You are aware we're talking about religion right? And what does education have to do with "God"?

You're still not getting my point. You have no way of knowing whether your interpretation of god is true any more than someone else's interpretation or religion. It's completely subjective. Just because one religion defines what and where god exists doesn't mean it's true. 

As lots of different religions, belief systems and individual points of view exist, it doesn't matter how educated or uneducated you are on the matter of religion x, y or z, you can't know. You only know what you're told from reading the different religious texts or from religious authority. But then they're conflicting as well.

Just give me the gist of it then, I usually research people's posts anyway so you don't really have to provide links.

Also, I'll come back to your link you provided a few posts ago later when I have a bit more time.

The values have already largely been selected and are written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though of course the great thing about them is that as the world progresses and more rights are needed they can be added later on.

Also there doesn't need to be agreement on when life begins, it is not a clear fact at all. As science advances and we have better understanding of how a baby develops we will increasingly know what is going on and therefore be able to come to perhaps better decisions on when the fetus should start to gain human rights. Terminating a potential human isn't necessarily wrong under a secular view of ethics, terminating an actual human is wrong but not a potential one.

An observation I have seen is that former fundamentalists turned atheists, will end up often having the same level of opinionated dogmatism they had before they lost their faith.  Some who go away peacefully usually end up having peace.  Such individuals just move on.  I think the point is that it isn't religion that makes people, but it is people who make religion appear this way or that.  Same goes with lack of faith.

If you want to define love as a feeling, feel free to.  I am choosing to define it as it is in 1 Corinthians 13:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Corinthians 13&version=NIV

 ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

But if you want to say that is feelings, go ahead.

As far as the other point goes, ethics are meant to be done by people, not put up in some museum and studied in awe on how awesome they look.  That is the point, and why I said it is far less important to have the perfect ethical system, then people act in a right manner among each other.

@richardhutnik:

If you want to define love as a feeling, feel free to.  I am choosing to define it as it is in 1 Corinthians 13:

Love IS an emotion. Ethical systems should not be based on emotions.

As far as the other point goes, ethics are meant to be done by people, not put up in some museum and studied in awe on how awesome they look.  That is the point, and why I said it is far less important to have the perfect ethical system, then people act in a right manner among each other.

Ethics are meant to be applied by people, but if the ethical system itself is flawed, the people who apply won't be doing any good.

Can you research my post, I'm too lazy to.

You can't just say that most atheists don't have morals and are egotistical elitists and then back out by saying you mean no offense. If you want to bad-mouth us then don't pussyfoot around.

Atheism is simply a negative response to the failure of theology to support its own burden of proof. It says nothing about morals and has nothing to do with morals.

The problem I have with people saying an atheist has no morals is that its focussing on what a person isn't, as opposed to what a person is.

An atheists can be a nihilist or a secular humanist or anything in between. That is what people of faith should be focussing on.

I certainly don't support any notion of universal morality in the religious sense. But I do acknowledge that we are social creatures who must live together and have laws, and a sense of morality in regards to what actions are good and bad in how they affect other people must exist for society to exist.

Considering the positive benefits of logic, scepticism and secularism on this kind of social morality over the last few centuries I think its a very good thing that morality isn't universal in the religious sense. We now live in more open societies that activally improve themselves. Its not a perfect process, but its certainly better then tyranny or theocracy. I want morality to be up for debate, because when it is it can be improved (and of course made worse) but a call to tradition will never improve the world. Open debate will always be the only way forward for a society.

Having said that, there is evidence that on basic moral questions theres an agreement between about 90% of all humans from all cultures. This bodes well for humanity, considering the increasing amounts of atheists in the west, why would a religious person want atheists to not be able to function as law abiding socially moral agents?