There are, unfortunately, plenty of them. A few that seem to come up a lot:

• Item X is the Bible is not literally true, therefore it is a mistake. (Add to this any argument about the Bible's content that does not take into account translation and the context in which it was written.)
• Parts of the Bible are wrong, therefore all of the Bible is not true.
• God couldn't make the earth stop turning to stop the sun in the sky because if he did then everyone would fly off.
• Because he didn't have a father, Jesus would be a clone of Mary.
• Religion is always harmful.
• Christians do not follow their own teachings, therefore their teachings are wrong.
• Religious people are stupid.
• There is no evidence that God exists, therefore God doesn't exist.
• God isn't omnipotent because he can't make a rock that he can't move. (Actually, an omnipotent being that is also perfectly moral could make a rock that it couldn't move.)

I'm sure more will come to mind as I think about this. And if any of my readers can think of more, please send them in!

Because I make my life as a consultant, I have to worry a bit about how others think of me. For that reason, I, too, sometimes avoid using the word atheist in conversation because some people (out of ignorance) automatically think negative things about atheists. When I'm asked about my religion, I usually answer that I'm not religious. I then follow up by asking what the questioner's religion is.

What's interesting to me is that when I ask the questioner's religion, I sometimes get a surprised look -- a "I'm Christian, of course" look. And sometimes they even say as much out loud. To some people, Christianity is the norm and everything else is a deviation (much in the way that, for a long time white men were the "norm" and the rest of us were a "deviation").

I was a little surprised that your Catholic mother says you're damned for not being a believer. My understanding (having been raised Roman Catholic) is that post Vatican II not being a believer is not sufficient for damnation in the beliefs of the Catholic church. In particular, if you are a weak atheist you should be on extra strong ground since you simply do not believe in God as opposed to "denying" him. I suggest that you ask your mother to ask her priest if someone can go to heaven by living a moral life if they are not Catholic and see what he says. It is important, however, that your mom not ask if an Atheist can go to heaven since this may be perceived as a different question.

Your response to your mother, by the way, is pretty much what I understand the Church to teach -- if you are being sincere in your beliefs and you lead a moral life, you're okay with God. I agree that any deity that would punish its creations for using the mental facilities it gave them is not worthy of worship.

I like the response you quoted about what happens after death. My own response to that question varies depending on who is asking it. I sometimes say, "the same place we were before we were born," or "the same place as everyone else." I also sometimes use, "We'll see when we get there," but that implies an afterlife so I use it sparingly.

Finally, good for you for questioning instead of blindly following. It's a good way to live, whether dealing with religion, science, politics, ethics, or morals. I wish there were more people like you.

I read all of my mail, and I welcome all of it -- particularly that which asks interesting questions like yours.

How to determine if something is alive is a pain, from both a philosophical and scientific standpoint. The textbook answer is that something is alive if it is organized, metabolizes, grows, adapts, reacts to stimulus, maintains its internal environment, and reproduces. One can argue that viruses, fire, and even some kinds of computer software have these characteristics, but they are not considered to be alive.

But enough with textbooks. You asked my opinion.

I'd say that there is a line between living and non-living matter, and that although the line is fuzzy there are some things that are clearly on one side (dogs) or the other (rocks). What's most important to me is not whether something is alive in a scientific sense but how we treat something that is alive in a philosophical sense. You touch on this when you point out that living and non-living things are much the same in a chemical sense -- the dog and the rock may have many of the same elements, just organized differently. What's important is that we assign moral value to living things because we, ourselves, are living.

I think before killing something I consider alive -- yes, even bugs. That doesn't mean I never squish a cockroach, but it does mean that I don't do it thoughtlessly. I have no problem putting out a fire, however, because to me it has no life in any morally important way. Viruses are a bit on the line, but the harm they cause makes me not worry about disposing of them, whether you can argue that they are alive or not.

How did life begin? There are plenty of theories, and unfortunately we don't have enough information right now to discover which is correct. At some point there had to be a set of circumstances that facilitated the organization of chemicals in a way that led to self-replicating thingies. Yep, that's pretty vague, and it's pretty much in line with what you are thinking. If I were a biochemist I'm sure I could give you a better possibility.

Thanks for writing, and for the nice words about the site.

Wow -- not like this is a big subject! (Not that I mind!)

