By the way, I love the Arguing Atheist site. It was jarring to be called “a man of science” though!

I don’t think the nutjobs are going to be answering this anytime soon, but if someone knows the religious excuses given for this, please feel free to elaborate. And no, saying it’s a good “general” rule that doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone makes it a pathetic, arbitrary rule to base anything off of in the first place.

The correspondent has an interesting viewpoint in that to them, proof of god is based on the way they feel inside. I don’t think any rational argument will affect that. Perhaps, they are right in a way; over time people have created gods that reflect the sort of values they believe and if those values are commonly held by large numbers of people, then the belief in that god will seem commonsense and will grow and flourish and, with time, become self-evident.

I agree that there are some widely held societal norms, or morals, that most people hold. I believe those evolved as humans evolved into complex social creatures, but nonetheless the probably exist. Codifying those moral views into a document such as the 10 commandments, by a specific bronze age culture, does nothing to help us understand ourselves today, however. It’s unfortunate that the correspondent cannot themselves “open their mind” to the possibilities that the modern world demands a more modern approach to moral behavior, which is likely to remain true to our evolved “gut feel” sense of morality but can adapt to problems we face today, such as abortion, cloning, personal freedom vs. group security, etc.

“Morals come form God” and “Morals are the result of evolution” are not mutuallt exclusive, so disproving one does not prove the other.

And, of course, a hypotetical “kill your rivals”-gene would lead to lots of killings which would eliminate the “kill your rivals” gene so I’d say evolution will find a more elegant solution.