Look man, don't expect me to back off just because you use big words.

That is not a straw man argument.

A straw man argument means that I am misrepresenting another person's position. In a strict scientific sense emotions are nothing more than electro-chemical impulses - and therefore, objectively meaningless.

As for the ''no value assigned to consciousness'' part (which is all you have left), this is once again a subjective decision which has no place in science.

Straw man arguments are all over the place, but what you are doing is disagreeing with me because you don't want to agree with me.

Not to mention that I'm not presenting an argument there. I give an opinion and then put facts together (admittedly in a crude way) to explain why that is my standpoint.

This is the problem:

"The wall needs to be torn down otherwise the madness will only get worse. Religious people will become more fanatical as they are suffocated in a stagnant air-space. Areligious will become bigger bigots because they also fail to understand those on the other side."

religious aren't being suffocated. It's an illusion, it's propoganda. Religious membership is INCREASING. It is not stagnant. And we aren't bigots. We just want to be left alone!! For God sake, why can't you understand that.
You think that you are the understanding ones, but you're not. You judge when you're expressly forbidden from doing so, you punish when you are expressly forbidden from doing so, you insult and treat those you call sinners with disgust. Then, you interfere with science. Picketing against stem cells even though no death comes from it....simply because "WE SHOULDN'T HAVE THE POWER OF GOD". It's unbelieveable the shit the religious do. Leave us the fuck alone.
As religious, you're supposed to be the ones letting others alone...no, you are supposed to EMBRACE the sinners...but it's the opposite, innit?

Well I haven't seen any of those posts - I was just commenting on that one I saw.

Yes it is a gross misrepresentation because you equate areligiousness with strict mechanical automation.

You asked how a person without religion could have motivation for morality, then pointing out that the areligious follow cut-throat instincts. You talk as if they're a separate species.

So don't lie. That's what you actually think. Otherwise, the whole reasoning for your psot makes no sense. People do the right thing because we are social creatures, and are guided by a conscience to ensure group survival rather than individual domination. There are variances here and there, but for the msot part it is true. We are designed to work in a social environment. Even the lawless barbarian hordes are a group of brothers, no? Evil people are still morally good to their brothers. It's just the scope that's different. They have no outside morality, but in their group, they do. 

Again, it is a straw man argument because you turn humans who disagree with you (areligious) into heartless robots, and then attack a heartless robot's motivation for doing good. That is case in point, a strawman argument.

This actually had nothing to do with religion. Rol was insulting my country (and actualyl trying to insult me with that), and I just said that at least my country isn't known for producing the person who is probably the most despised human being ever.

''Yes it is a gross misrepresentation because you equate areligiousness with strict mechanical automation.''

When the laws of material nature are all there is then how can this not be true?

''You asked how a person without religion could have motivation for morality, then pointing out that the areligious follow cut-throat instincts. You talk as if they're a separate species.''

Yes I did ask that, but I didn't 'point out' what you are saying there. You are building a nice straw man there yourself aren't you?

''So don't lie. That's what you actually think. Otherwise, the whole reasoning for your psot makes no sense.''

No. I believe in a different source of man's desires. There is no point in trying to cram it in here, but it is also not required for me to explain my beliefs in this context at all. I understand why you would think that the 'reasoning behind my post' doesn't make sense based on my statements before. In fact, you have seen a subtlety in my reasoning and made a rather valid assumption. Unfortunately, your assumption is wrong - my motivation stems from the fact that I cannot tolerate seeing someone being religiously against religion. ESPECIALLY if this person loses logic and common sense along the way. That is why I attack such a person, even if my method of attack seems to insinuate beliefs that are not my own.

''People do the right thing because we are social creatures, and are guided by a conscience to ensure group survival rather than individual domination. There are variances here and there, but for the msot part it is true. We are designed to work in a social environment. Even the lawless barbarian hordes are a group of brothers, no? Evil people are still morally good to their brothers. It's just the scope that's different. They have no outside morality, but in their group, they do. ''

I get this evolutionary idea, I really do. I once had to sit through 50 excruciating minutes as my computer science proffessor went on and on about the evolutionary origin of love. Yes, an explanation of the origin of these things has been found. But it's not the only explanation, and I certainly do not think it is a very good one. For me to be convinced you need to simulate the evolution of these things - that would certainly constitute proof. Anything less and you can keep your hypothesis and I'll keep my eastern philosophy (which I consider much superior).

''Again, it is a straw man argument because you turn humans who disagree with you (areligious) into heartless robots, and then attack a heartless robot's motivation for doing good. That is case in point, a strawman argument.''

No. Because you are explaining here that I'm presenting the person in a certain light - NOT his proposition. Therefore, not strictly a straw man argument.

I'm enjoying this very much btw - and I'm editing out that nasty last comment I left - it was uncalled for, and, in hindsight, possibly inaccurate.

When the laws of material nature are all there is then how can this not be true?

Because you don't understand the laws of nature. You misrepresent it. If your version was true, then your description would be true, but it's not, therefore neither are you.

I don't deny that my life is ultimately meaningless (in a sense). But what I do now, with this life, is meaningful to me.
Yup, unless you're a robot, you have beliefs. I know atheism is a belief, but I think it's a rational and defendable (is that a word?) belief to have, and in my case I can confidently say it's well thought-out. 

Although it may not seem like it right now, I actually don't give too much of a shit about these debates. And I just get on with my life and not worry about it most of the time, whilst still being a decent person, this is why it angers me when people like padib tell me I'm immoral and my atheism is immoral, and he really has no justification at all. Like most people, I'm good for the sake of being good, not because I think I'll be ultimately judged, he just can't accept that. 

What's your point of view on all this?

Oh come on man, you constantly bash atheism in a totally unjust way. Name one time I've bashed religion unjustifiably? 
"A testament to your taking only the things you want to hear and ignoring the rest". When do I do that? 
Funny, your the one who totally disregarded the statistical information I presented to you as "an illusion" and that's coming from a guy who gets some of his scientific knowledge from "creation.com".

Generalizing was one of your mistakes, you were just flat-out wrong about things, and it got to the point where it was just insulting. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm obviously not right about everything and ofcourse, I make mistakes but did you read some of the posts you made on here? A lot of what you said was just ridiculous.

I do respect you for having the minority viewpoint on this site and openly expressing it, I don't think I'd be able to do the same. But then you go and say something like "and let my flesh be torn out so you can finally hear words that have a taste of meaning?" What the hell does that even mean? You think your viewpoint is the only meaningful one on here? Get over yourself man, most people disagree with you on here for a reason. 

What point are you making exactly? In earlier posts it seemed to be societies without religion are immoral or even chaotic (that's what I gathered, let me know if that's wrong), which is totally untrue, and when I showed you how ridiculous that was with actual data (Countries with the most non-religious being the most peaceful, having the lowest crime rates, higher quality of life etc.), you passed it off as "an illusion".

The Iraq War actually has little, if anything at all, to do with religion. Remove religion from the equation and the US would still have invaded Iraq. The big issue was WMDs and the nature of Hussein's regime. It was not a religious war but a defensive one, at least in justification.

Also, removing religion from the picture is hardly a reasonable position. The same could be said of many other things- we could just as well eliminate free will, human nature, national boundaries, sovereignty and achieve the same goal. If you could remove religion and eliminate war, this hardly means that religion causes war. It just means that religion is necessary for war. This is hardly true (Iraq example), but my point is that religion is no more a cause of war than the other things I mentioned.