A Short Note On Rhetoric

In response to pieces I've written about atheism and morality, mostly notably here and here, commenters have responded with the equivalent of "well, yeah, but the other guy is just as bad/worse".

Such observations may be perfectly correct but are still irrelevant. If I argue that atheistic systems are logically indefensible it doesn't make any difference at all what the other guy is doing. We're not trying to be better than the other guy; you can be better than the other guy and still be awful to your fellow humans. Rather, the point is to define an absolute standard of good and then try to live up to that standard.

You think atheists are morally superior to theists? Then don't waste my time with school-yard logic. Instead, show me that I'm wrong and that its possible to build a coherent, defensible, atheistic moral framework.