One really great way to learn about the arguments for Atheism and skepticism is to watch the many debates that are out there on the internets.

Two of my favorite skeptic/atheist debaters are Michael Shermer (of the Skeptics society) and Christopher Hitchens (of course).

Shermer excels at the scientific approach and Hitchens excels at the philosophical.

You can see this played out in their separate debates against Dinesh D’Souza a conservative Roman Catholic and political commentator.

D’Souza’s main point is that without Christianity you couldn’t have morality. A topic in which Shermer has done much scientific research and playfully rebutts D’Souza in the opening of the second video clip, with reference to the large amount of primate research going on.

Hitchens argument to that claim is more philosophical, in that we couldn’t have progressed this far without already having some innate sense of morality.  In either case, the point is the same.  Morality is innate in us, evolved as a way to facilitate cooperation among groups.  

Religion is, once again, a superfluous afterthought.

Shermer vs. D’Souza		Hitchens vs. D’Souza

There’s a good quotation from Woody Allen in response to a question about evidence for God’s existence.

“If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.”

Michael Shermer references this quote when asked what could change his mind about God’s existence. I’d have to agree.

God, I’m waiting.

OK, I have a confession. I’ve been a skeptic for many years, but understanding evolution and natural selection was not an easy thing for me to learn.  

When I thought I had understood it, through more reading I found out that I didn’t understand it.

As Michael Shermer says evolution is hard to understand because it’s counterintutivive.  Our minds think top down but evolution works bottom up.

A great YouTube video that helped me really understand the power of natural selection and evolution is this one.  It’s a computer model of simplied ‘species’ evolution over time.  Check it out: