Virtual particles (that besides being called virtual are real particles) appear and anihilate in vacuum all the time.

If an engineer had designed the human eye, he would have been fired.

Having the nerves in front of the photoreceptor cells is pure idiocy.

Lipid bubbles are very similar to cell membranes in how they work. Combining lipids and RNA, and some basic building blocks, scientists have been able to create rudimentary forms of life.

It's not perfect, but it's bringing us closer to finding out how the early life formed were formed.

My point is, that we've managed to create life that uses much simpler components than the high-end cells that life consists of today.

EDIT: I have to ask out of curiosity. Evey time you show up in one of these threads, you claim to be a non-believer, but you keep arguing for the creationism side. What exactly are your beliefs?

EDIT: @ Richardhutnic

It's a shame that the thread became so off-topic with religions vs non-religion. I assume you want the soloution to what you see as an ethical paradox in Hitchens' challenge?

I think the answer to your question in the OP is that you have misunderstood and convoluted what is a pretty simple statement. Being able to be just as moral as a religious person, plus not being burdened by the more questionable stuff in the doctrine, does not make you a perfect super human, you're still human. And that's pretty much it.

Anything harmful you don't want to hold accountable as a moral failing you can call "stupid" and end up saying isn't a moral issue.  Same with divorce and failing to find a proper partner.  Or, if his drinking did end up destroying the marriage and saying it doesn't work, then you end up also dodging the issue.

Again, what is seen as "moral" or "immoral" are just dodges.

If you believe your personal conduct has no impact on others, then you have a moral system that is lacking in considering all the ramifications of one's own conduct.  Do you bot think, if Hitchens was THAT morally good and beneficial for others, that him shortening his own life ends up harming others from what they ideally could of experienced?  Or is it that Hitchen's life wasn't significant enough that him shortening it prematurely really doesn't matter to others at all.  Maybe very much you think the later.

The simple answer to the first half is that it is basically no easier or harder for an athiest to be as moral as a believer. 

The complex answer is that to err is to be human. Ethical lapses happen, regardless of faith or lack of it. The issue arises that there are certain religious beliefs that actually fly in the face of ethics. Ambiguous religious texts that seem to encourage behavior that common sense says is unethical. In the fact of that, it can be easier for an athiest not to commit those specific unethical acts. Otherwise, again, a theist is no more moral than an athiest.

This is also an answer to the second half.

A) That's a perfectly fine sample size.  It's lab work.  You won't find much bigger sample sizes for that kind of thing.  It's not a freakin survey.

B) They weren't fake dollars.  That's just a misreporting of the study.

C) It's consistant with all other research.

D) Not really... that's the way the researcher decided to interpret it... being an ahteist herself who admitted to be specifically looking for that result.

Let me ask you a question though...

Do you think those people just didn't know how much it sucked to be a starving child in Africa?  Seems unlikely right?  Everybody has seen those videos before... everybody knows what a starving child in africa is like.  Everyone knows what starving is.

So why no compassion for the starving children when not shown the video?  Why only after being shown a video reminding them just how horrible it is over there?

Seems less like motivated by compassion and more motivated by guilt to me.  Or a breaking through of a deadening to others problems.  Where only by it being shown can people ackowledge just what's going on.

.

E) Your arguement in D was pushing the goalposts anyway.  Since like I said... atehists more often need to be prodded to give to charity.  As was shown. 

and in those studies, they ALSO ran the numbers not counting church contributions... and the same patern persisted. 

It also persisted for blood donations, giving of time to causes... etc.

It's really remarkably non-controversial and really pretty much common sense regardless, since religions generally require acts of charity therefore the more religious you are, the more you will do charity even if you yourself aren't a default generous person.

Though in general it does seem the correlation extends beyond that.  I imagine largely having to do with Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory and most atheists ending up on the specific "Liberal" branch.

Yeah I'm surprised people are fighting this one so much.  I guess maybe if you did this study for churches that don't ask for or mandate a tithe I would be more surprised, but the idea that people you condition to give 10% of their earnings to what you call "charity" every week are more likely to give to charity without needing to be prodded is pretty expected.  I'm a tad surprised that after prodding the non-believers gave a higher percentage than the believers but I wouldn't be surprised if that difference is small enough to be within error for a study like this.  

It doesn't surprise me.

I mean think about it.  If your whole religion says you have to do rank to charity because people are poor... it's always in your mind, your always giving periodically.

Sure they show you a picture of poor starving children, and it tugs at the heart strings, but you already give regularly so you go with the conditioned response of giving... what you would of anyway.  You are just doing your part again.

Meanwhile if your in a sitaution where you aren't giving, except when prodded to by seeing this stuff first hand you might think about how horrible it is AND how you haven't been helping or haven't did it in a while.

Hence a need to "make up for it" or just in general be less desensitized to giving since you aren't just always doing.

It'd be interseting to see how patterns of giving would be effected if done weekly over the course of a year or so.

Would seeing the video week after week lose it's effect lowering the money given?  Or would it keep reinforcing the belief?  I'd guess it'd fall... but only to about the same baseline as the religious.

In otherwords, being religious doesn't make you a better person... just "keeps you honest".

Like if you had two people who both wanted to eat healthy... and one of them was friends with some health nut who always talked about how eating healthy was great and gave you great recipies.

While the other guy had a friend that says "Do whatever you want, and stick to your guns."


Same exact guy... chances are the heatlhy friend guy does better on his diet.

Hitchens shortening his life did of course affect others. However, so did his reporting career. I am responding to this statement of yours:

"Hitchens argues that atheism is morally superior, but fails to shows in practice, particularly his life, that it is so."

Are you implying that he has to live his life like some kind of ascetic monk to prove that not having a belief is moral? This goes both ways. The catholic church claims catholisism is morally superior but fails to show so in their actions when they fight birth control and cover up child molestation. Protetstants claim protestantism is morally superior when protestant armies impale babies during the thirty years war.

This is all further complicated by the fact that morals are subjective to some degree. I have no moral objections to marriages ending in devorce, they could still produce something positive for the people involved, such as life experience, children, etc.