Really, I suspect that what's going on here has less to do with the motivating power of eternal damnation, and a lot more to do with the motivating power of physically meeting other people who share your cause.

Agreed. As I've discussed on OB, I spent an hour a week of my first 18 years in a Catholic church, and this rings very true. When I think back to the social exchanges between the clergy, I'm struck by how comfortable they [ahem, we] all strove to make one another. All the usual ins-and-outs and cliquey elements of any close-knit group were present - and not all of them pleasant - but I never saw any overt, public, disagreement or argument. It was taboo - simply didn't happen.

More corroboration - no-one ever talked about God outside the four walls of the church. Bingo, fundraisers, family, gossip, but pretty much no religion.

But long before we can begin to dream of any such boast, we secular humanists need to work on at least matching the per capita benevolent output of the worshippers.

www.amnesty.org.uk

Those people are out there Eliezer, as you no doubt know. There are secular humanists - incredible rationalists - who spend every waking moment backing up their rational altruism with energy and action. Sadly, I fear that they have more in common with the active, benevolent religious altruists of the world than with any forum-posting aspiring rationalists.