I've also found a welcoming social group that gets better every week. On Fridays, we have "business meetings" for SANE, but some of us choose to "show up late" for dinner somewhere in Berkeley, then hanging out at someone's apartment for drinks or just for conversation. Some of us wake up on Saturday morning and head out for breakfast and to enjoy another good day in our lives.

One need not hold a Ph.D. to understand the workings of the arthropod body

Entomology is a fantastic way for amateurs and kids to get into science. Darwin started with a beetle collection :)

I would be an atheist even if I wasn't a scientist, and obviously the two go well together. But I've noticed that being in a scientific or technical field is no guarantee that critical thinking skills will be used beyond the laboratory. Agricultural scientists tend to come from conservative backgrounds, engineers get hung up on design, and mathematicians love Plato.

In terms of community support, we have to get organized. When we can get people to go to 'church' (for lack of a better word) every Sunday, without the promise of eternal life to drag them out of bed, we will know we have succeeded.

Or we can wean the individual off the need for a "church" - letting him become the sole arbiter of meaning and value in life rather than developing concepts of meaning and value for him.

If you think about it, religion is in the same business-branch as computer games: providing users with an alternate reality where they get to be significant, one that users are willing to pay money to be allowed access to.

I like video games as much as the next guy, but the thing about religion is that it becomes more than a game to many of its adherents - it becomes a way of life, on they feel the need to impose on everyone else! I don't play a round of "The Elder Scrolls" and then go around demanding that people join the Fighters Guild or the Morang Tong or embrace the values espoused by the Tribunal Temple - but these brainwashed fools actively go around threating people with hellfire for not serving Jesus or blow themselves up to punish those who don't acknowledge Allah!

What happens in a video game stays in a video game - what happens in a church/temple/synagague/mosque carries into aspects of life that can prove disastrous.

Anyhoo, yeah hai silentsanta, and you are?

I think as people that we all harbor deep-rooted desires to outdo others. This too often comes out as bigotry towards others based on race, sexual orientation, gender, size...It's going to manifest in each of us somewhere, somehow, someway. Some rarely, and they will regret those actions when they see the harm it causes to the other. Some will do it and feel empowered when they see the result then strive to do it again.

Religion has historically provided ways and means to many who want to gain that power. You only have to show your desire to support the dogma of those you side with. Life without religion will not stop us from hurting others this way, whether intentional or not. We'll probably have evolved to a new species if that ever happens. It does, however, give those of us who have given up religion (or never had it) less opportunity to commit hateful, ignorant, or just abusive acts on others. It also allows us to see how these actions can hurt others from a non-involved observer point of view. If all gods fell the way of Zeus, new forms of tribal demagogary will manifest in its place and the process continues in a new mask.

I may sound pessimistic but that is not the intent. I just mostly support the above ideas that instead of focusing so much on religion's obvious problems, we should instead focus on society's problems that let religions persist in such a manner.

But as long as television, politics, religion and society tell people that they must be on TV or be thin or be rich to be worth anything, this slide into materialism will continue. As long as society awards those who get ahead at any cost, good behavior will be valued less and less.

Hear hear! Our culture has become one in which we assume moral worth and material worth are more or less equivalent (provided you gained your wealth "respectably"). We see it in the condemnation of the poor as lazy and shiftless and in the glamorization of purchase and consumer culture.

I agree that materialism is part of the traditional ideology. If you believe that working hard is required for moral worth and that hard work leads inevitable to success, it's almost inconceivable not to arrive at materialism. It also explains the strange alliance of religion and business in the US, despite the repeated condemnations of wealth in the New Testament.

Some of my coworkers castigated me for the column being "elitist" (wow, years before Obama -- who knew?), condemning those who weren't cut out for higher education -- which was NOT my intent, so obviously I didn't write it as well as I should have. However, of all people, a grocery store clerk who recognized me from my mugshot with the column complimented me on it! He actually understood the intended message: namely, that education is its own reward and that knowledge of the world makes life far richer no matter what one does for a living.

The same goes for atheism, because it is just an extension of the same concept -- i.e., enrichment of the mind, and thus of life, by learning about the real world. Atheism does not "provide" anything itself, but it is a natural consequence of knowledge gained about reality and of a properly skeptical/scientific mindset (which, obviously, one need not be a scientist to have).

Theistic belief, on the other hand, is nothing but a shield used by fragile egos to protect blissful ignorance and an inflated sense of importance. My dad asked me once, "Do you want to be happy, or do you want to be right?" My answer was twofold: First, the two are by no means mutually exclusive. And second, I see no value in being foolishly happy when it also means being wrong.

~David D.G.

Atheism at its core is a disbelief in god. It is not meant to comfort anybody or replace the emotional void left by religion. To use it as such is to use atheism for something it is not meant for.

Lastly, whether atheism can provide any benefits to people is beside the point. Even if atheism does not provide any benfits and emotional comfort, I will still be an atheist because I believe atheism to be true. Whether atheism is true is the only question we need to ask.