As for being an atheist meaning I have no Authority Figure watching my every move, that is true. I had to arrive at my philosophy of life by thinking everything through.
Agreed. But after thinking everything through, an atheist may well decide they don't need to be concerned about others' welfare (and many do decide such). A Christian does not have that option. Finally, I would add that Christianity is hardly a non-thinking religion! On the contrary, it requires deep thought to put into action its morality. At the end of the day, Christians are called to treat others in a certain way. Atheists are not (unless they happen to decide that there should be a reason for such).
Actually, to compare Christians vs. atheists is somewhat flawed, since atheists is a more general class than Christians. The real comparison should be between theists and atheists, or between Christians (in your case) and Objectivists (in mine). There is great variety in the moral codes of the various theistic religions, and ditto for the various types of atheists.
Objectivism teaches that morality is a tool that Man created to ensure the Good Life. You can't have any chance at maximizing your eudaimonia - your flourishing as a human - without living in a certain type of civilization, and you can't sustain such a civilization without a certain class of moral code.
Each one of us has an obligation, if you can call it that, to maximize our values. (Well, maybe call it an "opportunity" instead.) And to do that, we must make the most of our lives as human beings. Our being human implies certain things about our nature: We are the only animal that has any real capability for abstract, rational thought. It's our only real survival advantage over the lions, so to speak. This ability (& instinctual urge) to learn things both concrete & abstract, plus the fact that we are born with almost no specific instinctual knowledge at all means that each one of us will become an individual, individually responsible for our actions. Right there you have the basic rationale for a society based on individual rights, the rule of law, respect for contracts, etc.
(I'll try to make this quick, 'cuz I must do some errands:) To an Objectivist, a morality grounded in individual-rights is a well-tested methodology to achieve our highest values, in the same way that buying low and selling high and investing the profits instead of spending them today is. (It's more important than that, since no-one would dream of mandating buy low/sell high as law, but it's of the same class, IMO.)
One last thing: Please don't confuse "self-interest" with "self-serving". We're talking about what kind of moral codes come out of theism vs. atheism. No moral code can be self-serving. Every time you make a decision that has moral consequences, you're implicitly stating to the world that you want everyone else in a comparable situation to act the way you are about to. So I ask myself: What would this world be like if everyone acted this way vs. that way, whenever a comparable situation occurred? Would I want to live in that kind of society? Would the best things about our society have been possible in the first place if people acted in this way vs. that way?
Anyway, I gotta go. I hope that was halfway clear. :-)
Who says so?
Right. Under objectivism we make moral laws purely for our own convenience. We agree not to kill each other because we don't want to be killed ourselves. But in that way, lots of what religious people would call pure evil can come about. For instance, if we all thought there were too many kids, we could all agree to kill our second born child. Farfetched? Peter Singer, Professor of 'Ethics' at Princeton University, believes we should be allowed to kill children under the age of 2 if we want since they don't have a 'sense of self' yet. Objectivists work to find the most convenient morality. Abortion rights is objectivism at work. (Well, I had sex with ten men, and no big deal that I got pregnant. Can't possibly have the baby, since I have to much of life to live. Glad that we all agree OK to terminate the baby (right up to its birth), since we all want that convenience.) What objectivists come up as convenient isn't what religious people are talking about when they think of morality.
The objectivist code (which is quite compatible with atheism) you're talking about exists only to make your life convenient.
Well, for the almost fully born healthy baby about to be aborted (murdered), the golden rule of Christianity would certainly seem more favorable than the objectivist decision made by society to allow doing away with that child. But of course, the baby doesn't have any say.