rape can be moral using utilitarianistic moral-reasoning.

If you don't know what utilitarianism is, read about it here.

Many atheists subscribe to this moral philosophy in part/whole. The basic idea behind this moral philosophy is that the ends justify the means, and that moral decisions should be based on the Greatest Happiness Principal (G. H. P). G.H.P is basically about how moral decisions should be based upon whichever outcome leads to the most happiness and least pain. Motives don't matter with this philosophy only the telos (end).

But, I don't want to get to much into the description of this philosophy (the basic idea is that moral decisions should be based upon what leads to the most pleasure/happiness and least pain). The point in this blog post that I'm looking to make is that there are many holes in this moral structure—that such moral reasoning is not moral at all.

Here is a good example that highlights the flaws of utilitarianism..

There is a guy named Bob. Bob considers himself to be a very moral individual, and he subscribes to the moral-philosophy of Mills (as briefly described above). Using this morality, Bob is able to morally justify in his mind the act of rape. In this example, it is assumed that while raping the individual, the individual is harmed in no way, and the person is unaware that it occurs. If Utilitarianism is used, then there is no harm caused at all, but there is pleasure (albeit disturbing). So by using the G.H.P Bob is not immoral by raping this person, in fact it is moral to rape, because raping someone in this way causes no harm, but does cause happiness (more total happiness than would exist otherwise).

While this may seem like a cheap-shot, it is in my opinion a good reflection for why this is no way to contemplate morality (people can use this type of moral-reasoning to justify immoral behavior).

 I know I'm a broken record (brought this up many times), but morality should be based on something that doesn't seem to be brought up that much in discussion about morality (I personally don't hear it that much anyways); which is, moral-behavior should be judged based upon how that behavior influences the functionality of society (if it harms it, it is immoral, if it benefits it, it is moral, etc.). It seems this way of looking at morality should be obvious from a sociological context. I mean, that is the purpose of morality, it is cognition that leads to actions that are beneficial to society ("beneficial" can even mean behavior that supports existing useful moral behavior; i.e. the status quo is not necessarily immoral for not improving societies functionality, but merely maintaining it can be moral in itself). I can't seem to think of any moral contradiction with this view of morality; or in other words, it seems all-encompassing of morality as we know it, and leaves plenty of room for improvement.

It seems to me that atheists should be embracing this view of morality instead of utilitarianism and/or moral-relativism (both have similarities). A view of morality that looks at how morality influences society on all levels is way more logical than anything else out there.