1) Individuals are moral autonomous agents. Morally is nothing more than contractual relationships between such autonomous agents.

To arrive at this moral one-on-one contractual relationship, I assume you need to negotiate said relationship with the other party. If not, then you either have to abide by some moral precept, secular or god-forbid, theological. In the case of the liberal-secular, such value system is arrived at through democratic means.

But under the libertarian value system - when it comes to negotiate - obviously the more power you have, the better the terms of the negotiation for yourself (and possibly worse for the other party.)

Therefore, we conclude that under your value system, you need to amass and utilize guns, knives, bombs, traps, and other methods of violence and intimidation, in order to be successful in your negotiation and to arrive at a moral value that is best suited to you !!!

1) Individuals are moral autonomous agents. Morally is nothing more than contractual relationships between such autonomous agents.

2) Individual have the right to morphological freedom. That is, we have the right to develop whatever biotechnologies necessary to cure aging and to increase our IQs, or to modify our bodies to live in environments that are current inhospitable (i.e. underwater, outer space, other planets).

3) There is no "master plan" or "god's plan". Individuals have the right to live for whatever personal dreams and goals they set before themselves and choose to pursue. The notion of any kind of "master plan" is just fascist barbarism, plain and simple.

Until Christianity recognizes and embraces these three points, it cannot be regarded as the defender of individual liberty and anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or deluded.

I will never, ever have anything to do with any meme or world-view that refuses to recognize these three points. Furthermore, I consider it highly offensive for someone to suggest that any such meme or world-view, or agent thereof (e.g. "god") has any jurisdiction, whatsoever, over my life and my right to live it.

As a non-believer, I can appreciate your frustration with this form of theocracy. However, the only Christian theology I'm familiar with, Roman Catholicism, doesn't claim to defend individuals' liberty in a general sense; it defends theological dogma, core aspects of which it views as received from God. It's best to distinguish theocracies and their rulings from secular forms of human social organization. And then believe or not.

If you Christians want us to recognize that your religion is the defender of individual liberty, stop trying to restrict personal freedom of action where such action causes no harm to other. Also, stop with this bogosity about libery not meaning license. This is just Orwellian double-talk and you all know it.

Liberty is having freedom of action and freedom from any kind of coercion. It is about living as a autonomous moral agent, with complete freedom of association. Any other definition of liberty is bogus non-sense.

You lost me here. If I blindedly accept some ideology and develop faith in it - then how does that bring me knowledge? Faith is contradictory to knowledge, and then you say "you will get to know answers to the big spiritual questions?. How funny. Faith means believing in stuff without knowing.

In fact your "big questions" are really subjective navel gazing and emotional feelings of exahltation or some silly thing like that.

If you want to find out the real answer to your little questions of emotional subjectivism, then study brain science, because neuroscientists have already explained where your feeling of "spiritualism" comes form. In fact there are drugs that make you feel even more spiritual. Your consciousness is governed by your brain activity. Just because you think you have rationalized some feelings, does not make them true or objective, does it?

So much for your "big questions" which turn out to fit right there in the navel.

It's how I discovered him.

But I suspect he [Hitch] merely dismisses all higher form of religious or mystical expoereince and revelation as simple hooey, as in his description of Mohammed as a Seventh Century man "who heard voices." This sort of dismissal is every bit as ignorant, arrogant and blindly chauvinistic as the most "reactionary" mullah or priest's insistence...

I disagree. For him to express his atheism isn't doing anyone any harm and isn't likely to in a western country. I think its grossly unfair to put him in the same category as a loudmouth religious leader in a theocratic country who says what he says knowing full well that people may be killed as a result of his words.

Manda,

This is bollocks. The believers have offered zilch proof of existence of this fairy in the sky God.

That's why it is called "faith". If you would rather live and die never knowing or even thinking you know the answers to any of the big spiritual questions, that's totally up to you.

That is all Hitch is saying.

Hitch is an alcoholic. And one I respect greatly, which is pretty unusual. But, alcoholism is a spiritual malady. That means, that he isn't going to ever be able to stop drinking until he heals whatever it is that is wrong with him, spiritually. I mean no offense to Hitchens, but an alcoholic is probably about the very last person that anyone should be listening to when it comes to the spiritual side of human existence.