Best Living Spokesman for Atheism

[Esquilax]

Here he's wrong because he's ignorant of WHY "belief in a sacrifice" is said to be necessary by Christianity.

Taking responsibility for one's own actions entails almost-guaranteed ethical failure, because nobody, including atheists, can take full ethical responsibility for their actions such that they either make no ethical missteps, or correct every ethical misstep appropriately.

And the proof of this is in your own life. Think of how many times you've done wrong and haven't rectified it. How you've gone easy on yourself. Allowed yourself to do things that you know, on another level, you shouldn't do.

Do you think any atheist is capable of living a life free of unrectified moral failings?

Reality says it's impossible. Thus reality says Dawkins' point is impossible.

What we have here is an informal fallacy called the "99%= 0% fallacy." What you're essentially arguing is that, since I can't rectify my wrongdoings or live without them one hundred percent of the time, the idea that I should strive to do so, even if it ends up being imperfectly, is wrong. This is, quite clearly, absurd.

Leaving aside that Dawkins' point wasn't demanding perfection, we must also acknowledge that, in purely human terms, there's no requirement that we get it absolutely perfect, because there's no externally imposed points system by which we are to be judged. There's no metric, and no reward to strive for; there's no demand that we keep our moral books totally balanced to get into heaven, and thus no need for a magic sacrifice to cover the gap. You just do the best you can because it makes a better world, all the while acknowledging that you are human, you are fallible, and occasionally you'll slip up. When you reach the end, there won't be some cosmically imposed adjudicator sneering down at the discrepancy between the rectification you were able to provide and the immorality you caused, tutting that "it's not perfect, so I guess that whole 'making up for your own failings' thing you were going for is pointless and impossible, eh?"

It's not impossible. It's just unlikely to be pulled off flawlessly. Lots of things are like that. The entire framing of your argument is wrong.