This thread demands a hearty injection of Friedrich Nietzsche, maybe The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and someone better read than I to provide it!
There are many successful moral and ethical approaches that don't bother with even a passing reference to religion. Models like utilitarianism or Kantian ethics and categorical imperatives have existed for hundreds of years and orient themselves towards the intrinsic values of human beings and their happiness. That they provide satisfactory guidance in all but the most abstract and unlikely hypotheticals should be reason itself to deny the idea that atheism is "morally bankrupt."
|