Random- a silent sprinter
re the general topic at hand: the 3 things you never discuss, religion, politics, atheism.

re natural selection: Given the Earth's sub-atomic environment, genetic mutations are inevitable. The vast majority are of no value with most being harmful. If they should afford some advantage over other "same niche" creatures then there is a possiblity that such a mutation will be passed on. That's natural selection at the genetic level.

An interesting development has been the discovery of "switching" genes. It seems that some genes have adaptives or responsive sequences built in and that certain environmental conditions will cause that segment to "turn on". It's seems it's already in there and ready to go. Pretty amazing stuff.

Back to the topic: "Religion" is some form of ritualized behavior often engaged in as an attempt to influence devine or other-worldly influences or as an act of adoration of the same. Sometimes it is seen as a routinization of experience and the actual point of the religious action is lost. That is to say, it becomes a mindless perfomance.

Unfortunately the term is used broadly to mean any spiritual experience or life altering experience as in "he got the 'religion' and doesn't do that any more" or some such. As such it ignores the distinctive aspects of an individual's experiences and unfairly categorizes him, his experience and in general, is dismissive of the same.

I may be guilty of the same coming from the other direction but aside from the anecdotal bad and worse experiences some have had with those who claim a religion, a postion in some organized religion, etc. and all the emotional fallout that ensues, I would conclude that the sole basis of atheism is the lack of empirical evidence and the inability of scientific reasoning to prove the existence of a seperate spiritual plane of existence. Would this be correct?