In the beginning, man was a polywog. And the polywog was without form and void, and angst hovered over the surface of the waters. Then the polywog said to himself, "Let us make me in our own image," and it was so. And the polywog grew legs, but after weeks at sea they were unwieldy when he staggered onto dry land so he grew hair and phalanges and other stuff to help him do whatever he needed to do.

When other man-wogs moved into his neighborhood, they had to figure out how to get along. Most of them kept to themselves and greeted each other with minimal grunts and oomphs, but other man-wogs were mean and greedy and started killing each other to get what they wanted.

For a time the man-wog village prospered until some of them started turning into monkeys and needed a drier climate. The monkeys left, but they all fought over the same tree to swing in and there were more problems because the monkeys were stronger and meaner than the man-wogs. In the end they decided to turn into people, and invented the nuclear bomb to make sure everyone behaved.

Atheist ethics is kind of a contradiction in terms. Built on secular humanism and evolution (with a consequent denial of absolute or universal truth), atheist ethicists are forced to build their framework on sketchy principles that are usually just re-phrased Christian ethics.

There are two common atheistic views on human nature: one says all men are essentially good, the other says there is no universal or common human nature. Those who assume the first believe man will naturally behave himself; a strict ethical code is thus unnecessary. Those who hold the second view believe it is up to individuals or individual communities to come up with an ethical system, which is essentially no more than moral anarchy.

While we can be thankful such anarchy can't practically exist (God is in control), we must also be aware of the dangers presented by secular ethical systems (or the lack thereof).