To start, I've certainly heard many versions of the argument that without God there is no morality. Generally, in my experience, this argument falls in one or more of the following ways:

1. The argument is based on an unverifiable premise. That premise is usually "for there to be good there must be a perfect good" (sort of a Plato's-cave assumption), or "if you have feelings about what is right, something outside of you must be giving you those feelings."
2. The argument assumes that without some external force for morality, people would be sociopathic. I see no evidence for this.
3. The arguer asserts that there is a morality dictated by God, but can't define what that morality is. This is the most common problem I run into. Neither "Obey the Bible" nor "obey the Ten Commandments" is a morality, since even believers agree that they cannot be taken at face value (for example, most Christians wouldn't say that "Thou shalt not kill" means that you should never kill anything, even though that's what it appears to mean).
4. The arguer asserts that God is the model for morality but does not agree that we, in order to be moral, should act like God would in a similar circumstances.
5. The arguer asserts that Jesus is the model for morality, but does not agree that we should behave as Jesus did.
6. The argument isn't even an argument -- it's a statement that's supposed to be taken at face value and the speaker does not know how to back it up.
7. The arguer doesn't follow the professed morality, even though it supposedly was commanded by God. For example, if someone who believed that the Ten Commandments are literally the commands of God steals when they can get away with it (say, by not returning a wallet or pointing out when they are given too much change), then I have a hard time believing their religious sincerity.

So, if I don't buy the morality-from-a-deity argument, where do I get my morality? Good question.

My morality is built on three things (in order of importance):

1. Reason
2. Culture
3. Instinct.

Let's deal with instinct first because it is both the easiest to talk about and the least important. People, as animals, have certain instincts that have evolved to protect us as a species. These include protecting myself and protecting my loved ones. Other instincts have little impact on morality, but impact moral decisions (such as the feeling that puppies are cute). Instincts are not morally compelling, but they should be examined for moral value.

Culture is also important. I believe that there is an amount of good in respecting cultural values so long as they do not interfere with a higher morality. For example, walking around topless on the beach might be okay for anyone in France, but not in the United States. The only moral difference is cultural.

Reason is the most important factor, and it is also the most complex. I believe that any system of thought should at least obey two rules: It should be self consistent, and it should not condemn those who think as I do. An enormous amount of morality can be derived from these two rules by using them to weed out moral rules that I might like but that do not contribute to a consistent morality.

Some examples:

• Killing people: I don't want people to kill me, so to be consistent I must not kill them.
• Saving people: If my mother and another woman were drowning, I'd save my mother first. If I wasn't there and the other woman's daughter was there, I wouldn't blame the daughter for saving her mother before saving mine, since she's just acting as I would have acted in her place.
• Fornicating with children: As a child I wanted to be protected from harm, and as an adult I want my children protected from harm. I consider fornicating with children to have a massive potential for harming them, so it must not be allowed.
• Homosexuality: Someone else being homosexual does not impact my life so it is none of my business. So far as homosexual marriage goes, I want to be able to enjoy the benefits of marriage, so I can see no compelling argument to deny those benefits to others.
• Capital punishment: I don't have a moral problem with capital punishment as a concept. On the other hand, I don't think there should be such extreme punishment unless it is accompanied by extreme certainty, so I don't think there should be capital punishment unless we can show a 100% rate of not accidentally killing innocents. Along with this, I think we must take care to not cheapen human life. All of this comes from rule #2.
• Euthenasia: This is a complex issue, but in general I believe that someone should be allowed to choose to be euthanized because I may want that option some day. (By the same token, I would want there to be protections against my making a bad decision or being pressured into making it.)
• Abortion: This is an extremely complex one, and it's an issue that I had to spend a lot of time reasoning over. For now, I'll just say that I'm pro choice (from a legal perspective), I believe that the number of abortions should be minimized (from a moral perspective), and that this stance is entirely based on my two rules.

I think you'll see that much of this boils down to the same thing as the social contract mode of deriving morality. If I have left any questions unanswered, let me know.

Neat point!

Well, that would only be true if an atheist was someone who did not believe in a power higher than himself. Without the "than himself" phrase (which, I think, is dubious), God would, by definition, believe himself to be the higher power and therefore not be an atheist.

On the other hand, if an atheist is a someone who is without religion, then you are absolutely correct that God would be an atheist. You don't need faith if you are God, and in fact omnipotence would negate the possibility of having it.

You make very good points here about the need for a "safe harbor," no matter what your philosophical leanings. I agree with you that those who look for something comforting in the facts of physics or try and find angels in equations are probably going to fall short of being comforted. Too many people on this kind of quest seem to just be looking for something they don't understand -- a "mystery," if you will -- to hang their hat on, and that leads to all sorts of new-age silliness.

