>Len,
>
>>>Ulitimately, your ethics depends on your view of and/or sense of accountability to God.
>>
>>I do not believe in God.
>
>Sure you do. It's the master passion in your life. You may not believe in the same God I (or others) do but you most certainly have andbelieve in some sort of 'god'. It may be your intellect; power, money, physical pleasures, or anything else but you do have a master passion. SOmething you serve and obey - your god.
You once tried to pin this sort of spin on me, but you weren't this blunt. If there's an equivalent of the word "blasphemy" in the non-believer's world, this would be close to it. One of the major points in deciding that the existence of deities is to be irelevant is that that those who chose so take the responsibility. There's no more excuses, there's no upper hand whom you can blame when you fail, it's just you against the universe, with the rest of your kind on your or other side. How you fare is your own doing
IOW, telling a non-believer that he still does believe in a god despite his own preference, is probably the same as if someone told you that you don't, even though you may imagine you do.
Trying to fit myself into your definition of "master passion", I'm probably a one-member church, serving as a complete hierarchy (from the uppermost deity to the lowest acolyte) within my mind, but that wouldn't be a true picture. I don't have a master passion, unless the desire to have had a full life counts. And I surely don't serve it, far less
obey. It's just something that may or may not come along, depending on too many factors, including my moods, coincidences, random events etc etc.