. Nobody has given any answer on how you can find out which bits of the old testament laws are to be ignored and which are to be followed. Nobody has given any answer on how you determine which bits of the bible are allegorical and which are literal.

You tell me to go figure out from some mythical theological sages that answer the question. You are a god botherer and I observe that it took some time before you actually were provoked enough to admit you were a papist. You refuse to defend any catholic dogma and you also refuse to testify to your faith. You are expecting me to read your mind to figure out what you believe. This leaves me with your book and the representatives you recognize (by being catholic).

If you are an honest catholic then you should be able to honestly explain to me how you figure out which old testament commandments you can ignore, which you can re-interpret and which need to be followed. I know how the catholic clergy and theologians explain this; well they don't. They obfuscate, avoid the question and then change the topic.

If you want I can explain to you how my acceptance of the theory evolution does not mean I must be a eugenicist and/or racist. AFTER you answer the question above.

[Siege]

Western atheist follow western culture, who have judeo-christian values.
People can leave a religion, but they cannot leave a culture.
The core of people's believe is their culture, more so than their religion, or lack thereof.

[Siege]

Where is the fucking Game of Thrones thread?

[Neil]

Western atheist follow western culture, who have judeo-christian values.
People can leave a religion, but they cannot leave a culture.
The core of people's believe is their culture, more so than their religion, or lack thereof.

People take new cultures all the time, mostly when they move to a new land.

[Siege]

Western atheist follow western culture, who have judeo-christian values.
People can leave a religion, but they cannot leave a culture.
The core of people's believe is their culture, more so than their religion, or lack thereof.

People take new cultures all the time, mostly when they move to a new land.

Yes, they get asimilated by the dominant culture, or not if they are muslims.
You are proving my point.

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm not too god damn lazy to find this out. Nobody answers the question. Nobody has given any answer on how you can find out which bits of the old testament laws are to be ignored and which are to be followed. Nobody has given any answer on how you determine which bits of the bible are allegorical and which are literal.

etc.
etc.

The irony here is that your mind works the same way a religious fundamentalist does, you've just reached the opposite conclusions.

There are lots of answers to the these questions, there is just no THE ANSWER.  Hence the great diversity in belief and the many disputes that arise.

If you want to get an understanding of one possible answer, I guess you could try reading Maimondes' Guide to the Perplexed, but it isn't for the fainthearted.

[Siege]

I'm not too god damn lazy to find this out. Nobody answers the question. Nobody has given any answer on how you can find out which bits of the old testament laws are to be ignored and which are to be followed. Nobody has given any answer on how you determine which bits of the bible are allegorical and which are literal.

etc.
etc.

Why do you assume some parts are literal and some not?
I'll give you a clue.
Only the Torah, the first five books in the Tenach or "Old Testament", is direct word from G-d, to be understood literally.
The rest are comentaries.