Is it possible for an atheist to be moral? Perhaps we should first ask, "What is morality?" In today's popular, postmodern
culture, to suggest that there is a universal moral law may draw anything from raised eyebrows to outright hostility. At the same time, there seems to be written on our hearts a law that demands justice when we have been harmed and paralyzes us with feelings of guilt and shame when we are the perpetrator. When asked if rape, murder, or genocide is wrong, there seems to be universal agreement within the human community that only a psychopath would answer "no."
We seem intuitively to experience a rightness about ethical claims and a sense of obligation to obey them. There is an a priori oughtness about morality. Philosophers call this the incumbency of moral rules. That is, moral rules have a tangible force about them that precedes our actions (Koukl and Beckwith, Relativism, 166)). Unless one's conscience is seared, one's violation of a moral rule results in feelings of uneasiness and fear of retribution (Beckwith in The New Mormon Challenge, 227). This suggests that there is a moral law prior to and outside of the natural realm that presses upon it, a moral law that we encounter and discover rather than create.
This universal human experience of moral incumbency cannot be explained empirically either in part or in full within nature itself. Nature is impersonal and cannot be the source of such a phenomenon. Nor can we explain such a
phenomenon by proposing that moral laws exist eternally in some abstract form. If moral laws were in themselves distinct eternal entities, then there is no mind or authority behind the moral law (Ibid, 228). This would render incomprehensible the guilt and shame that accompanies violating these laws. Personal guilt implies a person offended. Therefore, it would seem that a morally ordered universe must be fully infused with the intentionality of a personal being who claims legitimate moral authority over all existence, a being whose moral authority is not limited by co-eternal entities. Only a sovereign creator God who brought everything into being out of nothing could claim such unlimited authority and be himself the source of that authority.
So is it possible for an atheist to be moral? An atheist does not recognize the existence of a personal God. He is left with a closed natural order of physical causes. There can be no "oughts" in such a universe, only matter in motion. In such a universe, there could be no freedom of choice, since all behavior would be determined necessarily by random, mindless physical, biological, and chemical processes. Hence, "morality" would be a word
without a referent because moral behavior entails free agency and personal responsibility. In addition, moral behavior requires true belief, that is, actual knowledge of moral truth. But no moral truth can exist in an atheistic world since there could be no transcendent value by which to measure our conduct.
Therefore, an atheist is left without evaluations, but only descriptions of behavior. He has no basis upon which to classify a behavior as "good" or "evil". One cannot get an "ought" from a simple "is". In the end, if an atheist is to be consistent, he must never label any personal performance or the actions of another with a term of value. In a non-theistic world, behavior is only behavior. Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler share the same house, and Jeffrey Dahmer merits no moral sanction. Since no transcendent being exists, neither does any transcendent standard, and no moral judgment is possible either in this life or in a hypothetical afterlife.
Of course, we all know that most atheists claim to be moral persons, although they have absolutely no grounds for making such a claim. In fact, many atheists are very vocal when it comes to issues of social justice. What they will generally 
not admit, however, is that, when they make such claims, they are borrowing on the capital of theism whether they like it or not. The fact that even an atheist cannot help but make moral judgments and act as if there really is a transcendent source of morality is evidence of the recalcitrant image of God in man, and hence evidence for the existence of God himself. At the very least, an honest atheist must admit that the moment she makes a moral claim or invokes a moral rule, her godless worldview collapses. We Christian theists will be first in line to help her clear the rubble and rebuild upon the Rock of Christ a worldview that can never be shaken or swept away.
"Convinced that there is no eternal life awaiting him, he [man] will strive all the more to brighten his life on earth and rationally improve his condition in harmony with that of his fellows" (Ernst Haeckel, The Wonders of Life, 108).
"I couldn't find any meaning in my life when I was out there. I'm sure as hell not going to find it in here. This is the grand finale of a ... sick, pathetic, wretched, miserable life story, that's all it is" (Jeffrey Dahmer after his arrest).
"If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (Apostle Paul, 1 Cor 15:19).
Blessings,
Arnie Gentile 
clipped from mychristianapologetics.com
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