if Religion wasn't about killing from early days then what was the whole story of Noahs Ark about, I think I'm confused and need a religious expert to explain to me why this was a good thing, What's that phrase 'Lies, damned lies and religion'.
I suppose if you accept this genocide instituted by God then the holocaust was a relative tea party in comparison, obviously at the time not something the Yanks felt the need to go to war over.
Draw the parallels to Syria today, innocent people, women and children getting slaughtered but unfortunately not enough oil or Christians in the country to make it worth saving, what a beautiful example of where religion and capitalism work in tandem, both systems so corrupted that neither are worth saving.

pure evil is a myth

@ Mafia, thank you so much for your considered response. It raises many questions in my mind, but before we proceed would you mind addressing the atheism/naturalism question I raised earlier? This might, hopefully, help us to reach some common ground.

Just because a religion has violence in some portions of its holy text(s) does not mean that the religion is centered around violence. There's only a small portion of adherents of any religion that you could call violent, murderous warmongers. How can that be if religions are "about war and killing"? I'm not here to defend specific events in religious texts because this discussion is not about the validity of those events (as an aside, I'm not an adherent of any religion). Concerning Syria, innocence and the worth of human life are both relative, but more to the point, every action is selfish (the degree depends on the action). People will not do things unless they can receive some sort of gratification, whether it's physical, mental, or emotional, and they will not interfere in affairs of others unless they view those affairs as directly affecting them somehow (the apathy expressed toward the Rwandan genocide of 1994 is a good example). That's got nothing to do with religion and everything to do with human nature. Regarding the conditions of countries under religious rule, religions are meant to be moral codes, not political and economic systems through which to govern a people, and those who govern with religion tend to be greed and power-motivated. It is not the fault of religion that it is used to excuse the actions of man (as Christianity was used to justify the Holocaust).

If you don't believe that last point about the Holocaust, read /Mein Kampf/.

Mario
I've got an idea about the Bible, believe the good positive bits to be completely true and factual and the others, such as the genocide of every living person and creature on Earth by God (save Noah and his Zoo of vegetariabn animals) I'll question as slightly vague so I don't have to entertain the notion that God might be a mass murderer.
Take the bits I like, ignore the bits I don't.
The simple truth is the more you read the Bible, you more you realise what a nasty divisive so-and-so God was,

"I also think that it would be useful to draw a distinction between atheism - literally an absence of belief in God with naturalism - the tennet that everything has a solely mechanistic explanation." - First off fulhamish, thank you for correctly defining atheism as an absence of belief in god, rather than as the belief god doesn't exist. I've heard atheism used to describe both these viewpoints, but for most of the modern atheist movement the former position ("weak" or "negative" atheism) is the dominant position. Which brings me 'round to answering your question. The majority of the modern atheist movement arrives at their absence of belief in god via a naturalistic worldview. Most naturalists see empiricism as the basis of all knowledge and the atheist subset of naturalists argues that direct evidence for god is pretty thin on the ground.

That said, not all naturalists are atheists. There are many who argue that knowledge of god is a separate kind of knowledge from scientific knowledge and that it can't be held to the same empirical standard. I don't agree with this viewpoint, but I do see what they're getting at.

For what it's worth I do take a naturalist approach to my atheism. But I don't expect others to hold their beliefs to that same standard until their beliefs start impacting the way other people are allowed to live their lives. Which sounds quite generous and I certainly hoped it would be, but actually as it turns out that's a pretty short rope.

@Mafia - ''You seem to be misunderstanding the basic idea behind moral relativism. Moral relativism is not the view that all morality has changed at one point or another and that nothing is ever wrong in all cases. It's possible to take the stance that rape is always wrong, and murder is always wrong, and still be a moral relativist. The key point is that for a moral relativist, declaring anything wrong requires a logical argument explaining why it's wrong. Thus a moral relativist can still believe that rape and murder are always wrong, but under certain circumstances theft or physical assault might be justifiable. A moral absolutist cannot take that position. To an absolutist rape is wrong, not because it involves stripping someone of their sovereignty over their own body, but simply because it's a rule that has been laid down by some higher power that rape is wrong.''

