How does an atheist make moral decisions without an authoritative text?

An authoritative text, in the minds of Christians, is their Bible. Christians claim their good book is inspired by a divine being. Christians claim the Bible is the absolute perfect word of God. The Bible, Christians say, is infallible.

Yet, the Bible encourages acts of murder, rape, slavery, genocide and barbarism, that are totally illegal in the modern world. No sane person would stone a women claiming to be a witch to death because the Bible says to do it. Neither can you kill homosexuals because the Bible commands you to do so.

The Bible is morally weak in these areas and completely, totally and disgustingly wrong. The Bible shows itself to be fallible. If there was a divine, perfect being, that being definitely did not write the Bible. In fact, all evidence shows that the Bible was written by human beings. The Bible, in reality, expresses the views of the culture that existed at the time of its writing, not the desires of a God.

Where do preachers get their authority and who gives it to them?

Since none of what so-called “holy” men claim to be the word of God has been shown to be true and a great deal of it has been shown to be untrue and immoral, I doubt that an “authoritative text” is where morality comes from.

People know not to hurt other people. If you hurt people, they’ll hurt you back. Your best friends are those that help you and take care of you. In return, you help them and try to take care of them. If peaceful society, where people help each other is going to be the most moral and best one to live in.

 I do not need an authoritative text to be moral. I know that if I do something that I would not want done to me, that act is wrong. I try not to hurt other people. It is fairly simple to be more.