It's good that the two great leaders of the next world movement to correct wrongs of our 2000 year old civilization stay in communication. One amplifies the other. This article is great since it takes the point directly to the purveyors of fairy tales. Someday, after the gays are free, a woman and black person have been president, the industrial slaves are free, it will be time to face up to the fact that religion as we know it will fade away as a sign of old fashion ideas gone by. The C Columbus and Neil Armstrong of that day will be Richard and Christopher (with a sprinkle of Bill Maher for spice).

Well, I am no big fan of Hitchens, but I agree with you: it will be a good day when our grand-children will be able to think about religion as a thing of the past, an anachronism. It will be good when they will eventually begin to think by themselves about the world instead of "blindly" accepting ancient scriptures as faith. I hope this time comes soon. I am just sad I won't be able to see it by myself... :-(

People have tried to get rid of religion for quite a long time, and it hasn't worked all that well.

Of course, if people are purely material beings with no spiritual component, then they can't have real free will, and so cannot decide what to believe. What they believe is based upon the laws of physics, so it's partly determined and partly random. In either case, people have no control over it. So, someone's belief in God or your lack of belief would both have no truth value, but would merely be a reflection of the current state of the universe.

In any case, a universe in which Dawkins and Hitchens are seen as the great heroes would clearly be a parallel universe where everything is reversed from reality.

I have a serious question for you. Do you believe in an after-life? I am a Christian and I do believe in an after-life. I'm wondering also, if religion was a thing of the past, what laws would there be and what would they be based on? I'm really not being sarcastic, I am truely curious about the views of a non-believer.

Rocky, I'll bite. Mostly because I recently came to a new job with a credulous Christian who looked at an athiest as some sort of alien, and had much the same question. Pointing out that 80-90% of the planet gets along just fine (or at least as fine in many ways) as the Christian bunch (many of whom believe wildly divergent, and mutually exclusive things, (a Christian Scientist, a Unitarian, a Catholic and a Mormon walk into a bar...), had little effect.

So, here goes. I won't pretend that there is some universal athiest handbook of morals or ethics (different things, BTW). One of my favorite qotes about religion (paraphrasing here) is that of all of the tens of thousands of religions that have ever existed, I'm only an athiest about exactly one more than you are. Most likely you don't believe in Thor, Zeus, Krishna, or Ceasar, for that matter. We have a lot in common :-)

Much of the "morality" that I teach to my kids is basically Kant's categorical imperative, which is just a fancy version of the golden rule: "Act as if your actions were the law for everyone" This isn't just "hey everybody else is doing it, so why shouldn't I?" What if everyone cheated on their taxes? What if everyone spouted off statements that were just a little bit racist? What if everyone refused to help a person in need?

When I think this way, and not simply "How would I be affected?" on the whole, I tend to try to treat everyone, whether they are like me or not, at least as well as someone who is a friend of mine. Not perfect trust, but more than seems to be the average.

So what would athiests do about laws? Exactly what we are doing now. Find the things that are intolerable, and punish those, and leave everything else alone. Most of the injunctions in the bible are not enforced by law, or even community standards. For more on this see: www.godhatesshrimp.com Prepare to be insulted if you take every word in the bible literally (hint: you don't).

I understand explicitly that society cannot exist without rules, and at least some agreement on what is the "common good". I do find many religious people do a great deal of good work, for which I am greatful, and thankful, and I tell them so, when I get a chance. But use the power of government to enforce rules set down thousands of years ago, by a pre-scientific, mostly pre-literate, supersticious bunch, makes no sense to me.

I'm down with "Thou shalt not kill", but coveting your neighbor's ass (more likely his Jag or Corvette if you prefer, in a modern context). is practically the national sport. I don't believe I have any ethereal soul to lose, but I do have children and hopefully some day grand children, etc. They are reason enough to want to leave the world a better place, and show them (and anyone else paying attention) by way of example, that being nice to each other just isn't that painful.

Hitch can be a boor, and Dawkins, who is a personal hero of mine, gets unjustly maligned, but even though I have many dear friends and family members who are true beleivers, I agree with them that, knowing what we know now, we should move beyond religion. It is just one more way to create conflict where none really exists. And, the way it is going in this country, at least in the last decade, there is a definite danger to the overall scientific literacy of our society, by (among other things), trying to hold up "intelligent design" as a co-equal "theory" to evolution.

As Dawkins points out, this is a semantic trick by the pushers of ID conflating the common use of the term "theory" which can be used to describe any old crackpot idea (See: my theory about all of the missing socks forming an island in the Pacific) and a true "scientific theory" which is continually tested and refined. Belief by nearly all serious scientists in evolution reflects not some orthodoxy, but rather consensus that the methodology and findings of thousands upon thousands of studies, research, and debate are sound. The same cannot be said for ID.

A little off point from your question, but this type of disengenuity is part of the reason that athiests get a little prickly. I don't get offended until someone tries to take over a school board :-)

Cheers,

Do I believe in an afterlife?

No.

What laws would there be?

The same ones we have now, more or less.

What would these laws be based on?

Many hundreds of years of human jurisprudence.

This is a very difficult argument, in fact an impossible one. For example, from a religious perspective, no matter what you believe in atheism or God, you were still CREATED by God in God's universe - of course your morals, being, etc. will be in some way a reflection of your creator regardless of your beliefs.

OTOH, from an atheistic pov, the morals you have are irrelevant, as really we are just animated dirt, BUT, since we are self arranging, our societies are too, and any significant outliers (as far as morality) will eventually be weeded out by natural selection.

Either way you end up with the same result, goodness happens, but the reasons for this are so far apart there is no common ground to argue.

I understand you, and I think you are a good person. However I have one question.

Now, fifty years ago abortion was rare and illegal (I am only using this as an example, please do not try to discuss abortion). It then became legal in early terms. Now there is no restriction, and some doctors are even performing live birth abortions.

So, my question is this. Without an outside influence (which I call God) that dictates what is wrong and what is right, where will people draw the line? With the example of abortion, with each generation it became increasingly easier for a woman to get one. In another hundred years, when none of us are here, what will it have escelated to? Will they be killing off children of up to one year in age if the mother can't handle them?

Without the underlying morals set forth by an outside influence where would any of the otrosities end?

Basically anyone who can speak for themselves will get what they want, and those that can't will be disposed of. That's started already at both ends of the spectrum, in abortion at the beginning of life, and with euthanasia at the end of life (see the Netherlands, where someone who is 16 can request euthanasia by themselves, and someone can be euthanised between the ages of 12-16 with their parents' consent.

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The future is now, but like all slippery slopes, we don't see it until we're falling fast.

I agree. I do not think religion will ever be gone. Many call me crazy because I do believe in the second coming, which isn't too far away. However, even if I didn't I would not want religion gone. It is the thing that keeps the majority of the world honest (or moral). Without it morallity and ethics will collapse, and rapidly.