<p><pre><code>    &gt; As a counter-point let me ask a non-religious person,
    &gt; what makes an act good?
</code></pre>
You might be interested in reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris for an in-depth start at an answer to that question.<p>It&#x27;s a secular look at morality and how we can reason about morality without a foundation of unscientific ideas (e.g. the existence of a deity).<p>In essence it makes the point that the religious idea of morality driven by a god with a big stick in the sky who&#x27;ll discipline you if you step out of line isn&#x27;t moral at all, and neither do most religious people actually adhere to it in practice.<p>E.g. we&#x27;re not stoning homosexuals or burning witches as we once were, and it&#x27;s not because the scripture changed, but because of secular progress despite of scripture. How do you decide which instructions to cherry-pick from the Bible or whatever piece of scripture it is you believe in?<p>He essentially defines an act as &quot;good&quot; if it&#x27;s a net increase in human happiness and well-being. Burning people to death of persecuting homosexuals, not so much. Looking out for your fellow man so he&#x27;ll look out for you. Note that this isn&#x27;t the same thing as reducing morality to hedonism.<p>Anyway, I&#x27;m doing a poor job of paraphrasing the gist of that book so I&#x27;ll stop. But if you&#x27;re genuinely interested in what constitutes a good act or moral behavior in the secular sense there&#x27;s a lot of well-researched and  interesting works you can read on the subject.