Excellent thread!
The base argument as I understand it is that atheists, having no religion to find comfort in, turn to materialism in the form of technology and medicine in order to find relief from the hardships of life.
Maybe so. The problem, as I see it, and which has been touched upon before here at Hypo, is that atheists are simply not a "group" of people. Atheists are not amoral people, either. They either have a reason for their atheism (often making them agnosticists), or they are, like the OP (and myself), born and raised outside of religion and thus have no faith.
Therefore, atheists can't be blamed as a group. I am not aware of a single organisation that uses atheism as grounds for, say, humanitarian causes. Rather, you have non-religious groups doing this (often state funded or private foundations like the Red Cross).
In fact, I'd argue that the use of science and technology to promote ideology and oppression (as is the case in Holland right now, with a right-wing party fighting Islam using Internet videos) is more often than not done by *religious* people or groups.
There is as far as I can tell no reason to equate atheism with scientific progress. While I accept that many scientists are atheists, we all know very well that many are religious, to various degrees. Placing the blame for the results of scientific advance on atheism is bad logic.
Or...how many TV channels are 100% atheist? How many are religious? Give me the tally.
