I’d not call it a moral code, if that’s not what it is. I know, I know, just a joke, but I’m bored and I study Practical Ethics ^_^

Personally? I’d get rid of “Don’t kill people” – justified under some circumstances. “Don’t be greedy” isn’t a responsibility, it’s a virtue. The responsibility is not to act in a greedy way, if you are predisposed to greed. Nobody has a responsibility to take the day off, I like working because I find it interesting, and whenever I’ve tried to take a break I just end up working again.

There are an awful lot of formulations of rights out there. As a virtue ethicist I don’t accept most of them. Tell people what to aspire to be like as people, and the rest will follow. Your code is just Judeo-Christianity without the God; you haven’t explained why we should act like that at all, other than cos you said so.

Anyways, thanks for the reply! It’s a nice site, I hope it makes people think about their stupid beliefs.

You’re completely right that my Rights and Responsibilities are just the 10 Commandments with God removed. The point being that atheists can have a moral system just as good as the Biblical moral system. Your feelings for which of the items should be changed or clarified seem to be well founded. However, I feel that my Rights and Responsibilities are just as clear as the 10C, and that’s the bar I was aiming at.

Hello, I “stumbled upon” your website today, and found it interesting. At first, I thought it was going to be an atheist-bashing site made by a theist (this guess what because of the satire on the main page), so I was planning on emailing you with a bit of hate-mail saying how Christians of that kind are evil even according to their own religion(thou shalt not judge).

But, after reading through it, I discovered it was a pretty nice site. It seems to encourage theists and non-theists to look more into their religion (or lack of religion), and discover why they are that way or why they should change. There is nothing I can stand less than someone with blind beliefs, and anything to encourage someone to change their blind beliefs into informed beliefs, for or against atheism, is good to me. Which is why I would like to ask you to change your “Arguments against” page to have some arguments a bit more than just insulting Christianity, and how to prove to someone that “Ha, I’m more intelligent than you. ” — If you decide to change that page and need help doing so, or need help doing so while keeping the satire, please email me at the email address I’ve given you while filling out this form.

“Do you think that those who have a true belief without understanding are any different from blind people who happen to travel the right road? ” “Socrates”- Plato’s Republic, Book V (506cd)

Thanks for the nice letter! I certainly agree that informed, examined beliefs are far superior to uninformed, unexamined ones, no matter what conclusions they contain. You certainly read me correctly!

I understand your concern about the arguments page. But I think I’ll leave it the way it is for now — it’s a nice conversation starter and entertains atheists who (like me) have heard those tired arguments one or ten or a hundred too many times. There are plenty of places on the Internet where real responses to these arguments can be found, and I’ll gladly discuss the arguments in this blog.

By the way, the “arguments” aren’t intended as insults to Christianity. Rather, they are intended as insults to those theists who parrot “atheist stopper” arguments they’ve heard without really understanding what they are talking about.

pretty great site. one thing though. under your response section: The founding fathers intended the United States to be a Christian nation. Atheists aren’t welcome. “Are you sticking with the whole ’slavery’ thing, too?” Actually. George Washington said “The United States is in no sense founded by the Christian Religion” i like your answer too, but i feel its just letting them get away with the other. anyway. keep doing what you’re doing.

Well, it’s not intended to be a good answer (more of a flip one), but you’re right that it does let the point slide. There is a significant difference between saying that the country was intended to be Christian, saying that the country’s morality was informed by Christianity, and saying that the founding fathers were Christians — and I didn’t want to get into all of that when I was just writing something intended to be silly.

Have you considered adding a link for Atheists contemplating suicide – although I really don’t know what sound advice you could offer that would make someone think twice about going through with it. They’re certainly not going to find hope in your message. Your first commandment should be “Thou shall not kill thyself – it would be bad

I doubt that atheists are any more prone to suicide than anyone else, so it would not be appropriate for me to have a page for suicidal atheists. In fact, I would never want to do anything to perpetuate the stereotype that atheists are depressed.

As for commandments about suicide, I think that’s covered under “don’t kill.” Certainly self murder is murder.

It’s true that there’s not a lot of hope to be found on the IAmAnAtheist site, but there is nothing there to cause despair, either. There is great fulfillment and joy to be found in the world, whether or not there is a deity of some sort. I would be happy to set straight anyone who thinks otherwise.

I think an article should be included on this webpage about what evolution really is. After reading some of the other comments, I realize that most of the information people have gathered about evolution is limited to the game Pokemon. A proper explanation would (hopefully) weed out some of the more ignorant posters. (But it is fun to read!)

I’m shying away from posting articles such as you suggest. There are plenty of places on the Web that this information can be found, and much of it is written by people far more knowledgeable about the subject that I am. I prefer to respond to topics as they are raised. (And, as you said, it’s fun!)

Great website, but why don’t you have any philosophical arguments against the existance of God, such as Plato’s Euphythro Dilemma, J. S. Mill’s argument against the First Cause, or any of Bertrand Russell’s “Why I’m not a Christian speech”?

I don’t have a collection of such things because there are already many Web sites that do a much better job of it than I could ever hope to. I hope to start dialogue, not to end it by point to an authority.

you should put some multimedia sounds when people stumble upon this website to go along with announcement of their conversion , say trumpets being sounds for eg; or thunderclaps or sound of rapture (not sure I spelt it correctly not very knowledgeable in that) hilarious keep it up!

I thought about doing such a thing, but then decided against freaking out people who were viewing the site at work.

May I suggest that you add Professor Richard Dawkins to your Web pages. Especially his latest publication”The God delusion”. This covers so much and to me answers all the objections, if read with an open mind

I don’t always completely agree with Dawkins, but I do think he has done many good things for atheism. If I add a list of recommended reading to the site, I’ll certainly include his work.

Hello

I stumbled upon your site and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I actually was what I had assumed myself to be this whole time, a no good stinking atheist.

I would like to point out something to you that you may or may not know about and you can actually apply them to almost all of the “Arguments Against” page. They are called Logical Fallacies. Like I said, maybe you have heard of them, but if you’d like to know more, let me know. Or just Google “Logical Fallacies”.

These apply to most of the arguments we get about religious viewpoint.

“You can’t prove God doesn’t exist, so therefore he does exist” is called the appeal to ignorance. Basically, we do not win arguments by default. There are over 100 Logical Fallacies.

But anyway, perhaps it will help you on your journey through debunking silly claims that Christians will inevitably come up with.

I’ve read a great deal about logical fallacies over the years, but think they are outside the scope of the non-blog portion of this site. There are plenty of good resources for these on the Web already (such as Wikipedia).

It’s amazing how unfamiliar many people are with these — even the more obvious ones. We’d all do well to become more familiar with them.

about the response to “God made His image appear in this tortilla!” in the faq, you say you would eat it. why not sell it and make some money off of it?

Good suggestion! The next time I find one of those tortillas, that’s exactly what I’m going to do! (Unless I’m really hungry, of course!)