Atheists enjoy at least the same quality of life as Christians.

Points of agreement: -Atheists are equally moral Often one of the first questions from a believer in the U.S., stunned that I exist, is a question about why I don’t go around stealing and murdering for the fun of it. I hope they stay believers since that’s even a question… I’m glad, for once, I didn’t have to explain why I don’t want to kill people. -I want to strongly concede a point. “And Christians do the same thing to anyone who they feel isn’t religious enough..... Ever run into an idiot who ended a conversation by saying something along the lines of 'Ill Pray for you'? That’s just Christian talk for 'go f*ck yourself'.....” I laugh every time I read that. It can be a little condescending or just awkward opening a conversation by saying you’ll pray for an atheist. Close an argument like that and it looks like you’re trying to be cheap and insulting. “If you wish to redo this debate then I’d understand and would comply.” No this turned into one of my better debates. Feel free to ‘troll’ me anytime. If you can make my arguments look ridiculous that is just a more entertaining way to prove me wrong. I had a good time making fun of Atheists/Christians R1 I just forgot to make legitimate points too. “Atheists are often forced to choose to identify with one of the major religions.” This is a problem for Atheist activists who would like to take a stand and risk death/imprisonment in the process. There are definitely examples of atheists risking their life to spread secularism in these countries to their credit. This is also what makes it difficult to say anything or determine how significant Atheist populations are in these areas. However, the figures we have indicate that there are very few Atheists in these countries [16]. While Atheists in the Middle East are often underground there are still likely very few as the data suggests. There is a reason that secularism has grown in certain areas and is linked to specific causes. Atheism grows where there are high levels of modernism, individualism, multiculturalism, high levels of education: particularly in science, Human Rights and Internet access [18]. While some of these issues are improving in these countries they have a very poor track record in areas that both improve life quality and fuel secularization. Atheist resilience v.s. Discrimination and life quality I won’t deny that high levels of discrimination, particularly in the U.S., likely have an impact on atheist lives. I have conceded that this has an impact on one area, happiness, especially in the U.S. South. I have been able to show that they are doing great in spite of discrimination and concede that we are a small 7% minority here in the U.S. and tend to live in areas with minimal discrimination. “Atheists face discrimination in more countries then Christians do” I agree and Christians often enjoy a majority status. Don’t forget about India where the 31 million Christians are often harassed or intimidated… by Muslims. Wait, what? “Hinduism as a religion could well be one of the most accommodating in the world. Rather than confront and destroy, it has a tendency to welcome and assimilate [15].” I’m converting. Moving on, this is really about relative percentages of Christian/Atheist populations in persecuted areas. Atheists are subject to persecution in more countries but as a whole there is a smaller percentage of an atheists under persecution. Religious indoctrination works so there just are not a lot of atheists in persecuted areas as I have shown. Atheist v.s. Christian population centers I definitely do not think Christianity is the cause but unfortunately Christianity/religiosity tends to correlate with poor indicators of societal health [4]. This includes violent crime, low life expectancy, STD infection, Child mortality rates and teen pregnancy. The trend is reversed for atheists, as I pointed out first round, leading to better lives for Atheists overall. This is partly because the slim majority of Christians, 1.3 billion, live in the disadvantaged Global South with 50% living in either sub sub-Saharan Africa 24%, South America & Mexico 21% and 5% in the Middle East [18,19,20]. This means nearly half of the Christian population is centered in impoverished areas of the third world and a significant minority are subject to violent persecution in the Middle East. The Global South, with three fourths of the World population, controls just 20% of the world revenue and only owns only 10% of manufacturing industries [21]. Atheist discrimination when compared to racial minorities I don’t think this is a fair comparison given that atheists have the option to keep there minority views to themselves and enjoy a distinct advantage in many areas including education, high income locations etc. I agree that it’s intuitive to assume that strong discrimination does have an impact on life quality but my point stands that Atheists are still doing great in the U.S. Atheists are outnumbered everywhere I agree Athesists are outnumbered in virtually any country we live in and certainly globally (I think we’re now 13% of global population). Just being outnumbered does not cause problems in and of itself. Christian V.S. Atheist persecution the Middle East I’ll concede that hatred and intolerance is equal for both Atheists and Christians. The problem is that Atheists can always pretend to follow the Islamic faith, avoiding persecution, and it looks Atheists in these areas are often closeted. There is often no option to out themselves on an official form so they often avoid State and Muslim extremist persecution. Christians are commanded not to deny Jesus in Matt. 10:33 and to not worship other Gods in the first commandment. This and other scriptures make it very difficult for Christians to blend in by pretending to be Muslim. They are commanded to group together in Hebrews 10:25 and to worship, pray etc making them an easy, obvious target in areas where there is persecution. While there are many examples of Christian persecution it is difficult to find them for Atheists. In the Sudan 1.5 million Christians have been murdered since 1984 [15]. After five Christian Churches were bombed in 2004 tens of thousands of Christians fled Iraq. In Indonesia in 1999 tens of thousands of Christians were murdered by various Muslim gunman. Groups trying to impose Sharia law in Indonesia have destroyed 600 churches. I don’t doubt that Atheists would be treated in a similar way but they have the option to keep their mouths shut. Christians are just easier targets in these countries leading to the 100,000 annual Christian martyrs. It Gets Better We already are trying to steal the LGBT ‘out campaign’ so I’ll try to capitalize on another. I pointed out earlier that this debate was about the current situation and prospects for the near future that affect moral. We’re growing everywhere and as seen in Europe and other areas discrimination is greatly reduced when Atheists are a significant portion of the population. Many Atheists alive can look forward to a vindication of their view in their lifetime. Some project that Atheists will be the global majority by 2041 [22]. At the very least Atheism is more and more becoming an acceptable position. - Good debate, as I have pointed out, statistics show that Atheists enjoy high quality lives in spite of discrimination. They live in the best areas on earth and many causes of secularization improve societies as well. Unfortunately Christian persecution causes a lot of problems around the world and they do not have the option to keep quiet as atheists do. [18] http://www.humanreligions.info... [19] http://www.pewforum.org... [20] http://en.wikipedia.org... [21] http://en.wikipedia.org... [22] http://www.huffingtonpost.com...