A Rumination

(Paraphrased from a web-article I read a while ago)

Even if atheists reject the idea of God completely and claim to live according only to cold hard logic of science, they still live with an element of morality.  When a con-artist scams you out of $50, an atheist won't nod his head and say "Fascinating!  This guy is is genetically predisposed to unfair exchange of goods, that generations of Darwinian sexual selection in favor of right social behavior has instilled in me.  How intriguing, this difference is!"

Obviously not; an atheist would think what that guy did was wrong.  He, and anyone else, would want justice.  He would think he should have acted differently.

Despite the fact that there is no "justice" element on the periodic table, no one would think of the con-artist as just a fellow animal who happens to behave differently than you.  Any normal person would think he should have acted some other way, according to an invisible ideal that everybody is aware of and knows they should obey.

When that "Janet Jackson's boob at the Super Bowl" incident happened a few years ago, for a long time afterward, I heard a bunch of people making fun of Christians and their puritan silliness over sex.  They were saying stuff along the lines of: "We're all just mammals!  It's just a breast, all females have them.  What are you getting so worked up about?"

Yet, the moment you find out that while you were on vacation, your girl got drunk and slept with the entire Chicago Bears... suddenly sex is something to get upset about.

Suddenly it's not just meat slapping against meat.

Suddenly the exclusive sexual bond between you and your girl was important, was to be protected, was almost.... sacred.

Again there's this invisible rule that was supposed to be followed, that everybody was supposed to be aware of, that can't be proven by logic.  Whatever it is, wherever you think it came from, you can't deny that it's there.