Are atheists more moral than theists?

Not entirely accurate. Theists are moral despite their God, not because of their God. It is safe to say that if tomorrow it was found beyond reasonable doubt that there are no Gods, Theists would not suddenly become immoral and start committing crimes against humanity. The discovery of the non-existence of God would change virtually nothing (albeit US science lessons would run a bit smoother and increase in unemployment as the clergy have to find other jobs and of course the huge influx of money into the economy instead of feeding the Vatican)

Most Christians do not actually believe in a God or an afterlife and, like the rest of us, are hard-wired by evolution to be mostly altruistic with a hint of selfishness (see Evolutionary Stable Strategies) however, they have been taught to think that they need a God to be moral and because they were taught this by people they trust, few will question it. There are stats that show that US prisons have a disproportionate number of Christians compared to Atheists and again a disproportionate number of Christians commit violent crimes compared to Atheists. It has also been shown that countries that have a majority of Atheists are generally less violent. Whilst this in no way shows a causation, it does show a correlation.

You know, I wonder if your mother in law has not actually done the same thing as you. Christianity covers a huge range from Westboro Baptist, thought the Catholics, and to the Unitarians. Yet all of these people have the same bible.

I suspect that want has happened is each of these people have found their own moral position, the same as you and I, influenced by their parents, their society, their experiences.

The difference is that you and I admit that our morality is from within ourselves, but they are told that morality comes from God - so their morality must be from God - and since they are all Godly people God must want the morals that they have.

So they sift and sort through the bible, and use the Holy Spirit to let them interpret other verse the way that they want, and lo and behold! God agrees with them.

A Westboro Baptist hates gays - so their God hates gays, and they use the bible to support it.

A Catholic hates contraception - so God hates contraception, and they use the bible to support it.

A Unitarian thinks gays and contraception is O.K. - so God thinks gays and contraception are O.K. and they use the bible to support it.

And the Bible is great for this. 66 books written by different people at different times, edited and changed over the years, full of contradictions, allegories and vague verses. They all get to interpret and cherry pick to support whatever it was that they believe in in the first place.

Edit:

δοτζο - I suspect that this is an indirect correlation.

The more rich a society (and that wealth needs to be distributed, not just a massive GDP/per person with all the money going to an elite) then the better the police, the better the education, the better the available standard of living though a regular job, heck, there will be more jobs to go around.

All these things will reduce the need for individuals in a society to commit crimes. It also reduces the need for individuals in society to be given comfort and answers by religion.

So the correlation is there but only because anti-social behavior and religion have the same causes.

This is like seeing a relation between cholera and intestinal parasites. Sure you may well see one where you see the other, but they are not related to each other - but they are both related to having clean, safe water to drink.

You bring up some good points. Not doing bad things because it hurts others is obviously more moral than doing it just out of self-preservation. I'm sure there are many religious people that also avoid hurting others for the right reasons, but there's still the fact that the vast majority of criminals in prison are religious and very few are atheists. There are good and bad people in every crowd, but maybe with bad people that are religious, they feel that they can do whatever they want and then just repent afterwards and everything will be fine. With atheists, we don't believe in any gods, so we can't use that as an excuse to do whatever we want. We're responsible for our own actions and can't make any excuses in that respect.

I think Atheists, and Theists are both equally moral.

Don't forget that although humans don't share the same philosophy, that we have the same innate drives. There are good and bad people in every belief system, race, gender, or location on earth. I know of some really good Atheists, and some really bad Atheists... and the same goes for Theists.

I don't think Atheists are more moral... I just thing a greater percentage of Atheists act moral, because Atheism is driven by deep rational thought... and anyone who thinks so deeply should have given deep thought to morals as well.

Morality is defined by society.

In certain Arabic countries, penalty for rape is the cutting off of the...you know.

They don't find this immoral, but just punishement for a crime.

Here, mutilating someone in that way is considered cruel and immoral.

Neither is really linked to religion, unless you count the fact that that particular law in arabic countries stems from the qu'ran, but that doesn't mean they had to make it law. It means the society agreed that this was the best practice.

As such, morality is defined by society. In the case of atheist or christianity, it's defined by how and whom you were brought up. I don't believe one is more moral than the other, I believe a case by case, individual by individual observation should be made.

You kind of contradicted yourself by asking this. You said that religion is completely separate from morality, which is correct, and then asked which religious view is more moral.

Theoretically, a xian could be compelled by "self-preservation" as well as morals and not be any less moral than an atheist doing the same actions.

Wrong statements:

(As Muslim)

"Most Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, have morality based on God. They don't do bad things because God told them not to. They need a book to tell them what is or is not moral."

We dont need the book to tell us so, but the book tells what is wrong already. There is no need to seek "wrong" out of the book. What is wrong out of religion is also wrong in religion.

For instance, atheist may see adultery immoral which is aslo immoral in religion.

Theft, bribery, embezzlement, tax evasion etc are all immoral in religion. We have more morals than atheists like prohibition of fornication.

Also, you have wrong logic.

"To avoid doing bad things because you are afraid of punishment, or to avoid doing bad things because you don't want to hurt others? I think it's safe to say that the later is more moral, don't you?"

We fear punishment because God does not want us to do thing which may hurt others. We both please God and other humabeings.

Atheists only please humanbeings (if they can) but not God.

I never say all atheists are immoral. But you have to see my point.

Morality is an individual thing, but the percentage of atheists in the population, compared to the percentage of atheists in prison populations infers there is some sort of correlation.

Not that the religious are inherently immoral, but humanists are more likely to act more morally.

Prison population:

0.2% atheist

99.8% theist

World population:

9-15% atheist

85-91% theist

I would say that we are more sincere and genuine than most theists, as we do things based on our compassion that we have for others, not our fear of a non-existent god who may punish or reward us for what we do in this life (well, we don't fear or expect a reward at all... finding it hard to word this, for some reason.)

It takes morals and strength to simply resist the pressure on everyone to join a Religion with all the deaths and oppression they caused.