Atheism has killed far more people.

Originally posted by sjeg
well he quoted it, and didn't question the statment. I redirect my previous invective towards darfius: fair play to him for loving Jesus whilst being filled with so much hate. He does so much to argue for religion, and is himself an example of what turns so many people from it. By the way, your insults are so moronic, darvlay, that they obviously do not merit ...[text shortened]... evenings lighting crosses on the lawns of Africans. Otherwise, that would have been a good one.

Where exactly is my hatred?

Turn that frown upside down.

It has no business in a life as a result of random chance. Survival of the fittest, right? Why would a young, healthy male care if a middle aged male was about to die? More females for him. Charity could NOT have come about as a result of pure evolution.

Originally posted by Darfius
Two rocks are concrete, nemesio. They will not disappear. We are not forced to give people things that belong to us.

Just because we are not forced doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Apparent charity exists in other animals. For example, in some
communities of bats, if a bat doesn't get a blood meal, other bats
will regurgitate part of their meal to give the bat a full meal. They
give in charity and, in necessary, receive in charity. It's called
reciprocal altruism.

How do you explain this? Obviously, bats do not have a concept of
the divine.

The biological advantage of charity is that, in large numbers, the
individual has a better chance of survival. For example, if there are
three men and a bear chases them, one is going to get caught (a 1
in 3 chance); but if there are ten men there is only a 1 in 10 chance.
If you give to one of those ten men to keep them alive, you have an
increased chance of survival when being chased by the bear.

Biological traits often develop into social traits. That is, we have a
subconscious desire to give in charity (for our selfish benefit), thus we
create social reasons or justifications for doing it.

So, there is my argument that charity needs no presence of a divine
being; it exists as a biological trait (as we see in the bat example)
which is easily extrapolated to a human context.

Nemesio

Hmmm, when I saw the name of the thread my first thought was that "Atheism has killed far more people" is a bunk theory, and it is true religion has killed more people.

This is a non topic with no points to argue, no chance to win.
I should be arguing this!

RTH

Originally posted by Darfius
Pure evolution is the belief that life came from non-life after something came from nothing.

Thank you. Does that differ from 'normal' evolution which I assume some people believe was commenced by a designer? I don't believe that the term 'pure evolution' is used very widely in the scientific community, but am happy to be proven wrong.

Henry

Originally posted by Maustrauser
Thank you. Does that differ from 'normal' evolution which I assume some people believe was commenced by a designer? I don't believe that the term 'pure evolution' is used very widely in the scientific community, but am happy to be proven wrong.

Henry

I suppose I could say that ?/abiogenesis/evolution is the belief...

but I find 'pure evolution' to be much more to the point.