First i would like to shower heaps of astounded admiration on you!Reading through some of the more malignant comments on your site, I am amazed that you are able to maintain your sobriety at all times!! Next, a bit about myself and my perspective on things: I'm a Scandinavian (Dane)- a place where 85 % of the populations are members of the Lutheran state-church, even though a very slim proportion of these have any clue, or any interest in what their membership entails.

As an example, this Muhammad cartoon-thing explode in our faces all of a sudden (A lot of us saw it coming miles away) and people start taking interest in their supposed Christian faith, as a barrier against the evil Islamists. Sadly, however, what they are pounding out is not Christianity, in any shape or form, but Nationalism. Scandinavians as a group aren't religious - all studies show this. About 60% claim to believe in some form of god, but will not adhere to any religion, and refrain from saying anything about this deity. Mostly they fall under the category of agnosticism, because it's the easy answer. In reality we don't give a shit about religion unless there's something in it for us, and as long as we're not threatened on our borders by the "hordes of Muslims"

My point here is that it is very interesting to observe a lively debate about atheism from this crazy country, because nobody cares whether or not you're an atheist. You could even say that our state religion builds on an a-theistic theology:

Fom the 50s to the 70s Denmarks top theologians mostly agreed that morality was NOT to be found in any divine creature or authoritative text. They agreed that there ISN'T anything we can say about god, in any form, and most of them were positive that there was no objective Truth to be found, that we - being mere humans - could say or do anything about. They actually said that theology - as being the teaching about God, was an oxymoron - and we should henceforth use theology only to talk of our subjective UNDERSTANDING of gods message.

A lot of this is due to our influence from such Danes as Kierkegaard and K.E. Løstrup. I can strongly advise people to read some of the work of these two philosophers, if they are interested in how to combine their religious beliefs with a more humanistic call for respect and "good behavior" just as you have set down as a credo on your site. Especially those of your readers who find your site interesting, but not themselves sure if they can accept the "radicality" of naming themselves atheists.

Finally, when this type of attitude towards religion is my background, my culture, my upbringing, and also my college degree, it is just amazing to see a site such as yours, where all kinds of people that are from a nation pretending to be "the defenders of the free Western world" are so narrowminded, and unable to accept that other people may not have the same definition of truth as themselves. If this site does nothing but make clear to the world that tolerance, ethics, morals humanity and general decency are not dependent of ardent text-based religious orthodoxy, then it has earned due praise.