I think you're ignoring the fact that most atheists are tolerant to amazing degrees, and no decent human being of any - or no - faith would wish suffering on others purely for their religious beliefs. That's reserved for fundamentalist fanatics and zealots.

This was horribly prejudiced and vicious on your part, and only serves to feed the "angry immoral nihilist" stereotype projected at atheists. Perhaps you should take the other posters' advice and read up on the idea of compassion, before making another such post.

****Morality is nothing without compassion and tolerance.****

Where is your compassion? Ethic of Reciprocity or "the golden rule"? I would rather have as a friend a deluded but devout theist than you.

I was going to comment on the topic but instead...

I feel bad for those poor, stupid people. I don't like seeing anybody get ripped off. I know what it was like to give the benefit of the doubt to those who came "in the name." Although, I nevertheless had the brains to see schemes for what they were even then. But, not everyone has their head on straight regardless of their worldview. Elderly people too are especially vulnerable. Reveling in schadenfreude is kinda' sick.

There is one sentence out of the Bible (my own family's tradition) that I acutally still live my life by, "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you." That never stopped being true in my mind. The Bhuddist version, the same but stated in the negative, also works well as a guiding principle. I wouldn't laugh at my enemy if he fell, I'd help him up and, hopefully, end the animosity.

The major problem I have with that view is one of the same ones I have with the "let them eat cake" approach to social welfare. If, for example, the Breadwinner/King of His Castle stupidly decides to invest the family's money in one of these harebraine schemes, it means that dependent family members will suffer as a result of poor decisions in which they had no say.

I don't think being aggressive or patronising to people you (and many of us) feel have got it wrong is in any way helpful. You wouldn't like it if they treated you that way and to do so in return only makes you look unreasonable.

I believe you do not need to become the monster in order to beat the monster.
Try this: http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/01/be-compassionate.html

Unless, perhaps you're a christian in disguise trying to make us look bad?

I'd also like to make another point that's proven itself here, and that's in terms or morality and belief itself.

If these preists, ministers, etc... TRULY believed what they were preaching....this wouldn't happen. I honestly think deep down that a LARGE percentage of these people know that what they preach is, for lack of a better word, bull$hit. And therefore, they take advantage of their unique situation....showing in the end both a lack of belief and morality.

People whose evaluation of their own moral worth is based on their actions are likely to refrain from fraud because it would make them feel bad about themselves. People whose evaluation of moral worth is based on their relationship with God are willing to do a lot of things if they think God will forgive them (or it's actually what God wants them to do).

In other words, not only are the religious more vulnerable to being the victims of fraud, they're also more likely to commit it.