Photo Gallery A Good Life without God
Worship service (in the USA): Sociologist Penny Edgell of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis says atheists "are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public." Only 37 percent of US citizens could imagine voting for an atheist candidate as president.
Religion critic: British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (author of "The God Delusion") castigates religion as the worst evil of our time.
US President Bush worshipping: For atheists like philosopher Daniel Dennett and zoologist Richard Dawkins, US President George W. Bush and terrorist leader Osama bin Laden are cut from the same cloth, both promoting faith and violence, and both against the side of reason and discourse.
Stone-aged man (as portrayed by an experimental archeologist): People's willingness to help and their self-lessness has developed as a result of social conditioning, argues Richard Dawkins, and they aren't god-given. His colleague Marc Hauser, who has studied the moral behavior of religious and non-religious people in various cultures concludes that there is a "universal moral grammar" that has developed without divine assistance.
Altruism: Animals and insects also build social groups and help each other. Certain types of ants, termites, bees and wasps, for example, sacrifice themselves for other members of their species.
British naturalist Charles Darwin: The forces of natural selection caused simple life forms to develop into complex species with complex social behaviors. Darwin's teachings were the first that made it possible to have a life as an "intellectually fulfilled" atheist.
