Who are 'they'? And seriously you're using the term 'good guy'? Why don't you name a 'good guy' from your 'cache'?

Being a Christian has nothing to do with respecting the principles of the Chiritian faith, but rather acknowledging that they're correct.

firstly, "they" would be the religious people...

secondly, Mother Teresa

You couldn't of missed the point any harder if you tried.

Likely because your in "angry self defense mode" rather then "lets look at the numbers and causes" mode.

I'll try and explain again, though it'll be hard to do in a different way.  Please try and look at it from an objective viewpoint and don't assume anything.

1) On average (note: average)  religious people are more likely to give money, blood and effort to both secular and nonsecular charities.  If you are currently religious, there is a much higher chance you are going to donate to charity and give blood/donate time.

2) We need to find a reason for why this would be true.  My hypothesis is that the church works as a large community that peer pressures people into doing the right thing.

Lots of people go to churches who may have moderate to no interest in helping people.

Almost no one is going to join amnesty international unless they REALLY want to give to charity.  Also, you don't have to be catholic to donate time or money to a catholic charity.

As a LOT of charity people will tell you, there is a LOT of untapped money and potential of people who want to be charitable... the only trick is, you need to find ways to coax it out of people.

So what atheism should do if it grows, is find a way to create a "Church like" community like churches, that draw in everybody and then individually asks for help and support.

The point is, getting people to go to a charity event... who wouldn't normally go to a charity event... it's pretty much the biggest dilema charities have had since... well existance.

Religion is much better at in general "reigning in morality" just based on the fact that it's a meeting of the community.

I think it's likely that rather then the particular religion, since religion doesn't seem to matter.  All that does matters is that you practice it.  Statistically that is.

Think of this buddy

• Joseph Stalin, Atheist: 20 million plus dead
• Mao-Tse-Tung, Atheist: 40 million plus dead
• Adolf Hitler, Atheist: 10 million plus dead
• Pol Pot, Atheist: 2 million dead
• Kim-Il-Sung, Atheist: 5 million dead
• Fidel Castro, Atheist: 1 million dead

I hold no beliefs, some would call me an atheist while others say I'm agnostic, I say I hold no beliefs in superficial entities.

Much of this comes from my younger years when I studied in chemistry. It isn't to say I have no beliefs of my own, and  it doesn't mean that I do not agree with others believing in something, just that I cannot and will not bend my observation for the comfort of my ego.

Does this make me a bad person? Good and bad are both subjective so of course it has the propensity to make me a evil person as well as it works to make me a Saint.

Three thousand years ago people had the same sentiments between monotheism and paganism. It was insane and immoral to believe in one god, 'what about love, what about war?! How can one god encompass these things!? You don't understand what we mean by god! It's childish to have only one god!'

The thing is Atheism is still a belief, it is a belief in no god and that makes it in line with every other kind of belief. It requires passion and in religions like Atheism (organized or not) it is all or nothing.  You either don't believe all the way or you are not Atheist, in contrast you either believe all the way or you have no faith.

Atheist: I do not believe in god = I believe there is no god

so incredibly wrong...the single biggest misconseption atheists have about christianity or any religion whatsoever

I have no doubt that religion gives an easier recipe for being moral, or to put it less ambiguously, for doing the right thing. It's just easier to follow, little to no thinking involved necessary. However at least in the West we mostly have secular societies, who have thrown some of those religious dogmas away a long time ago, even punishing some of them by law.

How up-to-date is religion? The major religions are very old, and religions are very rigid. Society changes its norms much more quickly. Certain very basic things can't change, so one doesn't need to look at don't kill and don't steal. The problems lie more into punishing what's inappropriate on a much less basic level - because what's appropriate today is very different to what has been a couple of decades, let alone thousands of years ago. We certainly view as extremism a case of muslim father who had his daughter killed because she wore revealing clothing - but even in Western society, while not killed for that, it hasn't been acceptable for all that long at all. On the same line is rewarding what society has come to view as inappropriate, or teaching it.

The other big problem is the mixing of cultures. Freedom of religion is fairly new as well, and many religions aren't so tolerant of non-members. People in our societies have to learn to live and let live, accepting that others can have different, sometimes opposing, beliefs. Different and opposing are some of the most fought over things and religions never particularly embraced them either. Some people can't live by the "good" (maybe easier to say merciful and compassionate) half of the laws in their holy books.

It doesn't "grow back" really.

Unless I got the epsiode wrong.  It basically just shows how science IS the new religion.

Which is true if you've spent any time near peer review processes and people debating their different theories.

If we weren't in a modern society right now, they'd be likely throwing crusades over string theory and other like stuff.

I guess all the religious peopel I know (includin priests) who think this way are wrong too.