*It is an easy thing to say that we are machines but the implications are enormous – complete absence of free will for a start.*

GP, I know of no evidence of any "ghosts" in your machine. But
then even you would know the difference between machines and
organisms, which are biological entities.

As to so called free will, it is up to much debate as to how free
it really is. Susan Greenfield did an interesting experiment, which
showed that the brain starts to act a long time before you conciously
decide anything.

This is exactly why neuroscience is so interesting. Its providing
more and more answers as to how the mind works and what the mind is,
the brain does.

You are only ever aware of a tiny part of what is going on in the
brain, as various neural circuits compete. At any time you are feeling
sad, happy, anxious, horny, etc and all these feelings cloud your
judgement and thought processes, even if you don't stop to think
about them.

In fact when trauma strikes, perhaps you see a snake, perhaps a lion
roars 6ft behind you, we can show that your amygdala kicks in,
your adrenelin kicks in, you act a long time before you stop to
ponder about the situation. Your fight or flight response acts
without you thinking.

So if somebody was drowning, many would act without contemplating
their navels about it for long periods of time. Both genes
and environment play a role in how our brain has evolved, so
both would play a role in the final result. How much was really
free about those instinctive reactions, is very much open to scientific debate.

GP: "No, I have not said that all atheists have to or should start stealing."

Sorry GP. I made a large logical leap there without explaining the intervening steps.

I was responding to:

GP: "If a person is confident they can get away with stealing though there is absolutely no reason not to do so"

I inferred you believe an absolute set of morals provides another reason not to steal. I agree, as every absolute basis for morality I know of includes "thou shalt not steal". But you also infer this absolute prohibition is much better at preventing people from stealing than any of the reasons I supplied. I don't agree.

Here is a reason why. One test is to look at the people who steal, and compare the proportion who have absolute values and to those that don't. If the proportion is lower for absolutists it tends to support your position - belief in absolute morality does effect behaviour, but if they were the same or higher it would tend to support mine. Unfortunately I couldn't find the figures for that test, so instead I used incarceration rates as a proxy for stealing, and an explicitly declared preference for religion or atheism as a proxy for absolute values.

Going by the earlier link, US atheists get jailed less than 1/10th of the number of times the religious do. Figures from the UK government link say 1% of the prision population are atheists, and it appears around 4% of UK residents say they are atheists (around the same as the US, actually), which would make them 1/4th of the rate of the religious.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hosb1501.pdf

Yes, its long thread of reasoning which I compressed into a few sentences. I didn't mean to imply that you claimed atheists steal more than others. You didn't.

Grey: "so why wouldn't someone try to get whatever they can.."

The issue here is why most people don't behave like that, and in particular whether religion effects their behaviour. You gave us lots of erudite words Grey, but none came close to answering that question.

Rstuart...Okay, now I am just confused by your comments....
Isn't someone who has 'no religion' an atheist?

The study you link has 32% of people in prison having 'no religion' (compared with the general population who 15.5% claim they have no religion)

Even if you don't think they are atheists....certainly this is the figure that should pertain to the discussion at hand, as we seem to be contrasting religion versus no religion?

Of course, claimed religious status is a poor indicator of true religious belief. This is why many more recent studies look at church attendance and involvement/regular prayer etc, rather than mere acceptance of a label.

It's not so surprising that you get so confused Grey, you can't even distinguish between those who say they have no religious affliations and those who positively identify as atheist.

In fact the prison population that identifies as atheist is even less than rstuart said, it's less than 1% of the 30% with no religion (i.e. less than 0.3% of the proson population), around 0.2% on the tabled data.

Rstuart...(Sorry Bugsy...I'll have to respond to you tomorrow)

You quote http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm as a source for saying atheists are drastically under-represented in U.S. prisons, however even looking briefly at this link gives reason to be skeptical about the figures.

To start with, there is no released study with these figures. It looks more like one of those urban legend emails that gets sent around. It uses the name of "Denise Golumbaski" who was a RA on this paper
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cpus97.pdf from around the same time 1997, but a quick glance at the paper shows there are no religion stats in it, AND a much more damning problem...the paper shows quite clearly that there were 1.7 MILLION adults in prison (and the study also has 3.9 million adults on probation/parole).

The article you link to has a total of under 100,000 for people in prison. A glaring discrepancy if the source was truly an RA from this paper.

If you have something that has a solid reference, I'd be happy to read it, but from this article, I really think you would be better off not using it (which, from google searches seems not to be the norm...as almost every 'skeptic' likes to quote this somewhat dubious page as authoritative). Although I did find one site of skeptics who felt it was best not to use it
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/the_rational_response_squad_radio_show/the_rational_response_squad/5584

Grey: "Isn't someone who has 'no religion' an atheist?"

No Grey, they are not. They haven't bothered to think about it one way or the other. Usually they are younger, and have below average education. Their crime rates are typically higher than the average population. You might say that is because they haven't established a firm moral code for themselves, but then again since people who are younger and less well educated have higher crime rates regardless of stated religion, it may be something else.

Grey: "Of course, claimed religious status is a poor indicator of true religious belief."

True to an extent. The "no religion" group is an excellent case in point. In the US, where saying you don't having a religion is akin to saying you carry the plague, some of this group claims to be affiliated with a religion. Thus "no religion" group is corresponding smaller in the US than the UK - by about 10%. Obviously they wouldn't fit your definition of religious.

Be that as it may, it would only effect the results by 20% or so. If the atheist rates were equal to the religious ones, and recall my argument only requires equal or less, then you might have a point. The 400% difference blows that point away.