Actions born of love (agape) = good. Actions born of fear = evil Not really that different than what flows through much of a theistic approach, just without the personified deity. Buddhism and taoism are both atheistic religions with well formed ethos. If you ask me the notion of God's existence or non existence is one of the oldest semantic arguments around though. I'd rather see more people understand or at least experience the divine union of things no matter the words they use to describe it. Beats rote repetition of dogma on the level of superstition any day. But, seeing past the cultural stylization would be even better.