You don't have to believe in God to love your fellow man and try to make a lasting difference in the world.

I never said anything like that. My point was that ‘scorn, ridicule and contemptuous condescension’ is not the way to win hearts and minds. Jesus taught that we are “to love God with all our hearts” and “love our neighbors (or our fellow man) as our self” Certainly it’s good and commendable if someone of another faith, or no faith at all, loves his fellow man as Jesus taught. (Some theologians refer to this as common grace.) However, you can’t argue that loving your fellow man is a universal moral truth unless it is grounded something that itself is universal. Theologian Paul Tillich talked about God as the ground of being. I would take that one step further and argue that God is not only the ground of being but the ground of morality. IOW God is not only the creator but the moral law giver.

Aaron: The Skeptics Guide to the Universe gives this WSJ article a really good treatment both on their blog and on their latest podcast episode.

From the link:

As a good example of the ridiculousness of her argument, Hemingway ends her article by highlighting an atheist who happens to be irrational: Bill Maher. It’s well known that Maher holds some silly beliefs about Western medicine, including not believing in the efficacy of vaccination. So, is it Hemingway’s point that if Maher found (the Christian) god, he would suddenly find science?

No bobo. The point is New Atheists are as "irrational" as anyone else when judged by the standards they themselves created. Hoisted by their own petard.

Your last comment was definitely not a jab-and-duck tactic. It looked like you put some weight behind it.

I could care less how you estimate my "tactics". Still treating discussions like fights, I see.

I suggest there is tangible evidence of non-religious people being charitable up to and including leaving endowments in their will.

I never said non-religious people were never charitable, so this goes in the "that's nice" category. But it takes on a qualitatively different meaning in a decidedly atheist worldview - and far too many use the language of objective meaning and values without being called to task for it, or for realizing just what they're doing. I'm willing to believe that plenty of people don't follow their philosophies through to their natural conclusion. By Dawkins' own admission, he's unable to be consistent on certain subjects - it just doesn't work.

As it happens, the "God" I believe in equates to what other people would think of as "Love".

No, you call your favored actions "love". If you meant to say "You don't need God to do whatever you personally judge to be right in an utterly subjective sense", I'd have no quarrel. Just as you can "make the world a better place" so long as that only means "make changes you personally like, because all concepts of 'better' are utterly personal".

It's like saying "You can fill your gas tank with water". It sounds like you're saying that you can drive a car using water as a fuel. In reality, that's not what's being said, unless you're remarkably ignorant.

I don't expect it to be everybody's truth. I am definitely not suggesting it be incorporated in the pledge of allegiance, taught in public schools or have a special day be set aside each week to re-enforce its correctness.

Oh, boo freaking hoo. During the height of the Cold War, the country founded by Christian-sympathetic Deists with a philosophy of God-given rights made a solidarity gesture in response to the great atheist regime that was doing the same thing to religious people. Oh wait, no. They weren't putting 'There is no God' or 'No gods, only men' on their currency. They were killing them, knocking down churches, and generally persecuting them in the serious sense of the word.

Forgive me if I regard this oft-repeated concern as having the same amount of importance as, say, 'Whether putting a dog on Pennsylvania license plates will make cat lovers jealous'.

Watson can't bring herself to consider that "irradicating" religious belief doesn't seem to yield much rationality itself. Or, more threateningly, that religious worldviews (of which there's not just one, but multiple - another thing she doesn't seem to get) may encourage certain healthy kinds of skepticism. Believe it or not, just because her frantic social niche loves calling themselves "skeptics" doesn't mean others can't be skeptics, or that the "skeptics" always are.

The best response the article has can be summed up as: "Okay, fine, there may be a lot of irrational atheists/irreligious. But we think there are a lot of just as or more irrational religious people. Just their irrationality is in different areas, and also it's more dangerous we bet!"

Not exactly the most rational response. But then again, that supports the statistics.

Is that you?

Your last comment was definitely not a jab-and-duck tactic. It looked like you put some weight behind it.

Good Job.

In response to John A. Designer's rant I offered "You don't have to believe in God to love your fellow man and try to make a lasting difference in the world." to which you replied…

Yes, you do. Particularly if you want any of those sentiments to have any real meaning beyond 'Damn, I sure sound spiritual.'

Besides, where do you get off saying you don't have to anyway? Did you Learn The Truth when someone wasn't looking?

I will admit to some mixing of philosophy and objective science in my statement, but I suggest there is tangible evidence of non-religious people being charitable up to and including leaving endowments in their will. It seems pretty clear that the intent of these actions are to "make a lasting difference in the world."

I am also willing to admit to being imprecise in my statement. As it happens, the "God" I believe in equates to what other people would think of as "Love". So it is contradictory to argue that one doesn't have to believe in Love to love his/her fellow man. I even thought about this as I was going to bed last night. I should have said something to the effect of…

"I suggest you don't have to believe in a Holy Trinity or an Islamic Allah in order to love your fellow man and try to make a lasting difference in the world."

I'm not sure that is much better as far as your complaint is concerned, but it is a statement of my belief, my Truth if you will.

I don't expect it to be everybody's truth. I am definitely not suggesting it be incorporated in the pledge of allegiance, taught in public schools or have a special day be set aside each week to re-enforce its correctness.

This is surprising coming from you. Do you really think "most atheists" believe they can prove a negative?

Even Richard Dawkins has said that technically his is agnostic about the existence of God and fairies in the garden.

"Technically" speaks volumes, and the subject is different besides. Equating God with 'fairies in the garden' is that ignorant, pissant step that Maher (at least in the past) claimed to be unwilling to take. For all I know his views have changed, but there really is a difference between 'The human condition keeps us from able to make confident declarations about God and afterlife' and 'You can't prove a negative, maybe God exists, maybe fairies do too, lol'.

You don't have to believe in God to love your fellow man and try to make a lasting difference in the world.

Yes, you do. Particularly if you want any of those sentiments to have any real meaning beyond 'Damn, I sure sound spiritual.'

Besides, where do you get off saying you don't have to anyway? Did you Learn The Truth when someone wasn't looking?

You don't have to believe in God to love your fellow man and try to make a lasting difference in the world.

You wrote..

And supposedly, Bill Maher's not even an atheist. He denied it outright in 2002, only claims to be an 'apatheist' now, and seems to insist (contra most atheists, frankly) that there's no way to be certain about God or afterlife one way or the other.

This is surprising coming from you. Do you really think "most atheists" believe they can prove a negative?

Even Richard Dawkins has said that technically his is agnostic about the existence of God and fairies in the garden.