Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals.

Universal is a strong word.
Especially when discussing human emotions/concepts/subjective things. Just the example itself... of a Neanderthal stalking a female and copulating with her by force...
Doesn't that action itself show that at least the Neanderthal taking the action doesn't agree that it's "taboo?"Or I suppose you could say he's just testing? Or getting an adrenaline rush going against social-norms?But... what about psychopaths. Are we saying that animals-without-the-capacity-for-emotions are not really animals?
Or is it universal as-long-as-you're-not-a-psychopath? Which is basically saying that it's universal as long as you ignore the cases where it doesn't apply? There's a very big difference between saying most do this or that vs. saying all do this or that.
With humans, and animals, we always seem to able to find that single, one case that just makes us go.... wtf?

Is it necessarily "...for the preservation of the group?"Maybe morals are simply behaviours that are considered good.And, on top of that, 'behaviours that are considered good' include those behaviours that preserve the group.
But perhaps not limited only to such a thing.Like not cheating in a board game when you know you won't get caught.Certainly not something that preserves the group.
But also "good morals," no?I suppose you could use another word for such a thing... like 'honour' instead of 'moral'... but that seems like a cop-out to me.

I was attempting to come at the questions from your end... so you would be the one who needs to answer this.
If you want my stance, though... the "who" is "whoever's being affected by the action(s) in question." Otherwise you'll be prescribing your own morality onto others, which can easily lead to abuse. I agree this is normally sufficient.
I was quibbling.But what about my quibble? Not cheating in a board game... when you know you you're not going to get caught.
That's not going to harm anyone, either way (it's a board game...).
Is this "moral"? In which case... your definition of morals may need to be adjust along the lines of my suggestion. Or would you define the problem away and call this something else, like "honour?" Anyone who cares enough. Many. Like not stealing from others because you don't want someone to steal from yourself.

I would only note that they all can be for personal benefit.
But just because something can be motivated for selfish reasons doesn't mean that it is. Some people do.
Some people don't.
Some people practice and enforce moral conduct because they want to help people instead of hurt people.
Some people practice and enforce moral conduct because they want to protect certain people they care deeply for (but is "meh" towards everyone else).Realizing that practicing and enforcing moral conduct is directly beneficial to ourselves doesn't mean this automatically becomes "the reason" people do it.Just as realizing playing on a team sport directly benefits ourselves doesn't mean that is "the reason" all people do it.
Some will do it for that reason.
Some will do it for other reasons... say, because their parents want them to, or because they want to help the team succeed and they know they are a vital part of that success. I would say survival and maintaining the group and one's relationship to it is important. But not paramount.
There are many things I would not do... even to save the entire human race from extinction.
Quick example: I would not save the entire human race from extinction if it meant sacrificing the lives of innocent children every day just so that the rest of the human race could survive. I would rather just end everything instead of base it on such a structure. Again, I would say that you can frame all behavior as driven by assessment of personal benefit if you want to.But just because you can frame something one way, doesn't mean all the other possible framings disappear.
You don't get to prescribe other people's motivations just because you can imagine a single, possible motivation.

Actually, upon reflection, I think I agree.I think I got caught in a colloquial-way of speaking.
That is, someone who does this not-cheating-in-a-board-game thing... people would say they have "good moral character." (Which is where I got confused).However, I agree that it's not "moral" if no one is affected.I think it's just an intricacy of the English language and how the term "moral" can mean so many different things. Specifically and colloquially.They're all connected... morals, honour, righteousness, protecting-the-weak...
But perhaps they are not all strictly the same thing. You shut your mouth!!

Ha ha, I doubt I could give you a satisfactory response.
If you ever find anything on what is the "root cause" for driving our internal consciences... let me know. I'd like to know too One thing to note:"Internal conscience" is just a term.
A couple of words made up by some guy years ago to reference "all this stuff" about morality, honour...Is it a thing?
Is it an organ?
Is it a DNA sequence?
Is it an amalgamation of all or only parts of a bunch of those things?
Is it an emergent property from everything working together at different levels (based on physical things, but only really existing in the 'abstract')?I don't think any of those answers are known by anyone right now.
But they sure are good questions The basics make sense:
1 - Creatures exist and evolve.
2 - Having "a conscience" provides an evolutionary advantage for 'taking care of the group' - helping to promote survival for the group
3 - Tadaa!! Conscience evolves and grows in humans.But what about any of the specifics, the details? I got nothing.
Just because the conscience (probably) developed as a group-survival-mechanism at some point in history... must it remain as only that?
Do we not have intelligence that allows us to be creative and expand/explore/control our current 'instinctual' functional systems?Can we use our intelligence to negate the instinctual "group-survival-mechanism" aspect of our conscience and implement something more? Something beyond simply surviving? Can we use our conscience because we want to help others or leave the place better than we found it or for any other reason we so desire?I think we can.Just as our legs and arms evolved as survival-mechanisms for locomotion and/or using tools for survival.
However, we certainly can use our intelligence to expand/explore/control our legs and arms for many other things... fun, curiosity, entertainment.If we can use our intelligence to move beyond mere "survival-mechanisms" for other aspects of our existence, why not for our conscience as well?Well, that got rambling into another direction...
Anyway, I'll just leave all that there