I don't deny that it is best to avoid and struggle against many actions that are considered immoral; likewise that it is best to perform and promote many things that are considered moral -- but I maintain: the former should be avoided and the latter should be promoted for different reasons than heretofore. — Nietzsche

With all the preaching people do, reading the perspectives of Frederich Nietzsche and Max Stirner can be refreshing: their ideas sometimes get conflated with "giving people license to do bad things", but the quote above indicates that it's not true. This is often how people interpret criticisms of morality: there's frequently a sense that a lack of it leads to unspeakable horrors.

However, I believe most of the criticisms of morality in philosophy come from a desire not to see things as either good or evil, but rather to acknowledge grey areas or a universal egoism that's behind all things. Overall, christianity has had a tremendous influence on both europe and the americas, and I think, especially in the case of Nietzsche, that he was reacting to the often punitive and harsh mindset of christians from his time period and before. It's easy to conclude that things are very different from the medieval era, and modern day christians have softer and more libertarian perspectives (separation of church and state, being an example), yet a dualistic attitudes towards morality lends itself towards punishment or ostracism. I don't think it's possible to do away with ostracism, as this goes back very far, even though sanctioned punishment is relatively new compared to the whole history of homo sapiens.

The fact that we still refer to dates as "B.C." is all the evidence I need that we are still in a Christian historical era, and part of what i like about Nietzsche is that some of his ideas still apply to people today even though his writings are now kinda old.

I'm wondering what it would take for a universal morality to be achieved, or if it's even possible. I've heard a lot of Christians insinuate that this is the goal of the religion, are we being pushed into this direction, even with the very high levels of atheism and skepticism? One of my goals is to read Copleston's entire works on the history of philosophy, and at one point he says that the Greeks "prepared" later generations to embrace Christianity with some of their monotheistic ideas, and in his case, he was implying that Christianity is a form of progress. It's not the first time I've heard people combine progressive historical sentiments with Christianity.

Sorry if this isn't as clear as you would have it, but I'm just venting my thoughts on these subject matters. I don't have a very broad understanding of what particular famous philosophers believed or believe today. I assume this is largely an atheist message board, and clearly i'm more of an atheist, but I'd like to hear any opinions on these questions/concerns if you want to share them...