In our prehistoric past, we would have lived in extended families, surrounded by kin whose interests we might have wanted to promote because they shared our genes. Now we live in big cities. We are not among kin nor people who will ever reciprocate our good deeds. It doesn't matter. Just as people engaged in sex with contraception are not aware of being motivated by a drive to have babies, it doesn't cross our mind that the reason for do-gooding is based in the fact that our primitive ancestors lived in small groups.

I have a strong feeling that the subject of evolution is beautiful without the excuse of creationists needing to be bashed.

Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it?

People really, really hate their religion being criticized. It's as though you've said they had an ugly face; they seem to identify personally with it.

However brief our time in the sun, if we waste a second of it, or complain that it is dull or barren or (like a child) boring, couldn't this be seen as a callous insult to those unborn trillions who will never even be offered life in the first place?

I find that religion really does motivate people to do horrible things because they have this passionate faith in whatever their religion happens to be, and it teaches them that the other religion is the wrong one.

I have never quite understood - and this is no doubt my failing - I never quite understood why you would read fiction to understand the human condition.