I have a lot of sympathy with your views. They do, however, slightly remind me of those (both atheists and literalists) who accuse theists of a more liberal bent of cherry-picking the bits of he Bible they want to follow. As you say that you are a naturalist, however, I think that you must go where naturalism leads. Indeed, Dawkins states that: “We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.'' So why might a naturalist take up a moral position on, for example, rape. If anything, in these terms, the rape of females can be viewed as a ''natural'' and successful fitness enhancing strategy. Indeed, if you remember, this attitude of mind caused some problems for Dawkins a few months back:
JB: But when you make a value judgement don't you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say the reason this is good is because it's good, and you don't have any way to stand on that statement?

RD: But my value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.

JB: So therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.

RD: Well, you could say that. But it doesn't in any case - nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.

JB: Okay, but ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six.

RD: You could say that, yeah.
http://www.anthonysmith.me.uk/2008/11/06/dawkins-on-rape/

Now one thing we must credit Dawkins with is a consistent naturalist position. A position which became clearer when he compared the unease caused to a women by unwelcomed propositioning in a lift to his own caused by a man chewing gum: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/07/richard-dawkins-chewing-gum

So Mafia, in my view, a moral relativist, who holds a naturalist position, cannot make absolutist moral statements that apply at all times and for all societies. It appears Dawkins accepts this, I wonder why you don't?

I have always wanted to ask a believer in naturalism what they thought of this:

''If, as naturalists claim, there’s no god guiding the evolutionary process, then there’s no reason to think our cognitive faculties are reliable in giving us true beliefs about the world. Since we can’t trust our cognitive faculties, any conclusion we reach about the world is untrustworthy, including the claim that evolution is unguided. Therefore naturalism about evolution (and everything else) is self-defeating and must be given up. For us to trust our own beliefs (and we must, mustn’t we?) God must exist, and must have guided evolution.''

http://www.naturalism.org/plantinga.htm

If God was around today would his followers not be better people?

OK. I don't agree with Dawkins on that stance at all.
If you take the claim "“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.'' as descriptive rather than as prescriptive; as saying "we do behave this way" rather than as "we should behave this way" then it's not an inconsistent position. If you can say we do behave in such a way as to further the survival of our own genes but that's not always a good thing then you can be a naturalist and a moral relativist of the sort I describe. Evolution exists, but it's not a guiding moral principle. I mean, at some point you need to choose some sort of basic, guiding principle that governs moral decisions, but that's not necessarily the same as being an absolutist. Ultimately I think it doesn't make me an absolutist to claim that harming other people is wrong and should be avoided in as much as it is possible. Or for instance that respecting people's ability to make choices for themselves (where those choices don't harm others, or limit others abilities to make choices for themselves) is in the general case a good thing. This doesn't have anything to do with propagating genes, it's not about that. That's a completely unrelated matter. (A naturalist may believe evolution exists, but not necessarily that it's morally good for evolution to continue unabated.)

As to your second point, I don't think it follows at all that we must trust our own beliefs. I think we have to be very much aware that our thought processes are flawed in ways we can never fully comprehend and do our best in spite of that.

@ Mafia
''A naturalist may believe evolution exists, but not necessarily that it's morally good for evolution to continue unabated.''

Could you expand, why would a naturalist take any position on the matter of good or bad or, come to that, morals? I ask out of genuine curiosity.

Because it's impossible to live with other people without standards of how to behave and treat one another.

Mafia, with respect, yours is not a position solely dictated by naturalism. We have very similar views about how we as individuals should conduct our affairs. I am, however, at a loss as to how you arrive there from a purely naturalistic position,

This is still delightfully funny.......

Yeah murder is wrong! We agree on that, but the real difference is HOW we decided murder is wrong.

not so much for me, if you're not trying to kill me I'm okay with that. Use whatever means to come to that conclusion you wish as long as that's the conclusion you come to....

