But I didn’t really know any atheists until I went to law school, and all my caricatures melted away. It wasn’t long before some of the most thoughtful, kind, and ethical people I knew were also people who didn’t believe in God. And yes, they had a high view of the value of human life.

Why?

A friend once explained it to me in these memorable terms. It was because he believed that life was the secular version of a miracle, he said. The idea that evolutionary processes could lead to the creation of a person who could think, feel, and love was one of the most remarkably improbable things that he could imagine. The natural world was a wonder for him, and the natural world included you and me.

This is no fringe view. Atheists are extraordinarily concerned about the environment. Atheists and agnostics are more opposed to the death penalty than any major religious subgroup in America.