I can't leave this discussion without saying that every time a Christian praises Alcoholics Anonymous I roll my eyes.

The 12 step program is ineffective because they have a 5% success rate, which is no better than the rate of spontaneous remission in addicts.

I know some people who have gone to these meetings and for whom the program failed.
They were told that there is nothing wrong with the AA's program, but people can fail!
The program is perfect, rrrrright but 95% of the people who enrol must just be failures because they didn't try hard enough.

As another poster already mentioned, religion is very much about creating guilt. Create guilt first and then tell them they need religion to fix it.
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html

Daviy,
atheists really DO exist, you know ;)

ahh...seriously guys. Do some reading of a more educational nature before you try and tell everyone what an atheist or an agnostic really is.

As an example, the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

It's important to understand the different positions and their different levels of epistemological warrant.

For instance, claiming that 'there can be no evidence that God exists' (which is Dawkins' position) is a claim on an even worse epistemological level than saying that "God doesn't exist", because you can have evidence that things exist, even when they don't. I.e. Even if God doesn't exist, there could be things that would class as evidence that God did exist.

Dawkins is an atheist, because to claim that belief in God is delusional, you have to believe God doesn't exist.

Buffet's agnosticism claim referenced here
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/faces3.html

Bill Gates' agnosticism is referenced in the celebatheist.com link a previous poster gave where he says "Gates: In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid."

Thanks to rstuart for posting the atheism.about link, as that once again made my point. On Buffet "He adopted his father’s ethical underpinnings".

When atheists and agnostics come from a christian culture, they take the ethical principles from Christianity. When atheists come from a non-christian culture, you get 200 million dead in 100 years.

Some other links that may be of interest
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3447051.html
Religious people are far more likely than secular ones to give to charity.

Atheists who believe religion has a positive, needed impact on the world.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece#
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-10-19-atheism-belief_N.htm

"When atheists and agnostics come from a christian culture, they take the ethical principles from Christianity."

Is that so?
Slavery and beating slaves was, according to Jesus, not immoral- in fact he gave the 'masters of slaves' some practical advice about how hard to beat their slaves. Not a very loving and ethical principle, is it?

* "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ." (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

* "Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them." (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

* "When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property." (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)


* "But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given." (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

Oh I love the morality of God and Jesus!

Celivia

Just to ensure I understand:

When atheists do good it is because they have the moral foundation of Christianity in their cultural background.

When atheists do bad, it is because they have no moral foundation of Christianity in their cultural background.

And I have a penny with 'heads' on both sides.

Oh, but Celivia, you must be quite wrong.

You must not take the Bible literally... that is what a fundamentalist does, and 'most' Christians are not that, are they?

No, no, it was Christians that did away with slavery from this world.

That great man, Wilberforce, single handed, brought an end to slavery.

I know, because Christians never fail to keep telling us this.

Never mind that this man was a complex mix of mean-spirited harshness towards 'the workers' as well, and did not-enough to end workplace slavery within his electorate, as well as clearly having something of a 'reasonable' social conscience at the same time.

I think he might better be described as 'a human' rather than 'a Christian', but they seem to cling to their preferred title so they can demonstrate the 'gains' brought by 'the lurv of Jesus'.

But back to the Good News book... I am sure that cannot be true.

Jesus must have been 'taken out of context', I am sure.

If this keeps up, he might have to resign his position to 'spend more time with his family' as so often happens to those public figures who are 'taken out of context'.

AJ Phillips:
[Someone like Dawkins continues to speak out against your invisible friend to the whole world, and not a peep. Yet some bozo who was indoctrinated as a small child gets has some special revelation that most others apparently don’t deserve?]

This is the sort of atheist arrogance I’m referring to. You talk about Dawkins like he’s some kind of authority on the topic of religion. But he’s not. Numerous atheist philosophers have pointed out how weak his arguments against God are (Ruse, for example), not to mention all the Christian ones who’ve done the same (Plantinga, Craig etc). His knowledge of theology is particularly weak. He makes numerous historical blunders. Just to repeat: I’m pointing out things that his fellow atheists have said- Dawkins level of reflection on religion is surprisingly shallow, and his book is more about rhetoric than rigorous analysis.

[This alleged God of yours can’t be very omnipotent or omnibenevolent if someone has to feel lost, or their life has to go down the tubes before he decides to reveal himself.]

Not at all. Christianity teaches that mankind in itself is effectively incomplete- or, lost- without God. Most believers recognise this, not just the ones who have gone through an incredible crisis of some description.

[There are no contemporary writings from or about Jesus. There are no carpentry works from Jesus there is nothing to suggest that the alleged Jesus actually existed.]

Nor should we necessarily expect a great wealth of contemporary materials. Not when we’re referring to a travelling Jewish teacher with a small band of followers who confines his activities to a relatively small corner of the globe, in an oral culture (NOT a literary one) 2000 years ago.

However, what we DO have- the four gospels and a few other scattered references- provide us with good tools for study. Historical study has made many of the events around Jesus’s life historically certain, or beyond any real reasonable doubt- for example his crucifixion and the fact that his followers believed he appeared to them afterwards.