comparing the morality of believers and non-believers. Of course the relative numbers of non-believers and believers would be considered.

In practice, this measure would be difficult. But the attempt would show that there are a lot of assholes from people of all religious and non-religious persuasions.

Religions do often have the problem of at times actually promoting bad behavior (lots of bad behavior promotion is in the religious texts which can't be ignored) and of being objectively not true, but still, non-believers can find their own excuses for engaging in bad behavior.

I don't completely agree with some in this thread that bad behavior by atheists should always be disregarded since atheism itself is not a philosophy and is only a non-belief in any gods. It's true that atheism isn't a philosophy, but still, theists claim that their religions do some good also. Atheism is neutral on such issues. If bad behavior by atheists does not count, by definition, then theists have no chance of looking good by comparison. That comparison would be rigged from the start.

I'm biased for atheists to some extent, but I still don't want to exaggerate the problems caused by believers. Morality is innate, with some learning involved. Regardless of religious belief, people will find their own excuses for their own selfish behavior, which is the cause of all evil in this world.

he is willing to harm someone else, for whatever reason, is selfish (unless, perhaps, he is profoundly mentally ill. But then he is sick and not necessarily evil.) That should be self-evident.

People have minds of their own. Anyone that claims their imaginary god told them to murder is only murdering someone out of their own desire to murder. Murderers put themselves above those that they murder.

There's nothing magical about religion, such that, religion makes evil acts not selfish. There's nothing magical about religion, such that, a person murdered in the name of religion is any more dead than someone murdered for any other alleged reason. Evil is evil.

Our war-mongering is causing great damage to this world. War is the worst crime there is.

The wars the US has imposed on many nations has cost the lives of millions of people, mostly against Third-Worlders who have no vote in our elections and no power to stop the madness.

US Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 “Victim Nations” Since World War II:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

The desire to bomb so many brown people in Third-World nations, like they are some major threat to us, is nuts.


Neocon wars are what you get when conspiracy kooks got into power in the US Government. We can look forward to more wars.

Progressive - NOT

We can almost guarantee that the next US President will be a big war supporter. Supporters of the Democratic nominee couldn't seem to care less, at best, or have complete blood thirst, like so many supporters of most of the Republican nominees. Many consider "anti-war liberal" to be a pejorative.

There aren't enough Americans that oppose war.

Their fascination with mass-murder machines endangers the public. It's not fair that those that want nothing to do with weapons design to murder many people quickly have to experience the danger associated with such weapons. We have to experience the threat without experiencing the thrill of owning such weapons.

It's engaging in risky behavior, but in this case, it's the general public that has to experience the risk. I could never be that selfish.

There is no mystery there. We experience time every waking moment (we have much to learn about what time actually is, though.) But we have zero evidence for any god.

Everything is not possible with time, but everything that is possible will happen given enough time. We know that life is possible because we experience it in every waking moment and see it all around us.

The transition from chemistry to biology wouldn't likely have been obvious when the first life form began. The first life would have been extremely simple, and it would have only had to have happened one time in the ancient and huge Universe to evolve us. On Earth, all life uses the same genetic code, so that strongly indicates we are all related to one original life form.

In the massive and old Universe, a huge number of chemical reactions and events happen every second. That is a lot of lottery tickets played over many billions of years. Given enough time, some simple life form is probably likely to arise.

In a universe started by a god, there is only one starting point, and that starting point is the most complicated starting point imaginable: a god. All of reality only gets one shot at having a god as its starting point, with no explanation possible on how this starting point got here. And unlike time or life itself, we have zero evidence for this god.

Many in the party do like war. That is a sad thing to see, and does not bode well for the future of the US and this world.

Polls do show that Americans, more than people from any other nation, support bombing of civilians. We like war, and are indifferent to the suffering that those wars cause. With our callus indifference to the suffering of others, we have little right to tell any other nation how they should live their lives.

Our corrupt politicians, sold to the highest bidder and voted in by a callus public, have no right to force any other nation to do anything.