As for myself, I have three safe harbors.

The first is wonder in the world around me. I think that the search for knowledge, the quest to know the world around us, is one of the most wonderful things in all of existence. I love to read about new discoveries in the sciences, whether they are in physics, history, biology, or any other area of investigation. We are the only creatures on earth that can crack the puzzles that surround us, and I am thrilled to be part of a species with such power.

The second is the wonder of human thought and creativity. I adore investigating how the human mind works, trying to put together the thoughts of people from long ago (this is part of why I love to read about Biblical times), and seeing a new, successful, original human creation. As a child I adored Ben Franklin and Walt Disney as icons of the drive to create. As an adult, I sometimes cry at movies, not because of their content, but because I get so excited with someone's vision is well executed (as an aside, this means that I've teared up at some pretty weird movies, like Fight Club, and that I get really annoyed by films that have no vision beyond marketing).

The third is my desire to have an impact on the world around me. I love making people laugh because I think it helps them get through the day. I love sharing philosophy with people, because I think that a self-examined life is a better life. I want the world to be a tiny, tiny bit better place when I leave it than it was when I came into it. Working toward that is probably the biggest safe harbor I have.

I think we may have a bit of difficulty discussing these topics because we have a great divide in our use of certain terms. I'll give it a shot, though.

Regarding information in the universe. I disagree that "all of the matter and all of the energy means all of the information available." So far as I understand, the only way this could be true would be if you were saying that determinism implies having all possible information at any given time (assuming no quantum randomness). You continue, saying "Just because we can't calculate it, does not mean it's not True" -- and while this is correct, it is also correct that if we can't calculate it then the "information" effectively does not exist.

For example, one might say that from a deterministic perspective the winner of the 2007 World Series has already been decided. But if I were to ask, "Then who is going to win" and the response was "There's no way to tell," I would have to wonder about the value of the original statement.

"All information that ever will be currently exists" might be an interesting philosophical point, but I would argue that it is of purely linguistic interest since, if we define our terms in what might be a more useful manner, it disappears.

I have the same sort of problem with your discussion of a creator and consciousness. If the universe is alive, and if it has a consciousness, then you can say that it has a creator (effectively itself, I suppose). But in order to make this argument, you have to turn "consciousness" into a bigger unknown than it is. I agree that we have unknowns about consciousness, but some things are not on the borderline of our understanding. I see no compelling reason to believe that the universe is conscious.

You are right that some primitive humans had religious beliefs, but to me this does not say that religion goes back to our origin as a species. I think this is a minor, technical point, though. You are right that there has probably been religion for as long as there has been what we could call people.

I agree that a lot of science is driven by commerce and ego, but I don't know that this is a recent thing. I also agree that humans sometimes create things detrimental to our existence, but I think there's a difference between what research finds and what we do with that research.

I'm not sure what you mean about having faith in the inexplicable. Your example about cell phones is a little lacking because cell phones are not inexplicable. At most, I have faith that whoever is running my cell phone company knows what they are doing, and this is a far cry from faith in the inexplicable.

You are right that technical progress does not imply that anything is proven. However, there are many areas of science where there is so much data that scientists treat a theory as proven.

I also disagree some of your points about evolution (or I'm misunderstanding your point). You say that chaos theory opposes progression from simple to complex forms. Do you mean thermodynamics? So far as I recall, chaos theory only says that we could never get enough data to predict how the system would develop, not that it would not become more complex.

I also disagree that systems should strive toward "simpler forms, ones having an easier time surviving." Simpler things do not necessarily survive better.

Your questions about how a flower knows a bee will be attracted, etc., seem based on a false assumption. Who says that the flower knows anything? The theory of evolution is not goal oriented -- flowers do not see the need to attract bees and therefore evolve a pleasant scent. I feel like you are creating mysteries where none are necessary.

When you say, "everything happens for a reason" and talk about a tsunami, you are mingling the words "cause" and "reason." A cause does not imply a reason (although there may be a reason). As in other parts of your discussion, you are using a word that sometimes has implications of intelligence (reason or creator) when a purely mechanical word would suffice (cause) and using this to imply that the intelligence must therefore exist.

Unfortunately, your definition of omnipotence seems likewise murky to me, so I can't agree with your conclusion that, without it, there would be nothing.

It sounds like you have a really good handle on your beliefs, which is quite a good (and rare) thing.

Someone once said that religion is certainty and science is truth. Too bad we can't have both, but I, like you, prefer the latter.