Okay. Whatever. I yam what I yam. 
Um. This may be true - i.e. a lot of Christians may adopt that position - but those who do so put themselves outside the mainstream of Christian thought, which has always recognised the existence of natural virtue and the reality of virtuous acts by pagans.
Jack Nicholson and John Malkovich! nuff said.
Non-theist: Ted Turner, George Soros.
Non-Christian: The good Samaritan.
“To you I’m an atheist. To God I’m the Loyal Opposition” - Woody Allen
Many Christians feel it’s important to give credit for their good works to Christ or at least make some declaration of faith when given an opportunity. An atheist who does good works is more likely to be silent about his atheism than to declare, “I dedicate this new hospital wing to a soulless universe,” or whatever. In fact, to be publicly known as an atheist can be quite damaging.
Also, I think what most of us would consider true atheism was pretty rare up until the last couple of centuries. There was simply too much that science couldn’t or hadn’t explained, so even people who didn’t think God governed the affairs of mankind assumed that someone had to have gotten things started – the Divine Watchmaker.
God rescued me from disaster by a miracle just over a month ago. That’s a matter of belief to me.
How He did this was through the kindness and generosity of a large number of people, many of whom have described themselves in these threads as atheists.
Tell your fundy friend that God is a lot bigger and more wonderful than her idea of Him is. And tell her that human love agapé counts for a lot more with Him than adherence to dogma. And send her my love – and that of our atheist friends here. 
Hmmm…I’m surprised no has mentioned the Buddha (Sidhartha Gautama) or Buddhists in general. My understanding is when asked about metaphysical speculations in re the Universe, God, etc., the Buddha remained silent. Plus, his concept of anatman - no eternal essence or self - was in contrast to the prevailing Hindu conception of atman - an eternal essence or self. AFAIK, Atman is a primary attribute of Brahma, the supreme God-head in the Hindu religion.
Strictly speaking, all Buddhists are atheists in the sense that they do not belief in a supreme being as conceptualized by the major monothestic religions (Islam and Christianity). However, some Buddhists do believe in an overarching aspect of the Universe/reality that can be (and is) sometimes roughly equated to God.
However, I would see it as an example of secular humanism at work. 
Whatever it was, I’m very glad it happened.
One of Ghandi’s friends and compatriots was a man called Gora. Gora was an atheist. Gora fought against caste and untouchability all his life, and promulgated an ethic based on truthfulness.
Well, there’s me. Duh.
Seriously, it’s kind of difficult to find good atheists: If you define good as God’s will, and God will as people should love him, then you run into a problem for people who don’t love God.
Vanilla, one thing you might want to point out to your friend is a great many of the Founding Fathers, including Jefferson and Washington, were not Christians, but were only Deists in a rather broad sense of the world. Of course, your friend may well turn around and say, “Of course they were Christian”, but it’s worth a try.
CJ
jjimm
Member
Here’s an exhaustive list of famous non-theists. I haven’t time at the moment to look through it, but I’d warrant that there are a fair few altruistic humanists in it.
A tip a the hat to you for an absolutely incredible array…Not much left to consider except writers Stienbeck, Vonnagut, Hitchens and the Beat Poets…And generally the entire staffs of the ACLU, SWP
and SPLC…although Jimmy Carter may argue the latter.
Would the Dali Lama qualify? Are they theists?
What is Stephan Hawkins theological point of view?
Any famous cosmonaut … wait … is there such a thing?
Genghis Khan … oh no …good did you say?.. wups
Jodie Foster…?
…even Julius Ceasar believed in some kinda god… drats
MAN!! The non-theist list is SHORT!
Peter Singer is a professor of philosophy, and a dedicated atheist, who gives a freakishly large amount of his salary to charity because he feels compelled to by his philosophical convictions.
And here’s a list of celebrity atheists . You just have to define what good means to you first…
Confucious, Karl Marx, Mark Twain.
—What is Stephan Hawkins theological point of view?—
Silence, mostly. He uses phrases like “then we could know the mind of God” but in other respects seems to be a non-believer.
May I submit Olof Palme. Not a name that’s familiar to most Americans, I know. He believed politics should be moral; his concept of morality just didn’t happen to include a god. It did, however, include democracy and social justice.
IIRC, that’s the guy who thinks inaction is equivalent to action morally, so every nickel we don’t send to starving Africans is akin to stealing a nickel from those Africans. He’s the type of guy who makes me glad we atheists have no single social philosophy, because I’d disown that guy so fast…
…but, he’s basically the model of what many Christians consider good. And his moral position is almost equivalent to the Catholic notion (I don’t know if protestants share it) of the “sin of omission”, which creates positive moral obligations towards our neighbors. So I must imagine a Christian would think he was “good”, unless they use the aforementioned “all good comes from god by definition” counterargument.
Yeah yeah yeah. I know. It wasn’t very good.