Thanks for your comments, John. I knew my essay wouldn't win approval from Christian apologists. Still, I posted it anyway, and I won't apologize for that.

You are correct that rejecting the biblical moral code leads to the need for a replacement but wrong that atheism is a belief system; it's not. Atheism tells you nothing about a nonbeliever's code of ethics or worldview. The atheist is simply someone who responds to the question, "Do you believe there is a God or gods?" with the answer, "No." Many Buddhists are atheists, yet their worldview and moral code radically differ from my secular humanism.

Thanks for acknowledging that atheists can live morally upright lives. This particular atheist accepts that while some theists live admirably virtuous lives, some seek to criminalize otherness, and some use their faith as if it's a get-out-of-Hell-free card.

Regarding the origin of rules allowing killing in war and self-defense, these are in the Bible, but so is Babylonia. That doesn't mean that Old Testament authors invented Ancient Babylon. Long before the Torah began to be committed to writing, Ancient Egypt and Sumeria had codified such laws. Archeologists tell us that stone-age hunter-gatherer tribes had such rules 50,000 years ago.

The Bible doesn't strike me as a good source of morality. It allows chattel slavery, promotes child abuse, endorses misogyny, the killing of witches, and records genocide after genocide supposedly ordered by Yahweh.

It's a bandwagon fallacy to claim theism is true because many people accept it. Nearly 100% of humanity once was confident they lived in a geocentric solar system on a flat earth, but their beliefs did not impact Earth's shape or orbit around the sun.

As to detecting a deity, I know many theists believe they hear a "still, small voice," but neuroscience shows that what they 'hear' is the creation of their subconscious mind. We have not found a falsifiable way to contact any deity, and that fact speaks powerfully against the God of the Bible's existence.