A common response to atheism is that atheists must be purposeless because, in the world view of most religions, their God is the source of all purpose, happiness, and love. Daylight Atheism has an interesting post which illustrates by analogy why being an atheist does not mean that one has no purpose, happiness, or love.

A very interesting NY Times article about The Moral Instinct. The article discusses possibilities for the genetic and neurological basis for moral sense; apparently there are parts of the brain that, when damaged, cause a person to lose their moral sense or their ability to work through even simple moral reasoning.

The article also discusses the universality of five spheres of moral sense ("harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity"). It then discussed how the idea of universal spheres of moral sense is not incompatible with the idea that different groups have different (and often incompatible) moral system. The short reason is that applying different spheres at different times can lead to vastly different conclusions. They give the example that a community that valued fairness could see some actions and label them as cronyism and corruption while a community that valued group loyalty could see this as giving back to your friends and not participating in that community as disloyal.

This brings up another point: when one group criticizes another as being "evil", they are usually not recognizing that the other group is probably acting from moral principles that they believe in just as strongly as the first group believes in their moral principles. Sometimes a person or group may take actions that they believe are not moral or they may have a warped sense of morality, but most of the time, if people really examined the beliefs of those they are opposed to, they could conclude that while they disagree with the moral basis of the actions of others, they do not deny that those actions do have a moral basis.

Finally, the article discusses how all of this does not lead to moral relativism but may, in fact, strengthen the moral reasoning people engage in. The reasoning behind this is that when people understand why they believe certain things are moral or immoral and others believe other things are moral or immoral, it will be easier to reach understanding and find a common moral ground to build off of.

Given that the article was, while deep for its kind, still just a paper article, I conclude that the ideas presented in the paper seem quite reasonable, but I am still open to a more in depth look into morality and instinct.