It's simple I would like to not be harmed, I would like to let other people let me conduct my life as I see fit (in as far as it does not harm other people or unduly limit their ability to live their lives as they see fit). I would like to know that help is available to me if I need it. Therefore I will treat everyone else the same way. It doesn't really have anything to do with a naturalist position. I mean, I suppose there is a naturalistic explanation for why I don't want people to harm me. But like, I don't really make that connection on a day to day basis, it's not really relevant, even though it does undoubtedly exist.

Ah you mean reciprocal altruism right?

@ Crazy Anglican - Using murder as the example is because it's something we both agree on. But in other forms of morality, the guiding principle really does actually change the moral decision. Homosexuality for instance. Do you believe that homosexuality is wrong? If you do, how do you justify that. Someone who's morality comes from faith in the Qu'ran or the Bible might very well say that it is wrong. Some might even argue it's so wrong it even justifies murder. People coming from my moral perspective will likely find it pretty inoffensive.

@ fulhamish - That's not really how I like to think of it, but I suppose the idea is related, yes. Reciprocal altruism I think puts too much explanatory power for behaviour on evolutionary science, and not enough on social science, but the idea isn't completely irrelevant or without merit.

Reciprocal altruism is a bit too evo-psych for my tastes.

@ fulhamish again - Just generally you seem to be arguing from an odd place. Let me make an important point about the nature of naturalist worldviews. I take a naturalist worldview, but the belief in scientific explanations doesn't dominate my day to day thought. It underlies everything I do, but every time I brush my teeth I don't think "I'm doing this because brushing regularly removes plaque which prevents me getting cavities, which will enable me to look healthy, and eat without pain and also lowers my risk of heart disease. I know this because studies have shown...etc." I just do it because that is what I do. Now all those things are the reason WHY I brush my teeth, but I don't examine the whys and wherefores of everything every day. That would be exhausting. Similarly, I believe evolution is a thing, but that doesn't mean I put every decision I make in evolutionary terms. Sometimes evolution isn't really relevant. Like when I make a moral decision. When I make a moral decision, I'm not worried about natural selection. I'm worried about the potential harm I might be causing or whether I'm doing something that limits someone else's ability to make choices for themselves.

OK well of course whether you call it reciprocal altruism or ''social science'' it is non-falsifiable and, therefore, not scientific, let alone a naturalistic description. Equivalent to the super-natural really.

Will return to the ''second'' point later as it is worth pursuing.

Also let me put this another way. The ability to think about morals is the result of evolution by natural selection. What the content of those ideas are, are the result of my own upbringing, environment, independent thought processes and my biology in a blend of as yet undetermined proportions. I think using evolution to explain the moral decisions I make is misguided and overly simplistic.

@ fulhamish - What? WHAT? If society moves towards a morality that says "harming others is bad, imposing your views on others is bad" doesn't that make it less likely that I will be harmed, or have other people force their views on me? How is that unscientific? How is that equivalent to supernatural?

Honestly, I don't even know how to respond to that post, seriously. I think you must have misunderstood what I'm trying to say pretty severely because that post is so out of left field it's not right, but it's also not even wrong.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

You put forward the concept of reciprocal altruism (plus appropriate social science) as a driver for natural selection. This is not falsifiable, therefore it is not a naturalistic explanation.

I'll be honest fulhamish, this is why I'm wary of debating with you. You do this a lot. You use leading language to try and railroad me into a well established but problematic viewpoint that isn't really reflective of my views. And then when I give a very lukewarm endorsement to some minor aspects of the viewpoint you're referring to you claim that I've espoused this viewpoint and then criticize it. Let me make one thing clear. I'm not a "reciprocal altruist" in the Dawkinsesque evolutionary sense. And if you read my post about it, I said that the concept "wasn't completely irrelevant" but that it was "a little too evo-psych for my tastes". Hardly a resounding endorsement.

No, you brought up reciprocal altruism, after I said something that sounded only superficially similar. And then I said that the idea wasn't completely unrelated but that I wasn't a huge fan of that explanation...

I agree that the idea of reciprocal altruism in and of itself isn't an especially scientific of well supported one.