godless folk don't have any higher being to answer to, and their morals are not as well-taught as in believing families and communities. What is right and wrong is subjective, but almost everyone can agree that killing, stealing, and lying are all 3 sins. Without (belief of) anyone higher than yourself to answer to, you can break the rules, since noone will know; you can be an unkind fellow.
I would say you don't need a higher being to answer to. You treat people well because you wish them well, not because you're afraid some god might punish you if you're a jerk. That's rather selfish, at least imo, if it's the primary drive for your morality.
I'm rather utilitarian, in this ethics philosophy, right and wrong is not subjective.
Christianity is an expert at sins ans forgiveness. Break the rules but pray and ask for forgiveness. There's plenty of loopholes there to excuse immorality, even if one follows a version of the religion that's abandoned the immoral parts of the Bible.
Certainly not all atheists are good, just like not all religious people are good. People from both can be unkind fellows.
But the trend nowadays is just to to follow what you agree is right.
But then you're not getting your morality from the religion anymore. You're getting your morality in a secular way, and cherry picking the bits of the religion that seem to agree with it.
In the Recitation, it says itself that the devil will look like God and try to deceive you, and I bet there is something akin to that in the Holy Writ.
That leaves a big question why an all-loving, omnipotent, omniscient god would let its religion be used to deceive people to do evil. Even after letting evil into the world (which is logically incompatible with the traits), the god doesn't even manage to make sure its religion becomes a force of good for the world. I would say that points to a very incompetent god, or humans who didn't think too much about the stories they wrote down.
Amazing, since religious institutes in many lands were the first to fund education and science, spread the message of charity, peace, kindness, and tolerance. Many religions are less about the "faith" and more an organisation of "beliefs" of what are the right things to do. Mahāvir says "All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away.", and this is part of the Jain creed of course. Ahimsa is the most important part of Jainism; do not hurt. But no, having organised sets of morals and legends is "child abuse" to you. Why not ban capitalism while you're at it?
I'm not saying all parts of religion are bad and should be banned. Many of the things you mention there are certainly good. But considered as a whole, I think religion is a greater force for evil than good.
If the morals are good, sure, teach the morals. Legends, there's nothing wrong with telling stories and fiction to children, as long as you don't try to craft their worldview to think fiction is truth.
that's irrelevant to everyone who doesn't believe in that today.
The holy books are full of the motivation for it so I would say it's very relevant. The problem is people will never let go of them and consider morality a fully secular matter. As long as they don't do that, the foundation that lead to all those things still exist, whether most religious people in some western countries choose to ignore them today or not.
