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And that's fine. I have no expectation that the social contract reached by any individual society will be the one I prefer. And our current definition of murder is not entirely that of judeo-christian tradition. For example, by many traditions abortion (as we're so loudly reminded) is murder, euthanasia (as practiced in some European countries and Oregon) is murder.
Personally, I agree that the former is not and that the latter is. Society will or will not come to match my views.
Whether you like the fluidity of morality does not change the fact that it is fluid. When enough people feel the same way and change an aspect of societal morality, religion is pretty much helpless to stop it (this is why divorce is now legal in Ireland).
As for why, without referencing god, I think murder is wrong:
I place almost no inherent value on your individual life. This is true. If we learned later today that you were dead all it would be is an interesting factoid.
But I care if you were murdered for the same reason I don't really care if 600 villagers in Africa die but do care if they all die of ebola: I don't want it to happen to me. So I'd really appreciate it if society rallied round to make sure the ebola epidemic did not spread.
This is because I very much do place an inherent value on my life. I'd really prefer it not end until I choose that it does. So, by society gathering round to condemn killing people like me, to the extent that this pressure prevents me specifically from being killed I am in favor. Selfishness is why murder is bad; if I were guaranteed to be exempted from any murdering, my opposition to it would fall precipitously (but not completely since there are other lives that I hold in some value). Continuing this to other conclusion is why drunk driving is bad (you driving drunk could hurt me) but Jim Jones convincing hundreds to kill themselves is not (if Jim Jones successfully convinces me then see the second sentence of this paragraph).
And yes, there are people who want to continue their religious culture even in the absence of god. I just think they're even more irrational than the people who actually believe the god is there and therefore think they're doing what he commanded. Avoiding bacon-wrapped asparagus because your deluded (as you now think they were if you don't believe their god exists) ancestors did is just silly*.
*And yes, for whomever might feel inclined to bring it up, I do engage in a very similar form of silliness myself. Being silly doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but it doesn't make it less silly.
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