Immaterial Animating Principle

There is no God. There is no spirit realm. Everything is material. Man acts. Man gives man free will.

Wait. Free will presupposes an immaterial animating principle. Whereas, if you subscribe to scientific materialism, everything you do is the end-product of a long chain of chemical reactions. Agency is an illusion. 

There is no "ought" or "ought not," only a perpetual "is." I punch you in the nose? You can't hold me responsible. The Big Bang--physics, ultimately--made me do it.

We've all been programmed. Our thoughts and actions are predetermined. All is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The Great Non-God Verbal Formalism

T: Again with the "rights." Thank the Great Non-God Verbal Formalism you're not religious.

D: I thought you said that rights exist, it's just that they are metaphysical.

T: If you espouse Sky Wizardry ("rights") with no Sky Wizard, you're not being religious. You're being *rational*!  The intellectual contortions are breathtaking. And on and on they go.

D: So are you trying to justify your religious belief in your Sky Wizard by sarcastically berating rights?

T: So are you trying to justify your religious belief in your Sky Wizardry ("rights") by sarcastically berating the Sky Wizard?

K: Rights are a logical construct of how moral agents should behave toward one another based on their natural existence. How those moral agents came into existence is irrelevant.

T: Sure they're logical. That's why there's such unanimity of agreement about them.

N: Actually, even murderers and thieves don't want to be killed or stolen from . . . . 

T: Fetuses don't want to be aborted. Big deal.