mosh, believing or not believing in god doesn't make you a nice person. you were raised in an environment that taught you how to meet your own standards and disregard the standards of others, and adverse conversation is simply not enough for you to dishonor yourself while for others it may be. these principles have little to do with having any faith, even though most faiths teach such principles. atheist children as well as christian children are subject to uphold certain levels of discipline during development pending their parents and other pillars of authority, not just faith. removing faith from this equation does not remove discipline, and as such we have good atheists, bad atheists, as well as good christians as bad christians. of course you do not need god or christianity in order to commit good deeds and take ethical consideration for your thoughts and actions, and in fact most people who are very ethical get along better without religion because they don't have a social club they go to once a week to gossip and compete over who is the best christian, or to consolidate their xenophobic prejudices, or sing lame songs while they throw up their hands waiting for god to high-five them. they have even more time to contribute their productivity to their community, or not. it's their choice and they are not socially confined to some ancient framework. some people choose to eat fast food and play xbox all day, and that's fine because it's just as constructive as people who hang around church all day singing. a famous quote reads "traditions are in place to prevent the unpredictable in a society," and it's a nice tight way to sum up the whole purpose of organized religions of all kinds, in all societies in all historical periods.
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