Atheists have no morals ?

Question from Adam (Trimmed to get to the meat.)
“Have you encountered situations where a religious person could not believe atheists had morals? I tried to explain to him how morals are built from emotion, and as a mechanism to survive as social creatures. He didn’t even respond, and reiterated that, “all I did was state the fact that atheists have no morals”. I didn’t get emotional or bothered in the conversation, because I don’t particularly care if this random guy on the internet is a closed minded prick. But the fact that many religious people do share that belief is a bit disheartening.

How would you go about convincing a person that atheists have morals when they have been taught the contrary? Is it possible to convince a Christian that morality doesn’t originate from the bible or from this “god” of theirs?”

Answer by Jake
First Adam, sorry for cutting some of your email out, but I wanted to get directly to this great question and save a little space at the same time, so bare with me.
The simplest answer is that some people don’t want to understand. They don’t want to listen to ideas or new thoughts that might go against their beliefs. No amount of debate or discussion is going to change these peoples minds. If someone isn’t willing to listen, there’s no way for them to learn.

However for the sake of this discussion lets assume that the person you are talking to isn’t that closed minded. How do you get through to them? Well again, the simplest answer is that you just give them the facts. What if though, they don’t want to hear about social empathy, or the social contract? I’ve found that a great way to get someone to start thinking about another perspective is to get them to discredit their own perspective first. Each religion is different, but they all for the most part have conflicting beliefs. For example in my view, Xians have no morals because they can be forgiven so arbitrarily that the morals that they have accpeted may as well not even exist. The following is an example I’ve used many times….

Imagine there’s a hockey game and a player sticks another player who doesn’t even have the puck. In this situation the player may be put into the penalty box until it’s time for him to come out again. Now imagine for a moment if the player had the opportunity to remove himself from the penalty box at any time he wished and all he had to do was tell the referee that he was sorry? How long would that player stay in the box? What would be the point of having the penalty to begin with?

This question is great because it asks the theist to compare and contrast their own morals. It won’t convince them that atheist have morals, but what it will do is force them to consider their own morality. If their morality is self nullifying then why do they use morals at all? It’s these kind of questions that if we can get people to ask themselves may lead to a deeper understanding. It doesn’t always work, but I’ve found more often then not it puts the theist on the defensive and demands that they prove or at least rationalize their morality.