-You are gravely mistaking me for a typical Christian. I usually don’t use the Bible unless atheists end up using it. The atheistic worldview cannot defend moral absolutes and thus its moral system is inconsistent and self contradictory. The Christian theist worldview can defend moral absolutes and thus it's moral system is consistent and non-self-contradictory.

I'll give you a C for creative writing and an F for being yet another theist who likes to pigeon hole atheists as being incapable of compasion or just being a good human to other humans who just wander the earth in a zombie like state because there is no purpose in life.

Your argument is stale and disproven time and again. Study after study has shown increased longevity, lower violent crime rates, lower rates of STDs, lower rates of abortion, lower teen pregnancy rates, etc. in developed countries that are democratic and secular.  The two nations that buck this trend are the US and Spain which has a high religiosity like the US.  In all of the studies secular societies had a high level of societal health. 

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

http://www.dukespiritualityandhealth.org/publications/pastN.html

http://www.religioustolerance.org/sui_reli.htm

Stop reading Dinesh D'Souza, he's an idiot who, like any good fundy will lie his ass off and twist the meaning of anything to prove a point.  Start reading studies of ancient texts or the books of leading theologians (bible college fundy graduates aren't up to par, all they've been taught is lies).  Go to the websites of leading universities (no, if it has "bible" or "christian" in its name it is not a school of theology, it is a sham) and look up studies published by their theologians.

There is a large percentage of fundies in the US. IMO we just have more delusional people running around this country.  Our academic performance has suffered over the last 20-30 year, which correlates to the rise in religiosity here.  The last eight years with a born-again asshat in DC hasn't improved anything. 

You're whole argument is based on your worldview without the facts getting in the way.  If you're going to post something like this, at least know the truth about the "facts" you present, otherwise, go to church where all the other mindless clones agree with your twisted ideas.

And this is a laughable, contemptuous account of the reality. You might consider Carl Sagan's more poetic account instead:

(Starts at about 6:22 on this one...)

A 'grab bag' of atomic particles?

No, I am not. I am star stuff. I am the legacy of 13 billion years of cosmic evolution; the demonstration of what the most meager of particles can do given the time to do it.

Pretending that the phrase, 'In the beginning, God created the Earth and the Heavens...' even comes close to reaching the heights of majesty conveyed by the far more amazing truth is shameful.

Humans are special and unique in any case. Intelligent life may or may not be abundant, but humans almost certainly only arose once, in one place and time, due to the conditions that happened to be present on the Earth. Arguing that we are 'more special' than other species is merely an excuse to exploit them, arguing that God has a plan for us and will watch out for us is an excuse to be lazy and refuse ownership of your own life. That God required a sacrifice before he considered us worthy of him only highlights his nature as a product of bronze-age myth.

I don't think many would dispute the base claim here (the details are ridiculous, though. The 'secular tribe'? There was virtually no such thing in our ancient hunter-gatherer days).

I don't blame our bronze-age selves. Modern humans, in an age of instant communication, where the hard work of science has been laid bare for them to see and enjoy? Yes, I can blame their ignorance on themselves.

I was going to write a reply, but you're an idiot and I don't feel like dirtying my hands.

Yeah Latin...., I blame all appeasers of all religion idol worship. This message has been said long before jesus tried to smash the church. I find it interesting that the atheistic buddha jesus of ancient invention, sneeks thru in the bible NT. It's nice to know all my ancient ancestors weren't just plain stupid.  

Partially correct. Life began in the ocean. Water has left a permanent stamp on our biology. 3.5 billion years ago was when the first mutually cooperative RNA vesicles formed. Cellular life did not make inroads into land for some time. This is all explicated here:

Chemical Evolution

This is sort of correct. As a stochastic process, evolution partially depends on time and chance. Although it is an oversimplification, it sometimes help to think of changes in allele frequency as analogous to chemical kinetics. In chem. kinetics we talk about dynamic equilibria. This is a point in the reaction where the rate of production of the products is equal to the rate of reversion to the reactants. Hence the concentrations do not change. The Kc is called the equilibria constant. It is a measure of the ratio of products over reactants at equilibria. A Kc higher then 1 means the reaction tends toward the products, a Kc less than 1 tends toward the reactants. Similarily, in allele frequency distribution, we can refer to the rate of change of proportion of an allele within a population. For an allele which has no selective advantage, the rate of destruction (death of organisms who carry it) versus production (birth of organisms who carry it) is roughly equal. This simple fact is the basis of the tremendously important Hardy-Weinberg principle. For a chemical reaction, it would be analogous to say that for a Kc of 1, the G value is 0. Any shift in this equilibria will tend toward the production or destruction of the allele. Even if the shift in probability is tiny, the trend is inevitably going to happen. It's just a basic consequence of the law of large numbers. All evolutionary processes responsible for the formation of any biological structures can be described in terms of rates of proliferation and destruction of alleles in closed breeding populations of size N. The comparative advantage of an allele q within the population can be described by the frequency coefficient, such that for generation n after the introduction of the allele, the frequency will be f^n-1.The coefficient f can be described in terms of rate of proliferation of an allele versus rate of destruction. If the population remains the same in size (rate of destruction of individuals is in equilibrium with the rate of production), then f is the common ratio in a geometric sequence tending either toward 1 (every entity in the population holds the allele) or 0 (no entity in the population holds the allele). If f<1, then the allele is destroyed over time. If f>1, then the allele frequency increases over time.

