I hear it all the time...

"What keeps you from being a child raping axe murdering drug addict if there is no god?"

Homo Sapien Sapien is a herd animal, tribal and needing to function in groups to survive. Survival depends on certain ingrained principles, the primary of which is to not allow members of the herd to kill each other willy nilly. All the other 'moral' injunctions follow this simple imperative as violating them can lead to violence and killing, thus wrecking the group cohesion.

My ethics and morality derive from the culture in which I was raised and reinforced by the pressure of my peers. As I grew, I incorporated much of what in had been taught into my world view, rationalizing and reasoning out the purpose and place of the various ideas, making them part of my essential character. On top of my personal ethic, we have laws, society's way of codifying a common ethic. Even if one lacks an ethical stance on certain issues, the fear of societal retribution tends to keep most in line.
Morality is mutable, changing with time and custom. I knew several people in my youth who were only a generation removed from slavery. Once slavery wasn't immoral, it was in fact validated by the holy scriptures as right and moral. Once, a wife could not refuse her husbands sexual advances, the concept of marital rape was unimagined. We've changed, we've grown as a people.

Christian morality doesn't exist. Yes, they have rules and a huge litany of sins, but most are for the purpose of pointing out the failings of others, many are outdated, barbaric and non nonsensical.

But, in the final analysis, it doesn't matter, they only have ONE 'moral' injunction. In order to avoid punishment, and gain admission to the holy theme park, one only has to pucker up and plant a smooch on the precisely right spot of the celestial buttocks.

It matter not a whit if you ARE an axe murdering pedophilic monster, if you kiss god's ass in just the right way and REALLY mean it, you remove all personal responsibility and culpability for your actions. This is the sum total of  "Christian Morality".

You don't need to actually BE good, in fact, the book tells us no one CAN be good. All you have to have is a nimble conscious, and the ability to convince yourself that a mock sacrifice 2000 years ago can give you a free pass.

Disgusting.

LC >;-}>