weststar, you ask, "Where is the havoc and srife that the atheists and agnostics are wreaking around the world? I am increasingly unimpressed with the inspiration derived from any of the Gods."

At the moment it looks like the havoc is largely being wrought by theists, or so they say. So is a lot of the patching up and healing.

Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin were, so they said, atheists.

Looks to me like most of the good and most of the evil in our present society is done by human beings. I'm unconvinced that belief structures of a cosmological or theological nature have much to do with the rightness or wrongness of people's actions. I am a Christian, a Baptist, but I don't think the good (or the evil) I have done in my life has much to do with that belief structure.

Certainly the mere invocation of a purported Divine Name is no grounds for being impressed. But I don't see evidence that *disbelief* results in better behavior. As a Christian, I believe that all that is good, all that is loving, is of God, and that ultimately all will be well. But I'm not convinced that this makes my behavior either better or worse than those for whom the word God is a semantic null set, or than those who believe that God is going to send all the nonbelievers to a place of eternal torment. I'm interested in your thinking on this, and any hard data you may have.

Liland