Xian ethics is irrational, otherworldly, and impractical. It promises much, and delivers nothing. Jesus’ “interim ethic” couldn’t outlast one generation of true believers. The fideistic irrationality of Paul of Tarsus with its anti-intellectualism, misogyny, and revenge seeking has poisoned the West for 2,000 years.

Chinese culture was far luckier. From that very rational, this worldly, and practical book, The Analects, attributed to Confucius (500 BCE!):

6:20 Fan Ch’ih asked what constituted wisdom. The Master said, “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”

15:23 Tsze-kung asked, saying, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” The Master said, “Is not ‘reciprocity’ such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” [trans. S.R. McIntyre 2003]

No god is needed to police human behavior. All ethics is irreducibly social. Harming others can not be generalized; otherwise, no culture could exist.

There’s no need to invoke evolution (or memes) — unless they’re Lamarkian — each generation of persons teaches the next.

bipolar2
© 2008

But (2) is a very different question, as you probably know since you seem to have done some research in metaethics. How one could appeal to evolutionary theory to adequately answer (2) is not at all clear to me — though how theists could appeal to god to adequately answer it (most or all seem to endorse some form of divine command theory, which has since Plato’s time been known to be very problematic) isn’t clear to me either. At any rate, you might want to flag this distinction — i.e., the distinction between asking why we are normally inclined to act in moral ways and asking why some actions are right/wrong — in your discussion. Evolution does seem capable of explaining why we normally prefer good things, but it isn’t at all clear how it can explain why some things are good in the first place. Given that divine command theory fails (and I’m pretty sure it does), I don’t think the existence of morality does anything to tip the scale for or against atheism. (Personally, I take it to be a primitive, necessary truth that some actions are right/wrong. There seems to be something fundamentally wrongheaded in asking why, say, killing just for fun is wrong.)

We’re attracted to women with bigger hips for an evolutionary reason – bigger hips means a wider pelvis, which means relatively easier births, less complications and therefore for the effort expended a greater chance of carrying on your genes.