I am always amazed by how few people actually understand evolution. Reptiles had eggs way before chickens. The egg came first. I'll use simple words so you understand...A long time ago a reptile that shared 99.9999999% of its genes with an ancient bird type creature had a baby that mutated into that bird type creature. Maybe that ancient bird type creature was only 99.999% like a chicken, but it had baby birds and one of it's great great great great grand baby birds had a baby that mutated to be more like a chicken (maybe 99.999999% like a chicken). Eventually its lineage mutated into a chicken.

A single animal does not evolve, but it's offspring could mutate and that mutation could benefit it by helping it survive in someway (or not).

The thing that people usually still don't understand at this point is "OK, then which came first the reptile or the egg". If you follow this back eventually there was a multi celled organism that had mutated to produce it's offspring encased in a membrane sack which wasn't exactly like an egg that we think of today, but it was the beginning of an egg. Then it's offspring mutated to create a hard shelled membrane sack for it's offspring. Eventually the mutations made the egg that we know today.

You think that without religion there would still be the same amount of "us" against "them" mentality because the other means of division would be used more often. I disagree. Let's use race as an example because many people do divide "us" against "them" using race. If religion couldn't be used, you wouldn't say "they're twice as different as us because they are a different race". You would still only be able to use the race card once. With religion you can say "they're a different race and a different religion" which makes them even more different than you. Without the difference in religion they instantly become more like you.

This question is worded poorly, because it implies "would the world be a better place if everyone was atheist", when I think the better question to debate would be "would the world be a better place if everyone was the same religion as you". It would spark a better debate (more points of view rather than atheist against everyone else).

I believe it would be, because there would be one less thing to divide people and one less thing to use to form prejudices.

All groups of people want the same basic things in life (health, comfort, most want to raise a family, etc.), but religion is used more often to highlight our differences than our similarities.

The question you have to ask yourself before you make an argument against the statement is not if the world would be better without your religion, but if it would be better without all the other religions. If you ask a Jew if the world would be better if everyone was Jewish and they would probably say yes, but if you ask them if the world would be better without all religion including their own of course they would say no to defend their belief.

You're suggesting that God destroyed a tower because he was threatened that people might be able to reach heaven with it, but a space shuttle couldn't reach heaven or God would have destroyed it too? The only way this would makes sense is if the tower was a metaphor.

In this question I think space shuttles could be considered a metaphor for science. If you accept these metaphors I think your argument doesn't hold water. You suggest he created science and laws that govern the universe, and therefore created the ability (or loop hole) where people could create a tower to heaven, but then destroy any attempts to create that tower. You say he wants us to explore the universe, but some things are off limits. Rather than creating a universe where those limits can't be reached (if he created the laws that govern the universe) why strike us down when we get close to building something he doesn't like, just make it impossible (by changing the laws of the universe) to create a tower to heaven.

You suggest that god controls everything and it someone using your level of reason could suggest that god destroyed the Challenger space shuttle because it was against him.