"There is nothing about "atheism" that makes people compassionate--so how you'll manage that is beyond me--and, sad to say, some people get really nasty when they're drunk, so that's no help either." Ted.

Um . . . some people get really nasty when they get religion.

But Ted, I fear you are not well read in this area. As atheists, we believe that we have one life here, that suffering serves no grander purpose, and that injustice will never be rectified in the hereafter. Atheism therefore inclines us more towards compassion for sufferers than does a religion that believes 1) God is in control 2) suffering serves the cause of soul building 3) injustice will be rectified in the end, 4) God punished the dirty bastards and he would only have done so if they had deserved it, 5) blah blah blah, [enter favorite theodicy theory.]

For me, an atheist, every lost life is a permanent loss of staggering proportions. For the Christian or Moslems it's AT WORST a temporary setback, and it may even be a good thing if God willed it.

FURTHERMORE, Atheism encourages us to see our fellow creatures as the frail, suffering-prone creatures that they are, and to have sympathy for even the worst of them. No matter how badly I dislike some son of a bitch, I feel sympathy for him because I know that he will either die young, or he will grow old and experience the intense grief of watching loved ones die, not to mention the grief of arthritis, hearing loss, blindness, impotence, loss of mental acuity, increased vulnerability to disease, loss of bladder control, loss of mobility, prostate cancer, painful urination, halitosis, sometimes really BAD halitosis, etc etc etc etc etc.

(I'll bet good money that if George Bush were a compassionate atheist, rather than a compassionate Christian, he'd have thought harder about starting all them wars. I sure would have. And so would all my favorite atheists. Because, after all, for us death is final. For y'all it ain't.)

So, Ted, I must respectfully request that you think this one over. And, please note, I'm saying Atheism naturally INCLINES us towards compassion, not that it compels us towards it.