And that’s essentially it. Granted, once we start discussing the mechanisms of evolution and the more complex ecological models of population shifts, molecular biology, genetics, it becomes very complicated. But the basic mathematics is all there. That’s exactly how and why all the life around us exists: Basic statistics and laws of large numbers.

This is little more than an unflattering way of saying “you are a material entity”. Surely you must realize that this comment means nothing. It commits a greedy reductionist fallacy. It would be like saying that “the human brain is nothing but a bunch of chemicals”. The human brain is a biological structure comprised mostly of glial cells and 10% of neuronal cells which are arrayed and subdivided into regions which connect via synaptic clefts to exchange electrical and chemical impulses via  a set of conduction channels embedded into each of the approximately 10¹¹ neurons present within the organ. The basis of this system is the membrane potential across axons and the gated channels embedded within the membranes of the neurons which allow for computation, signal integration, bifurcation and potentiation. All of these systems are describable in terms of chemical mechanisms. The latter is a precise statement about how the various material structures within the entity in the brain co-opt. The former is useless and meaningless.

You would be hard-pressed to argue against this. There are 100 billion galaxies containing an approximate 6 sextillion stars and 6 quintillion planets within our universe. And, if a particular proposition of modern Cosmology and physics is correct, then the particular universe (ours) in which this system is enclosed is one of an uncountable number, most of which are lifeless. The more we study the universe, the more it should be quite clear that our existence is based on stochastic processes and laws of large numbers. The principle of Earth-centricism so dominant in theism, that our planet and its inhabitants are the product of craftsmanship of another conscious entity, is crushed wholly by the anthropic principle. As modern astrophysics has shown our existence to be an infinitesimal piece of existence, our notion of cosmic significance should be shattered.

As opposed to what?

Insofar as we share the same molecular basis for our existence as every organism on the planet, this would (sort of) be correct. It doesn’t really mean anything to talk of “differing in kind” unless you wish to explicate what a “kind” is (and articulate why this definition is anything other than arbitrary).

What the fuck is an essence?

You’d be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.

What’s “nothing”? This isn’t a mock question. I’m a scientist. We like precision.

Let me see if I understand you correctly. You hold that our being able to think is based on our creation by another entity which has the capacity to think (ie, is a thinking mind) and which is based on some sort of non-physical reality that cannot be explicated but which somehow constitutes the basis of our conscious person and manages to seamlessly blend with the neurological structures necessary for perception, memory, sensation, cognition, awareness and control, somehow survives the death of all these structures and manages to continue the process of conscious experience of the world without any of these structures... and we are the ones who have a problem in terms of explaining how we think?

Moral absolutes do not exist, and there is no such thing as moral escapism, except when looking at churches and religions who claim to be moral yet prove otherwise.

I can't understand why people cling to religion when it is obvious that:

 - An all perfect being would not feel the need to create a planet and populate it with anything because an all perfect being does not feel anything because to feel into moving is an imperfection; and to knowingly create a planet full of beings that fully engage in sin is an imperfection and to unkowingly create a planet full of beings that fully engage in sin is equally an imperfection.  So if God is true, is God stupid?  And if God is stupid, why worship it?

 - An all perfect being would not possess human characteristics: being judgemental, requiring faith in it, arbitrariness, vengefulness . . . it seems to me that this all perfect, omnipotent being is either extremely irrational or terribly cruel.  Either way, why worship it?

 -  God cannot be proven.  There is more evidence supporting aliens and U.F.O.s and ghosts than there is for God.  Pointing to the Bible is just as ridiculous as indicting some nut like David Koresh as a false prophet or a heretic or a devil.  An unsubstantiated claim is just that.

 - Why did God stop talking to humans?  Did God get fed up (human characteristic again)?  Or is that thousands of years ago people were trying to explain things paranormally . . . they were just plain stupid? 

