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I am always amused when atheists claim that they have no need of religion (usually Christianity) to behave morally. These same people who so claim are products of a Judeo-Christian culture, the morals they lay claim to are products of that culture. Everything they have experienced informs them what is right and what is wrong, what is moral and what is immoral. Their assumed independent morality is based in that same culture.

Hitchens, Dawkins and the rest can no more separate that world and its influences upon them from their intellectual posturings than they can change the fact that their native language is English. We are creatures of our culture. Whatever they claim to believe the source of their morality, that society shaped those values.

For over a thousand years, Britain has been a Christian nation (not so much these days) all of their values, all of their understanding of right and wrong, their very beings are steeped in that culture.

In a situation like that, claiming that you don't need religion "to live an ethical life," is like asserting that you don't need to tell yourself to breathe in order to inhale.