Joe's Response

Well, that raised 3 different questions to address, so I'll list them real quick:
1. Atheism is becoming a religion.
2. A christian is more likely to self-sacrifice than an atheist.
3. Atheists shouldn't campaign against religion.

On the first point, atheism is not a religion. At all. Period. That's a fallacy that is brought up numerous times...I guess as a point in the favor of religion? It seems that if it can be proven that atheism is religious, then it shows that we all NEED religion and those of us that reject gods are just replacing them with humans.
Wrong. Dead wrong and not even close to right. Religious belief is all about faith, whereas atheism is all about rational observation of the world. If you showed an atheist that there is a god, gods, flying spaghetti monster, etc. ad nauseum, we would spin about on a DIME and be a believer. We do not base our belief on a religious train of thought. Bear in mind that I speak for the atheists that I have talked to, there may be some "fundamental atheists" out there, who I would say are just as wrong. Belief should be based on something rational, and it should NEVER be held sacred for its own sake.

Ok, second point. An atheist is no more or less likely to self sacrifice than a christian or other religious person. Well, short caveat: We won't kill ourselves because our clergy tells us its a good idea. Yes christians don't get into all that(for a few hundered years), at least not mainstream christians...but thats my point. We are both moral, its just that atheists admit that our morality is driven by observation and intelligent thought, just like yours is. Christians just pretend that theirs comes from the bible.
Self preservation and self sacrifice are not broad sweeping ideals that can be given to a group as a whole, they are private decisions that you have to reach on your own. If you'd like an on my own reach for my personal stance on it, I'm going to pull the medic card. On many occasions I have exposed my precious flesh to gunfire in order to reach someone else to render aid. I did this of my own free will and knowing there is no god and no eternal reward for doing so. I did it willingly and unthinkingly in every situation. If I was going on an ideal of "preservation of my genes" or whatever else it is you think science teaches us, it would have made absolutely no sense, and I would have been wrong to do it, but thats just it, science doesn't make ethical claims, that's philosophy's field.
Science doesn't make absoult claims about this world, it makes statments based on observed reality. Genetically speaking I can point you to John Maynard-Smith's and others research on genetic basis of altruism and stastical models that show that a species that is altruistic WILL survive better than one that isn't due to resourse sharing resulting better ability to survive a time when food/water/shelter gets scarce.

Now we come to the part that atheists shouldn't speak out against religion. On that I have to ask...why? If I think that someone is basing their life on a lie, its immoral of me NOT to point that out to them. The idea is not to incite a religious war and then go "Ha, told you so!" the idea is to try to...well for lack of a better word, prosletize. If its wrong to speak to others about their beliefs, why is wrong for atheists and not christians?