 -  If God is true, God is smart enough to know that there will be disbelievers and for a God to condemn a disbeliever to hell and allow a believing pedophile into heaven if that pedophile repents is repugnant.  God, therefore, should not be forced upon anyone. 

Hey, that works nicely if you switch it around. Hmm...

God belief is motivated not by reason but by a kind of cowardly moral escapism. Since God cannot be proven and since disproving evidences that there is no God does not prove there is a God, believers in God have a position that is intellectually indefensible.

unbelievable. some of the greatest thinkers EVER to live were religious, i would be carefull stating things as you did.

also, many atheistic societies that have lower teen pregnancy, lower homocide, crime rates and what not do exactly as what dinesh says. many of these societies love to take what they want from religion, or ideas/views that have come from religion and use them without god, and can be successful, easy explanation i think, dinesh talked more about it in his debate with daniel dennett

WOW, metaphorically speaking I agree with him in his assessment of our importance. But what DUMBSOSO fails to realize is that I have accepted my mortality without a man in a white robe vs a man in a red leotard.

His solution is Superman vs Lex Luthor. He falsely thinks that because we don't buy his myth that we dont value our time here. He thinks that because we don't buy his myth that somehow we will go about BBQing kittens, after all life is meaningless.

IT IS MEANINGLESS, in the grand timescale of atoms and the universe. But not in the moment to the individual. If he really thinks a black hole if we got close enough would think to itself, "I don't want to hurt them" or that a magical hero will swoop the damsel in disstress (humanity) off the train tracks at the last second, he is the idiot.

Life is what we make it, but not magical or divine. We are a product of atoms and I find that far more awe inspiring than any mythological comic book hero of any religion, past or present.

Life is meaningless, but when the theist hears that, they are thinking emotionally through ancient fairy tales. When we say it, we are being practical. We recognize our mortality and deal with the time we do have, not the fictional time we don't have. I didn't have time before I was born and I wont have time after I die.

Theism is gang worship and just as bad as the facist state worship of China and the Nazis. All of them devalue the individual. It teaches ignorance. It teaches us that "the greater good" is a utopia. If China wont take over the world with it's utopian attitude of worshiping the state, what makes Christians or Muslims think they can acheave the same? These are the attitudes of abusive spouses who threaten to beat up someone who doesn't agree with them or wants to leave them.

I am comfortable with the fact that my life is meaningless to the scale of the history of the universe, but that doesn't mean that I don't value what I have now or that I will go on a rampage against those I dissagree with because i accept my mortalty as inevitable.

DUMBSOSO is just anothor idiot who thinks that life has to be comic book and utopian otherwise it is not worth living. I don't need daddy to threaten me or a man with a pitchfork to threaten me to know that I will die. 1,000,000,000,000 years from now both he and I will not be recorded by anthing. Our atoms will be scattered and amongst other things and no one will know we existed.

He thinks that it his gang is more important right now, than humans getting along to extend the ride of the species. Which is a very base evolutionary alpha male mentality. I think we can overcome our outdated instincts, but according to him it is more important that his club lead, than it is for the intire species to survive. But, he shouldn't feel bad, all the other myth loving gangs feel the same way.

We are NOT important and as soon as we as a speceis accept that, we can work on doing imporant things that all of us can use to extend the finite ride of the species.

Is this why christians no longer stone people to death, due to their moral system being so consistent and non-self-contradictory that it has changed?

It's an easy explanation, when you have absolutely no idea about what the societies you mention are like.

You are hereby invited to come here. You can stay with me if you want. Seriously

-Let's take a look a few assumptions Sagan makes:

1) The earth only appears to be special

2) It's uniqueness is accidental and a delusion

3) Our self importance is imagined

4)Our planet is a lonely speck in a vast universe, seemingly mediocre or unspectacular

But this is philosophical naturalism NOT science. It goes beyond science to make statements that science itself does not. Science cannot preclude the possiblity of purpose or a divine intellect. The question though is are Sagans implications correct? We've learned a great deal about the universe; the nature of stars and the complex set of circumstances that allow for life on earth. Is it really still credible to maintain that we aren't really unusual in the universe? Sagan believed there was literally millions of contemporary civilizations but of course as even he admitted that goes beyond any available evidence. You wonder why I laugh at the irreligious. You can't take the religious seriously, yet you can take Carl Sagan and his philisophical implications seriously? Sorry.

I don't blame our bronze-age selves. Modern humans, in an age of instant communication, where the hard work of science has been laid bare for them to see and enjoy? Yes, I can blame their ignorance on themselves.