Interesting trends.

The worm may be turning.  Atheists are defending Christianity as "necessary." 

They're...not wrong.

Look at pre-Christian history around the world, look at the people's rights, at the governments, at the way people and nations treated each other.  There are a few, shining moral exceptions, but for the most part, history's been bloody, barbarous, and has not counted life as something valuable.

Don't believe me?

Look at Sodom.  Gomorrah.  Look at China.  Look at Africa.  Look at Egypt, through its history.  Greece.  Europe.  Look at the tribal cultures native to this hemisphere.  Hell with the tribes, look at the Aztecs: they practiced not just infanticide (Baal, Moloch), but straight-up non-voluntary human sacrifice, and did it often enough and horribly enough that every other nation and tribe in the region at the time teamed up with the admittedly horrible Spanish.

Sikhism is one of the few, non-Christian religions with morals, concepts, and a philosophy that any real Christian would understand.  There are a few revived pagan faiths that might also fit the bill (Asatru). 

But the majority--the vast majority--of world religions, historically, have not provided the societal advances pushed by Christianity. 

Christianity has produced a society--and indeed, a world--in which it can be safely repudiated.  I can't think of a single other culture/religion that has done the same.  And the world will not remain safe if Christianity is successfully repudiated...not just because it imposes an external moral scaffolding for people who don't want to think and create their own rules, but because the human animal needs to believe in something.*   And not many of the things which are competing for the faith of the modern human are as benign as Christianity. 

*Full disclosure: I am a strongly believing Christian.  I'm also a thinking Christian who is incapable of blind faith.  And this is something that I'd seen but not been able to bring into full focus until I read the article linked above.