> This is entirely in line with Biblical teachings that atheists do not object to God for intellectual reasons, but for their hatred of Him.
That would make sense if I believed in god and hated him, and thus stopped. That never happened. I was taught that god exists, and that he was good. I looked at what was claimed, and noticed it just did not add up. Thus, I stopped believing in him. Now that I could look at the belief system from the outside, I could see that he was not a very good god, if he existed.
But tell me, assuming he exists, why should I follow a god who tells his followers to kill their neighbours?
> I try to refrain from sin because I love God, and am thankful for what the creator of the universe has done for little ol' me.
Then what was that statement about creating a god that lets you get away with sin all about? Do you feel the need to sin?
> You on the other hand, if you believe in evolution, cannot even account for free will. According to evolution your thoughts are the mere by-products of the chemical reactions in your brain which you could no more control than a shaken can of pop could control its fizz when you open it. According to the evolutionistic worldview, you simply fizz "God does not exist," while I fizz "God exists." Free will is not in that equation. How do you account for the free will you claim you have?
I have already told you that I treat that as an as yet unanswered question. I know this, though: We do not know yet whether the laws of physics are deterministic or not, so we can not say whether the processes in our brains are deterministic. Furthermore, I know that deterministic systems are not necessarily predictable.
And as I sit here, I sure feel like I have free will, and that is enough. I do not feel the need to "account" for it. But I look forward to learning more about this in the future, as human ingenuity works to unravel the mysteries of the universe.