One more dogma to add to the rest.

[mordant]

The other mistake Rik is making here is that evolution DOES NOT CLAIM that humans are the apex of life, but merely one species among many.

Well what he's actually claiming is that someone supposedly SAID humans are the apex of life, this person is supposedly an atheist, therefore all atheists somehow hold this view, the view is wrong, therefore checkmate atheists.

Even a casual perusal of the responses in just this thread bely that notion; clearly, all atheists are not in lockstep (how could they be? there's no atheist pope giving orders). Also, quite probably most atheists are like virtually all of us here -- we don't believe humans are the apex of evolution. Furthermore, evolution doesn't demonstrate that humans are the apex of evolution.

Therefore, the OP's critique of atheism is completely unsupported for multiple reasons, not least that it is patently false. Like many fundamentalists, the OP thinks lying for Jesus is a virtue.

This is where people get into trouble, they have a set of assumptions about another group (atheists in this case), assume those assumptions to be true because they came from the pulpit or whatever, and then set about telling others how they think and why they think it rather than actually LISTENING to them to find out what they ACTUALLY think and WHY. When errors are pointed out, they do not address them, they merely deflect or ignore them altogether, then double down on whatever falsehood they were pushing.

It is amazing to me that theists claim to have a superior morality when they behave so shamefully themselves.

It is actually the opposite with humans when it comes to religion. Theist get taught that they are the top of the chain and that a divine power gave them dominion over all other life. The problem with this mentality is that it teaches us to abuse our environments because there is an afterlife so who cares what we do now.

In fairness you're assuming that the OP is a dominionist. He likely is, but I would not want to lower myself to his level by assuming he is. Of course he may not even know what the term means, yet still holds dominionist notions. More broadly, though, religion generally and fundamentalism particularly are about how special and privileged the believer is; after all, the believer is supposed to have the creator and ruler of the universe on their "side", looking out for them, has special rewards for them, and has special anti-rewards for the likes of us. If that is not "top dog" status I don't know what is.

So when the theist cannot defend claims of magic and poof, they attack scientific method to falsely vilify it. The irony is that they do so while using computers, the product of scientific method.

Religious faith is rife with special pleading -- about god, the supernatural, and certainly about the parts of science or anything else that contradict their chosen dogma. They think they get to pick and choose what parts of science they get to use. Aside from thinking they can reject the Theory of Evolution and accept Information Technology, they also are blissfully unaware how much of modern technology relies on and derives from Evolution. Some of their lives have been saved by it.

The Old Order Amish, the Mennonites and others have glimpsed this and reject any technology invented since maybe 1800 or so. But they still use the wheel, steel plows, etc. And, back where I used to live, I knew an Amish family that bothered their non-Amish neighbor so often to use their phone, that they installed a phone extension on the fencepost between their properties so that the Amish could use the phone without bugging them.

This is the kind of silliness that results from thinking you can cherry-pick convenient truths and leave the inconvenient ones alone.