Atheists Are Wrong

First, you seem to have misunderstood me. In my opinion, I explained what I had in my mind and it was pretty understandable. I might be wrong. Please let me clear things up. a) I DO believe in the Big Bang Theory. However, I do NOT believe that it just appeared by itself. I believe that God made it occur, and now that that is explained, let me move on. b) I believe in evolution. but not as Darwin has explained it. I believe that our bodies have changed a lot since humans existed, but that is not the case that Darwin suggests. Darwin suggested that we were APES. I do not believe in that. I believe that we were slightly intelligent ape-like (ape-LIKE, not completely ape) creatures, then we slowly turned into the humans we are now. Okay, my opinion is clear now. Let us go on with our debate. In a spectacular and telling failure of journalism MSNBC reported recently that Pope Francis "broke with Catholic tradition" by asserting that the Big Bang theory is real. Instantly, the Internet responded with the name Georges Lemaitre, one of the creators of the Theory of Universal Expansion who also happened to be a Jesuit priest. He is also the first entry on a Google search of "Catholic Big Bang." 1. Religion Is About Morality, Not Creation Myths 2. Religion Is the Foundation of All Morality, Not Merely an Expression of It Christopher Hitchens, of all people, inadvertently exposed the complexity of religion"s relationship to morality and barbarism in a debate. Confronted with the fact that Stalin was an atheist who committed genocide. Hitchens is too clever for his own good here. In broadening the scope of immoral actions caused by religion to capture the acts of atheists, he broadens it so completely that it captures everything. Hitchens, in his eagerness to blame religion for Stalin"s atrocities asserts that religion is the foundation for all moral choices, not merely those made in religion"s name. 3. Religion Was the Foundation of Society, Not an Addition to It 4. Atheists Do Believe 5. Science Can"t Teach Us Right from Wrong The idea of a cold finite existence ending in complete oblivion is not the harshest concept an atheist must swallow. Far more present and paralyzing is the notion that our actions are devoid of moral consequence. As Hitchens points out, so ingrained is our credulity towards morality and our servility to it that most people cannot ignore it. It is not merely silly superstitions that atheists seek to remove from our personal and policy choices, it is the idea that an objectively, morally correct choice is even possible. But even if we accept the premise that morality is entirely subjective, we still have to decide how to act. This is where religion, far from being the natural enemy of science, comes to its aid. Just as believers must always fight nagging doubts about the truth of their beliefs, the atheist must fight nagging beliefs when confronted with moral choices. Just as there is no paradox in a believer knowing that science can reveal important details of how the physical world operates, there is no paradox in an atheist knowing that religion and its ancient history of moral investigation is relevant to moral understanding. 7. Ignorance of Religion Is Ignorance of History, For Atheists and Everyone Later in his essay, Harris argues that "religion is fast growing incompatible with the emergence of global, civil society." This, in a nutshell, is what atheists get wrong. It is only through religion, and its metaphysical, moral obligations that global society is possible at all. As Harris pulls the offending thread of religion out of the global moral tapestry, it falls apart, replaced only with his preferences. In the end the battle, between atheists and believers in the area of moral choice is little different than the battle between Jews and Muslims.