So if I read the article correctly we are supposed to conclude that religious people are hypocrites because a biased piece that openly attempts to desparage them says so?  Ok well let me just address his bullet points.

1) It was the entire country who was in favor of the war when it happened.  The religious people apparently understand better than most that you either win or lose a war.  Try reading Sun Tzu and specifically the lessons we learned the hard way from Vietnam to see just how much the left is played against America in modern warfare. 

America cannot be defeated militarily by these smaller powers, our opposition in Vietnam and now in the war on terror understands this and aims to win through public opinion by acts such as blowing up civilians with grenades and blaming the US (which is a practice recently covered in the MSM) because they know the "blame America first" coalition (which resides pretty much exclusively outside this religious groups discussed here) will be their biggest ally if they do.

Anti-war positions are a good healthy part of debate.  But once we go to war whether it is cliche or not the fact is that before it is over we will have either won the war or lost it.  The constant naysaying and crying during that effort is a exactly what an attack based on the principles of moral influence is aimed at achieving.  Making these people the conduit for the only truly effective means of attack the enemy has.

This is a doubled-edged sword however, because these weakness should be guarded before going to war.  In short people should agree with the causes for the war before the war is waged.  Clearly in the case of Iraq that has caused much debate after the fact with new information becoming available during the war. As a result the ignorance of this method of attack has led many to enable it.

2) Calling abortion a woman's rights issue is a way of avoiding the basic questions.  Abortion is now and always has been a question of when does a fetus become a human life.  Decrying the opposition as "against woman's rights" when to them they are dealing with what they view as murder is not only disingenuous but profoundly unhelpful in advancing the debate.  It's a political rhetoric aimed at marginalizing a view rather than an honest attempt at reaching a conclusion. (Note: I'm pro-abortion up until human brain-wave activity is detectable when it becomes human to me.)

3) To me marriage is between a couple and a church.  I think the government should have nothing to do with marriage.  I fully agree that gay's should have the same tax breaks, and rights that married straight couples do right now.  But I also think it is legitimate for religions to control what their definition of marriage is.  I say make all government recognized marriages civil unions and let the churches declare such a union a "catholic marriage" or a "Lutheran marriage" etc...then they can each decide what they do and don't want and everyone gets their own definition of marriage preserving the tradition while allowing people to be treated as equals as they should.

In short I don't think religious groups or gay rights advocates are 100% right here.  I think the vast majority of religious people don't care what two adults choose for their sexual preference and the majority agree they should be treated as equals and I think gays don't care what you call their marriages so long as they aren't being singled out as an institutionalized policy within the government.  What most object to is a redefining of a word that to them has a very specific meaning.  Calling them bigots and ignoring the true objection they are making is again unhelpful and again is just political rhetoric rather than an honest attempt to solve an issue.

Note: Part of the unhelpful rhetoric is to blur the line between the views of religious people and what they believe government's role is.  Most religious people are against gay relationships but they do not support government enforcement of their views.  People are entitled to an opinion, even if I, you, or anyone else think they are wrong.  What matters is that they are approaching it correctly when it comes to the governmental issue.  You have no more right to tell them what to think of gays than they do to tell gays how they should act.  And for the record I don't agree with their personal view...at all.

4) "If you have two movements...one that is for killing babies and saving convicted murders and one that is for killing convicted murders and saving babies...."

That's how the conservative political rhetoric generally goes (as an example of something from the right that indulges in the same unhelpful nonsense rhetoric this article does).  I think the death penalty is far more complicated than it is made to seem here...there is really no way to respond to something so vague, so I won't.

5) Beyond bland meals and maybe some chain gangs or sleeping outside in tents nobody is really for anything extreme for domestic prisoners.  As far as "detainees" are concerned there is a big difference between someone simply serving their prison sentence and someone who has information that can save lives but refuses to cooperate.  I think most people, if they thought about it, would recognize that water-boarding is miles away from any sort of ethical border when you have drones dropping bombs on HVTs knowing full well that civilians family members of the HVT will likely die as well.  One is scaring a person and the other is killing innocent people to eliminate an HVT, if you're ok with drone attacks as Obama was when he redoubled the effort when he took office then water-boarding is stroll through the gumdrop forest comparatively.  There is a lot of selective application of morals to me on this issue.

6) How old is this one?  Not even interested enough in the topic to cover it. /indifference

7) Note that despite the meme on the left Bush never banned stem cell research.  He banned government funding of embryonic research.  And has anyone ever stopped to ask themselves why it is exactly that this "AMAZINGLY PROMISING OMG OMG" technology would have a hard time getting private investors and need to rely on government funds?  If the tech is so great the private sector should be happy to fund it, no?

Atheist Russia and Atheist China over saw two of the biggest mass genocides of its own citizens in human history.  I can't think of a single atheists run country that isn't a totalitarian brutal dictatorship, and I also can't think of any long lasting atheist civilization through out all history.

It makes me think that Atheism and it's lack of moral guidance is incompatible with civilization, and that the brutality inherent in their regimes is a reflection of that.

Bash religion? Are you kidding? There was plenty of bashing of athiests last week when that Ricky Gervais athiest thread was posted.

ot, its the generalisations that are the problem. Outside america, these generalisations seem fairly representative of the majority. Maybe figure heads in western Christianity should be reconsidered just as Islamic figures should be.

Are you F-ing serious?

Atheists lack moral guidance? They are murderers? Come on give me a break. I'm an atheist and I wouldn't hurt a fly. I care for the world more than a lot of people and I try my best to be positive, I also put 110% effort into everything I do. I would say this is a more general consesus among atheists than what you said.

You disregard atheists in such a way because Mao and Stalin happen to be atheists? Well what about atheists that have done good for the world? I bet thousands of them exist.

Seperation of church and state? Oh so you haven't heard of these basic founding principles in most modern governments then?

Well i guess Iraq was a christian based mission, waged on lies, by the US government. All laws and regulations mentioned in the article were automatically biased prior to their senate vote.

oh joy another one of these threads, i would urge people to read rubangB's first post, that pretty much sums up my view as well

I'm trying to figure out where this gets us....

Come now, you know there have been mass genocides overseen by other religious groups and is, in fact, encouraged at times in the bible:

Deuteronomy 20 --

When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:
And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.

Yes, yes, I know it's an unfair thing to bring this up, but not any lesser than what you have. Simply becuase a group of people associated with a religion (or atheism) have done something terrible, it certainly doesn't mean they, as a whole, are inherently brutal.

"It makes me think that Atheism and it's lack of moral guidance is incompatible with civilization, and that the brutality inherent in their regimes is a reflection of that."

Lack of moral guidance? Theistic religions are not the only source of guidance, and not even necessarily the best source either (Obviously depending on how you ask).

I'm sure it's just a conincidence that Atheist cultures never formed through out human history prior to the 20th century.

Communism is based on atheist principles. Religion is a tool to control the worker sound familliar? Just look at the attrocities and lack of human rights that has been evident in every atheist country over the last 90 years. Not a single example of an atheist country that wasn't a brutal dictatorship. It's proof that atheists lack of moral guidance leads to the destruction of civilization, as has been shown in every case so far.