Once upon a time, debating in a forum (those things that used to be so popular before the advent of social networking) and following my usual strategy of demanding evidence for various claims, I was asked to define evidence. You could have smacked me down with a wet kipper! I hadn't actually given any real thought to it beyond pretty much knowing what it was. Still, an answer was expected and, as is usually the case when debating evangelists, involved a lot more work than their usual strategy of picking holes in established theory.
Science is a methodology and scientific explanations should be based on properly derived data. "Science" which begins with an unshakeable assumption, is not true science. True science is about having no assumptions until they have been accepted through the application of evidence and have demonstrated resilience to genuine falsifiability experiments.
In "River Out Of Eden", Dawkins writes of a universe with no apparent design or purpose and explains more of our evolutionary past. With thorough knowledge and captivating style, Dawkins illuminates how life has achieved what to the uneducated or bigoted appear to be miracles. Science journal 'Nature' says, "It abounds with metaphors that make things brilliantly clear, an excellent introduction to many important evolutionary ideas"
Young Earth creationists, believing the Earth & universe were divinely created, use arguments attempting to show other ideas as immoral and Neo-Darwinism the cause of violence, racism and other forms of immoral behaviour. They favour arguments citing communist Russia, Nazi Germany and others. It is interesting to look at religions' records on human rights and abuses before one starts a comprehensive defence of such charges and that is what this article attempts to do.
Despite the fact that there is no evidence to support their existence many that make the claim that a god or gods exist ... for the remainder of this article such phenomena will all be referred to as God or god. In the case of Christianity, Judaism (Jehovah) or Islam (Allah) and, indeed, many other religions the god in question is an all powerful, divine force or entity that "created" or "is" or "contains" the universe and/or watches over it and/or permeates every aspect of our lives.
When debating creationists, atheists are often accused of having faith. The argument goes that to believe there is no god requires as much (if not more) faith than it requires believing there is one. The argument can be based on the claim that the atheist must believe in something and therefore must positively disbelieve in a god or gods, a position of faith. If the theist view is correct and atheism is a position of faith then atheists are hypocrites for attacking the views of other religions when theirs is also a position of faith.