The descent from rocks sidebar is particularly fascinating to me.
Presuming a man, a tiger, a cockroach, a flower, a computer and a rock all descend from the same ancestor of the big bang with no extrinsic influence at all - then what is the atheist's moral premise for treating them differently?
In the Dennett philosophy, the "intentional stance" is intrinsic to both the man and the thermostat - consciousness is but an illusion.
And therein lies the moral dilemma for the materialistic evolutionists. The fact is that all life is composed of rock. So we have a choice. We can believe we are descended from the rocks and therefore are nothing more than walking talking rocks, or we can believe that we have ascended from rocks by the process of being created out of the dust of the ground. If the former, then our lives are no more intrinsically valuable than the chemicals which inhabit our physical shell. If the latter, if we are the creation of God, then our worth is derived from the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God, our creator.
If in the beginning... chemicals, then we are no more valuable than the rocks from which we descended. If, in the beginning... God, then our worth is determined by the one who formed us from the dust of the earth into his image and likeness.