Finally, there is an awkward question that atheist critics of the track-record of Christianity ought to face. It has to do with atheism’s intellectual capacity to restrain hatred and inspire love. Christians and atheists alike are capable of both love and hate. Agreed. But when Christians love, they do so in full accordance with their worldview which begins with the love of God and the inherent value of His much beloved creatures. When Christians hate, they do so in logical defiance of that worldview. Here is the question, though.

What is there in the atheist’s perspective that can rationally inspire love and rationally discourage hate? I know that most atheists (in the Christianized West) choose love over hate. But if human beings are accidents in an unknowing universe, how can the decision to love or hate be anything more than a preference, a product of ‘feelings’ as atheist Bertrand Russell once famously acknowledged? On what grounds can the atheist speak rationally of the high and equal value of the poor or the weak or the asylum seeker?

Put another way, while it is obvious that only one way of life is logically compatible with Christianity (the way of love), any kind of life is logically compatible with atheism.