Jon J,
Please expound your charge here with evidence from the teachings from the New Testament.
Claim, "If a committed theist believes their god wants them to lie, steal, cheat or murder then they will do so without compunction".

Squeers
By your own account, you are deluded if you believe your own theory. Or perhaps, like Marx

What's wrong with the Old Testament, Philo? Plenty of examples of lying, cheating, stealing and murdering for God there. And it's the same God -- isn't it?

As an atheist of long standing, I’m not inclined to defend ‘religion’. Nevertheless, I have to say that Chrys’s argument is fundamentally flawed.

Religion is ubiquitous, from prehistory to the present, in all cultures, in all places. The only human characteristic which might be considered comparably fundamental is language. Why?

The advantage of language is obvious: it’s an extremely efficient way to share useful information, and to facilitate action as a group. It’s also an expensive faculty for evolution to design and maintain, so the rewards must be enormous. Collective memory, capacity to cooperate, and ability to specialise, are incomparable incomparable evolutionary advantages.

Social relationships, however are very difficult to manage. They’re not logical, or consistent. Game Theory gives us the Prisoner’s Dilemma: even if it’s in our best interests to do so, we can’t always afford to cooperate. An optimal social strategy is to cooperate most of the time (share food, tell the truth, don’t steal, sleep with your designated partner) ... but not all the time. If you’re perceived by others as predictable, you’re vulnerable. Get it right, your genes/culture are conserved. Get it wrong ...

Human groups evolve ‘ethical systems’ to simplify, standardise, and promulgate rules defining what behaviours are appropriate, what sanctions for misbehaviours are allowed, and when/how the group should punish or reward certain behaviours.

That’s what we call ‘religion’. It’s generally preserved and promulgated as ‘story’ because it’s important that young children learn the local ‘ethics’ long before they’re sufficiently mature to make good use of rule-based logic. (Notice that a 3-yr-old can recall even a fairly long story after one hearing, but can’t abide an essay for 30 seconds). Story is also more memorable: many dumb people can recall most of the bible, few smart ones can recall Wittgenstein, or Kant.

Language, culture and ethical systems all exist in a Darwin Machine. They’re in constant competition. They interbreed. The strongest thrive, the weakest face extinction. Plumping for secular humanism, Catholicism, Islam or Scientology just powers the Darwin Machine. Preachers, by definition, are never right. The Darwin Machine is never wrong.

Jon J,
I said the New Testament because it is shorter and contains the teachings of Christ. Then start in the OT as someone has suggested the 10 Commandments - Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal are the principles of the Law. There are certainly examples of people who did not obey the Laws but they were not sanctioned by God. Understand the principles of the Laws as interpreted by Christ - demonstrate Love and forgivness to your enemy.

Philo -- one word: Jephtha.

Same God, right?