Agree to disagree on some points. Gotcha. That's perfectly fine. :-)

I believe there is a spark of something special in mankind. Whether it came from God or something else, I don't claim to know but it continues to be my opinion that humans are more than the sum of their atoms, if you will. That's one reason I don't believe human consciousness can ever be uploaded into a machine, as something will inevitably be lost in the process.

As for your commentary on soldiers in combat, sorry that's BS. Your flat statement refuting even the possibility is unusually inflexible, even for you. Respectfully, don't go spouting off with arbitrary comments about something you don't know about. Or at least don't expect it to go unchallenged. I've been in two combat areas - and yeah, even most of the so called hardcore science-based "no religious preference" types start praying. Note - I never said self-declared atheists don't serve in the military, of course they do. What I said was people who are badly wounded (or more generally, about to go into active combat) will often turn to God for aid.

P.S. As long as that "cult" (not strictly true, as the leader - if you refer to Christianity - is no longer alive) doesn't harm anyone, is completely voluntary, and provides comfort to its members, then there's more net positive than negative.