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A theist is someone who believes that one or more gods actually exist. An atheist does not have a belief in a god, not necessarily that a god or gods don't exist, just that there is not enough evidence to warrant a belief that a particular god does exist. The burden of proof is on the theist, or a god, to prove that a god exists, not on an atheist to prove that a god doesn't exist. As to the question of morality, atheism is not a world view or a system of morality. It is simply a rejection of the claim that a god has been shown to exist. Therefore, your question of atheism and morality is highly biased and leading, in other words, preaching to the choir. Those who do not believe in a god, and therefore, don't believe the teachings of religion based on faith are free use other means of evaluating morality across the strata of human experience, culture, science, philosophy, and logic for the common good and well-being of society. As a corollary, those who do not believe in the divine nature of religious scripture, say the Christian Bible, are free to read it objectively for what it is, an incredibly immoral, contradictory, and absurd collection of archaic stories that illustrate why atheism is the superior position. If you'd like to see the ignorance and dishonesty of people trying to defend the morality of their religious beliefs, may I suggest checking out the YouTube channel - The Atheist Experience. The Atheist Experience is a call in show, usually hosted by Matt Dillahunty, where theists try to argue for the existence of a god, and generally prove themselves to be in denial of and ignorant of the immorality of their own beliefs. The show also does an incredible job of explaining where atheists get their morals from, which is the question you originally asked, but something tells me that you weren't really looking for an answer!

I'm trying to fit in here!

I hope that Trump is wise enough to realize that the missile attack missed by a rather large margin on purpose. Iran has said they do not want war. They did need to save face. I hope he is wise enough to accept the gesture for what it was.

If it was made clear that exceeding monthly goals was critical to the business - via company policy and incentives - they'd have a pretty good case for of wrongful termination. "We were doing exactly what management wanted us to do - get some excellent months. Of course some other months had to suffer." It's important to set up a system so getting exactly what you incentivize people to do is a good thing for your company.

It's the ones you can't hear that you should be worried about!

Does it count for or against organized religion that the monks also came up with champagne?

one of the positive sides of organized religion Monasteries started brewing beer as early as the 5th century and at its peak, over 600 monasteries in Europe were brewing their own beer. The monks followed a principle of being completely self-sufficient and also made it their duty to provide pilgrims and visitors with food and drink

People with functioning brains (i.e. all the necessary chemistry) who are raised in complete or near-complete social isolation (there are very few examples, obviously) cannot seem to form the same types of concepts that those who are socialized. That would seem to imply, therefore, that conceptual thought is somewhat dependent on something besides physics. Is the fact that what it's dependent on is resident in the conjunction of a lot of physics still keep it outside the "spiritual?" Or is it kind of like parallel processing of different computers. Note, however, that at least for now, computers start with externally-installed software. Not sure how much longer that's going to be the case; what is the difference between life and consciousness? This is getting way away from "inconsistencies with atheism," so sue me. But on the other hand, I think that we're getting deep into individual interpretations of individuals, who then assume that everyone else assumes the same way. Which is unlikely. Wendy P.

Does a dog have consciousness? Does it have morals? It certainly has behaviors with social rules. (This question is not solely directed at you.)

I'd say it all depends on the degree of commitment to the religion or lack thereof. I know atheists who are very committed to their assertion that There is no God. That does take some commitment. Others are more of the "meh" variety. And to someone who's not part of any community (whether it's Christian, Muslim, Baha'i, atheist, etc), everyone who's part of that community can look alike. Kind of like how people of one ethnicity have more trouble distinguishing small characteristics of other ethnicities -- they don't automatically look for what's significant within the community. Wendy P.

That's why I like my €0,15/pair high-end foam earplugs (3M earsoft FX or Moldex Spark Plugs). Plenty good enough protection, and zero worries if I lose one. Sure, there's no super-fancy frequency-dependent attenuation to hear speech more easily, but we aren't holding deep philosophical discussions anyway while skydiving.

Operation Enduring Impeachment has begun.

Awesome. Thank you.

In "The Portable Atheist" the anthology edited by C. Hitchens, one author makes the snide remark that what God actually said was "go fuck yourselves" but it got re-worked into "be fruitful and multiply".