There is an interesting post over at the NYT from a few days ago called  "Good Minus God" by Louise M. Antony.

She says:

"I gather that many people believe that atheism implies nihilism — that rejecting God means rejecting morality.  A person who denies God, they reason, must be, if not actively evil, at least indifferent to considerations of right and wrong.  After all, doesn’t the dictionary list “wicked” as a synonym for “godless?”  And isn’t it true, as Dostoevsky said, that “if God is dead, everything is permitted”?

Well, actually — no, it’s not.  (And for the record, Dostoevsky never said it was.)   Atheism does not entail that anything goes."

Then Ms. Antony goes on to write a very intellectual and complex argument about why we can be good without God. It's all good stuff, I definitely recommend you read all of it.

But it's too deep for me.

I think believers and non-believers, atheists and religious people are good because it's easier. It makes your life better. There's no paperwork, no questions to answer, no apologizing to do. I think humans are good for the most part because they are lazy, but also because, as Charles Darwin once said (approximately), we want the good opinion of our fellows. 

People don't like you when you are bad. If you are bad they might punch you in the nose or arrest you, but those are minor things, really.

It's much worse when they won't agree to have lunch with you. They won't come to your parties or invite you to theirs. They won't leave you alone with their children or their valuables.

If people think you cheat, steal and lie they won't share their jokes with you. They won't loan you money.  They will warn other people about you. 

Worse than even all those horrible things is they will look at you with disappointment in their eyes.

God may entice you to be good with heaven or threaten your bad self with hell but in a weak moment of temptation, those things are of very little consequence. It's the look of disappointment, the absence of an answering smile, the lack of pleasure in your company which is almost universally unbearable and which will almost invariably keep you on the straight and narrow. 

It's so automatic we almost never think about it. We do good things because we want the smiles and the good opinion. We avoid doing bad things for the same reason. 

So if you agree to not shoot me or steal my stuff, I will agree to the same thing. Let's have lunch, tomorrow, shall we?