Reconciling morality with atheism

[Zbu Manowar]

Count me in with the 'religion does not equal morality' group. My morality comes from empathy. I do not wish to be hurt and neither should someone else. That's something I think is right. I think that morality, as seen through this lens, means that I control my own sense of morality. Society might include a baseline to keep it running, but nowhere in that system does religion come into play. If anything, religion is a force that defies personal morality due to the idea of an afterlife and the hidden bureaucracy within that thought, i.e. if I can kill a blasphemer, then I can supersede my own morality and still live with myself due to a reward--heaven.

Long story short, religion is not morality but a definite force against it.