"The pre-eminence of the mundane, economic and expedient in our daily considerations is a symptom of an atrophy of our ethical sense: of a sense of the importance to a healthy society and healthy humanity; of a strong ethical orientation and a high place in our social values for honesty, integrity, diligence and mutual care."

Translation: I don't like it when other people make decisions for their own reasons; I'd rather they made decisions for MY reasons.

There's nothing about secular culture that prevents you from making your decisions on any basis they like, including supernatural ones: but it operates on the principle that if you want other people to do the same thing, you need to provide valid reasons. And 'religion-shaped holes' clearly don't make the grade as far as most of us are concerned.

Perhaps it's because we can see that all those holes are widely divergent in shape, and many of them require human beings to be twisted, maimed and distorted before they can be crammed in to fit them.

The propositions that

1."Christianity has been the focus and font of moral and ethical judgement",
2. "The very progress and social power which Christianity fostered has resulted in the undermining of the basis for its authority"

deny

a. the ethics and morality developed before Christianity,
b. the ethics and morality existing concurrently in other cultures outside Christianity,
c. the progress & social power that has occurred concurrent to Christianity, and
d. the progress & social power that has occurred despite Christianity.

McReal, couldn't the author just add "In The West" to each of those, and then your criticisms would become far less relevant to his point?

This article reflects the experience of many in our time. Simon concedes that Christianity has provided moral direction that science is incapable of doing. Perhaps he is a friend of the church? However, the church would be unwise to accept him as a friend on those grounds. Certainly Christianity has produced ordered and remarkable lives but the martyrs of the faith were not put to death because they were good people. Neither was Jesus crucified because he told us to love each other. He was put to death because he was himself the initiation of a new order in which religion and politics were exposed as power hungry. He ushered in a new politics; that was why they framed and murdered him, they were scared that he threatened the basis of their entire lives.

The attribution of good morality to Christianity as the sole good that it offers is its death knell. For who would die for ethics? How does ethics claim the human heart? The answer is that it does not. It is really law dressed up as something chosen, but law all the same and hence devoid of grace. We are left, as the article finally concludes, with the “evidence that treating each other well benefits both parties to the relationship.” In the end we are left with utilitarian ethics.

While I appreciate Simon’s reasonableness and his restrained admiration for Christianity’s guiding compass it misses the point. Surely psychotherapy is about personal change and the training of desire. We do not act because we have a moral compass but because our actions come from a transformed desire. For this to happen something in us must die. It is this death that opens the door to grace and genuine heart felt action. A moral code will reduce us all to automatons, law-keepers, deadmen.

Peter Sellick

Hey Simon
You raise some interesting points. In his book, Truth and Transformation, Vishal Mangalwadi contrasts Western nations that you rightly point out have been largely built on a Christian ethic with his own nation of India. He recognises that in Western nations there is this basic trust you talk about and a general looking out for the other. He sees this is not evident to anywhere near the same degree in his own country of India whose ethic has been based on a pluralistic religious outlook.

You also rightly point out; The very progress and social power, which Christianity fostered, has resulted in the undermining of the basis for its authority. For many of us, God is not so much dead as non-existent or at best is another human social construct with no absolute call on our belief. 

Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age actually maps the journey that you talk of, that over the last 500 years we have moved from a society that could not conceive of life outside of belief in God, to a society where belief in God is one option among many and for many not a very tenable one.

Mangalwadi seeks to warn the West that we are in danger of losing our ethical base and thus the foundation on which our society is built. And we can certainly see evidence of this, increase in violent crimes in our cities; increase in the gap between the haves and have nots, evidenced by increasing homelessness and other factors; increasing social breakdown and alienation in communities, evidenced by people dying alone in their houses and not being found in some cases for over a year; increase in mental health problems, particularly for our young people and so on.

I believe Christianity still has answers to these issues and can provide an inclusive ethical framework... perhaps we too need to regain our fix on the North Star.

Where your hole suggests an imaginary Father (or Mother) figure...others like to just know that we are all in the same boat and know that living honourably is Good. Why Good...because good outcomes and inner peace are better then bad outcomes and inner turmoil. It is better to know others and live wisely, peaceably and productively than to be ignorant, judgemental, aggressive and thieving.
The "God shaped hole" appears to allow for many different moralities to co-exist. Christians are not so keen to follow the "turn the other cheek" and "love thy neighbour" when it doesn't suit them. Religion seems to be used to justify selfish evil as much as it supports good works.
Given it's failure on the morality front that only leaves the existential conundrum. Solving the "where did everything come from" question with "God did it" is not actually a solution at all! This "kick the can along" answer just makes the question even bigger and more inscrutable.
I must conclude that the God shaped hole is bored into children by institutions and parents. I was (mildly) abused in primary school for not believing in God by other kids...but was supported by my parents who said "respect all religions, make up your own mind". That support meant I didn't need to burrow out a hole for God but focussed instead on nature, science and philosophy. It would be pretty cool if God did exist...but it's in a similar category with super aliens running us in a simulator Matrix style. Cool but ultimately unlikely.
Religion is a human thing...trying to bolster ones power by claiming the support of the universe itself. It can be used to justify killing as easily as it is used to justify kindness. Ethics arises from group communal living and is more a function of evolution than supernatural father figures.