> It's the absence of belief in a deity - and therefore the recognition that the starting conditions of our lives was random chance, out of our control - that provides the foundation that all humans are equal and of equal value.
This is absolutely false if by "equal value" you mean anything other than "of no more value than any other product of randomness". But I doubt you believe that you and the drug addict in Eastern Europe are equally worthless (and equivalent to the return value of `head -c 100 /dev/urandom`). In fact, you say "the realization that life is ... precious". "Precious" to who, precisely?
> It's the absence of belief in a deity that neatly solves the problem of evil in the world
This is the same failing as above - it solves the problem of evil by removing evil as a category. There is only the actions of random chance, which cannot be evil. But you clearly still believe in evil. Where comes the good that evil opposes?
Bravo, very good questions in the socratic method.
Christianity has so deeply penetrated our society that we don't even notice it's precepts anymore. It's like the air we breathe. It's so prevalent, it's become invisible to our eyes.
This is absolutely false if by "equal value" you mean anything other than "of no more value than any other product of randomness". But I doubt you believe that you and the drug addict in Eastern Europe are equally worthless (and equivalent to the return value of `head -c 100 /dev/urandom`). In fact, you say "the realization that life is ... precious". "Precious" to who, precisely?
> It's the absence of belief in a deity that neatly solves the problem of evil in the world
This is the same failing as above - it solves the problem of evil by removing evil as a category. There is only the actions of random chance, which cannot be evil. But you clearly still believe in evil. Where comes the good that evil opposes?