Why do atheists, as moral relativists, promote moral absolutes?

Here is my opinion on the subject. I believe that most people, if not everyone, forms beliefs about life as they resolve in their minds two mental processes which many times come into conflict. One force is the intellectual force, human reasoning, rationalization, education by the society around them, logic, and what seems to make sense. The other force is more emotional; it is feelings, hopes, dreams, gut feelings, promptings of the spirit, love, longings of the heart. As you can see these two processes are in themselves complicated and involve many factors.

I believe that an atheist has either never been taught to believe in God, or has come to disbelieve in God through the resolution of the processes in his mind. He looks at the facts, and for him it is more intellectually satisfying to reason that God is not necessary as an explanation for what he knows about life. Then there is the emotional factor. There has often been something emotional in his life that turns him away from God. Perhaps he becomes offended when it appears that God is not listening to him. Perhaps he feels that if there is a God then God does not care about him. His study of history, coupled with his reasoning function, leads him to believe that God could not exist as a loving, kind Being and be responsible for all the evil and bad that happens. This is usually due to a misunderstanding of the true nature of God. But in a sense he turns to disbelief as a sort of irrational punishment of God.

With that somewhat vague background I would say that in the case of moral absolutes the emotional process--what his heart tells him--decides what he believes. He feels in his heart that there ought to be moral absolutes. His intellectual process tells him that he is smart enought to decide absolutely what is best for mankind. While this may not be entirely consistent and rational, as we see it, there are some deeply held beliefs, wishes, and longings for goodness and certainty that find expression in his unexamined confidence that some things are just that way, and any fool ought to be able to see it as well.

I disagree.

I think it's easy to subjectively decide that "it is always wrong to harm others" or "we should not judge others." I don't see at all why a god would be necessary to do so.

Lets face it, there are no true inalienable rights and inescapable moral duties. Those phrases are more hyperbole than fact. We all have free will, we can all deny others their "inalienable rights" and we can all violate supposed "inescapable moral duties." That means both are subjective, not absolute.

They do not they simply uphold basic morality in the face of the way Christianity is destroying it!

Research shows that the reason humans struggle with emotion to find equitable solutions is pinpointed the region of the brain called the insular cortex, or insula, which is also the seat of emotional reactions.

The fact that the brain has such a robust response to unfairness shows that sensing unfairness is a basic evolved capacity.

The emotional response to unfairness pushes people from extreme inequity and drives them to be fair. This observation shows our basic impulse to be fair isn't a complicated thing that we learn.

It therefore fully illustrates that all humans have morals controlled by the brain and that Christians are entirely wrong to try and claim morals as their own!!!!

But Christians found a way round it!

Government statistics show that Christians are vastly over represented in prisons for sexual, violent and fraudulent crime whilst year on year government figures show atheists make up only 2% of the prison population!

The Catholic Church is paying millions in compensation for the sex/paedophile crimes of their priests alone!

Christians are vastly over represented in the divorce courts!

Christians invented the concept of sin and then the idea that you could sin, ask forgiveness, get pardoned and start with a clean sheet!

So no surprise that they are so expert at it is it‽

A Christian is a man that feels repentance on Sunday for what he did on Saturday and is going to do on Monday. - Thomas Russell Ybarra

I think there are several sloppy statements above. First, atheists are not a single group in any sense of the word. As such, there is no reason to believe they are moral relativists or absolutists. Second, you should be careful to avoid mixing a discussion of morality with a discussion of ethics.

Let me give you an example of the difference. Blackmail is immoral in English speaking cultures and is usually a crime. It is made up of two things. First, it is disclosing information to the public. Second, it is asking for money to decide not to disclose. This is immoral. Is it unethical? Is it unethical to tell true things about people. If you have an ugly hat, and let us make the assumption that you are the only person on the planet who believes it not to be ugly, is it unethical to tell you that everyone thinks you have an ugly hat?

If I know something about you, then it is no longer private information. If I saw you kissing a woman other than your wife, then is there anything at all unethical about me saying I saw that? As I am conveying truth about you, maybe an uncomfortable one, is that unethical? Most likely the answer is "no it is not unethical." It may violate social norms and be immoral. Maybe we live in a society where it is immoral to speak of cheating behavior, but is it unethical? No.

Now let us imagine I decided I wanted to sing the "Star Spangled Banner." We will assume you have heard me and it is so bad that you are willing to pay me to remain silent. You pay me. Is that unethical? It might be immoral in that it may encourage me to pollute the air with my singing unless people pay me for my silence, but is it unethical? Paying someone to not engage in an otherwise ethical behavior is not unethical.

So why is blackmail, which is accepting a payment to not disclose public information illegal?

Morals are community based norms and in the various groups of Christians divinely instituted, though they do not agree as to which ones are the divinely instituted ones. Some groups support abortion while some oppose it. Some support the death penalty, while others oppose it. Some forbid any form of combat or violence while others permit "just war."

Ethics are group independent. Now different people using different principles can arrive a differing ethical decisions, but that doesn't make them relativists on an individual basis. One person could accept utilitarianism while another existentialism while another Platonism or Epicurism. Most people, Christian or otherwise, lack a formally derived ethical or moral system. They just do what their mom taught them.

Finally, your statements above reflect a lack of basic psychological knowledge. You chose to make specific extreme statements that some people would naturally agree with, while others would tell you that is a dumb idea. People use language in systematically different ways. Whereas some people ask "Do you like Bob and Mary," which is an open ended question, others would ask " You don't like Bob and Mary, do you?" The latter statement is a closed ended judgement disguised as a question.

The very idea of needing an absolute comes from certain cognitive preferences. Certain cognitive preferences simply ignore the idea as pointless and maybe dumb. Moral absolutes are arrived at because leaders in the community say they are absolute and will be enforced with social sanctions. Look at the fate of women who got pregnant prior to the 70's. It was immoral, but the consequences were enormous. Once the consequences vanished the morality vanished. Morality is usually group law disguised as ethics. Burning women alive is moral in some religious traditions, but is it ethical in any circumstance?

Fascinating question. Morality is indeed subjective outside of Godly parameters. This age is post-modern, and moral relativism is a characteristic of it.

Well, mainly, it is because atheism is fascist in nature. It doesn't have to accept anyone else's views. It can pontificate that it is the truth without having a prophet. It can claim anything it wants. It doesn't have to hold itself to anyone other than itself. It is loveless. Atheists would be most likely to scrap the "three strikes" laws in California and find you to be corrupted to the core by virtue of the first error that you would have ever made in their presence. They would offer no forgiveness. They would offer no opportunity to be made new in their sight. Most of all, atheists highly value situational ethics. For example, when a person who claims to be Christian kills an abortion doctor, they have no interest in truly understanding what made that that person kill the doctor. Christianity calls us to love our neighbor. Nevertheless, the atheist doesn't have to care what the bible says. The atheist, holding himself to be accountable to no one but himself, can play favorites as he pleases. If someone who claimed to be an atheist killed an abortion doctor, it would get buried in the back page of the newspaper, because we are supposed to believe that atheists have a higher moral standard than we do. Simply, the majority of atheists want to have their cake and eat it, too.

The values you quote can easily be derived from fundamental ethical principles such as 'we should avoid inflicting unnecessary harm on others'. There is no need to evoke a supernatural entity to justify this.

I do not promote the value of "tolerating all views"

There are views or opinions that are factually in error, i.e the earth is flat, the sun rotates around the earth, there is no evidence for evolution, etc

Such views should not be tolerated.

That's right.

SHOULD not.

Not

WILL not.

It's down to opinion.

i just don't believe in gods.