The problem with Atheism is that it has no inherent reason for morality, other thanh evasion of punishment. While for example Christianity preaches eternal hell fire for sinners, which is perhaps as reprehensable. It is still important for there to be an "incentive" for morality.
This is completely false. Harvard biologist Marc Hauser in his book
Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong clearly demonstrates that people have the same set of universal morals regardless of culture or religious belief. He goes on to demonstrate that religious beliefs actually cloud those natural morals (they don't make them go away, they just confuse them). I suggest you read this book because it's a clear contradiction of your view. I'd be very interested to actually see some evidence that supports your view, because I very much doubt that there is any.
I love this quote from Albert Einstein (another Atheist):
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
And on the subject of fundamentalism, you are using different meaning of the word. Fundamentalism as oposed to evidence is different to Fundamentalism as oposed to Liberalism.
I myself am a Liberal Christian, and i take philosophy and actively question my religion. Religion in itself is not wrong, i feel. It is only certain fundamental (as oposed to liberal) groups that give it a bad name.
You've completely misunderstood what I was saying. I think it was actually pretty clear.
It is clear that the religious problems in the world are not created by "fundamentalists" but by religion in general.
I fail to see how you could misunderstand my point when it's that clear. After that statement, I went on to
redefine "fundamentalism" to a degree that is relevant to what I'm arguing. I knew that it wasn't the typical definition and I didn't claim that it was. In fact I assumed that people knew what the typical definition of "fundamentalist" was, otherwise that paragraph didn't make sense.
With the belief that existance ends after death, a person might as well be as bad as he likes, since it wont effect him.
Global Warming (if it does actually exist) is not a true atheists problem. An atheist wont be around when the world freezes, and wont be punished for being irresponsible.
Again false. If you're going to make these accusations about my religious belief (or lack of) then why don't you back it up with some evidence. There is no doubt that most negative actions in our life lead to negative consequences - that's why they're deemed negative. Just because we understand what our emotions are, it doesn't make them any less real. We understand that our tvs work by firing electrons at a screen (or however plasma and lcd screens work) but it doesn't stop us from enjoying the image. Our natural sense of morality actually helps our lives. When we do good deeds we naturally feel good about ourselves and when we do bad deeds we naturally feel bad. It doesn't matter where we're going when we die. I think, in fact, that atheists have a much stronger respect for human rights and our environment because we understand our amazing it is and our precious life really is.
That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
Finally on the question of global warming. I work for the largest environmental charity in Australia. Of the people I work with, only one has religious beliefs and the vast majority are also atheists. I would be amazed to see any evidence that actually backs up your claims that atheists are less likely to care about the environment than religious people. Let me put it like this; Which country produces the most amount of green house gas emissions?
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_co2_emi-environment-co2-emissionsPer Captia
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_co2_emi_percap-environment-co2-emissions-per-capitaThe US is, of course, on top. Now is the US a religious country, or a non religious country? According to this statistic, 90% of American's are religious.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_rel-religion-religionsAre you saying that the 10% of atheists are responsible for America's greenhouse gas emissions? Can you back that up with any evidence?
If we return to the per capita greenhouse gas emissions for a moment, we'll notice that the US is only 5th, but more importantly, we should notice the top 5 and how they relate to this argument.
1. Qatar
2. United Arab Emirates
3. Kuwait
4. Bahrain
5 USA
All strongly religious countries. Not that I'm necessarily saying that there is a relationship between religious beliefs and harm to the environment, there could be a relationship, and from my personal experience I would believe atheists are more likely to care about the environment, but what is clear is that your statement that atheists don't care about global warming (to infer that religious people do) is completely false. I've put forward some strong evidence to show that this is the case, now lets see you counter that - and counter it with evidence, not opinion.
Finally (and I mean it this time), on the question of if global warming actually exists. It is a very easy experiement to show that higher carbon levels in the atmosphere create higher temperatures. There is overwhelming evidence that shows this is the case. In fact you can probably prove it yourself if you fill a bottle with CO2 and another with normal air and have a thermometer in both and leave them in the sun - see which gets warmer. There is also overwhelming evidence that the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are increasing. While this is harder for an individual to test, it's easy for scientists to test, and I would love to see somebody claiming that this isn't actually the case. With that in mind, the evidence for global warming is so strong, it is surely scientific fact.
Here is a graph of the measured carbon levels in the atmosphere and the measured average temperature change for the last 1000 years:
The source for that image:
http://www.pacifichydro.com.au/Classroom/ClimateChange/tabid/95/Default.aspx