Dear Anti Green.

You seek to highlight the 'problems' associated with people having strong religious views. Ok..fair enough, but what you appear to neglect, is the other side of the coin. You seem to be of the view, that if man has no religion, he will simply 'get it right' by virtue of reason and common sense. If the evidence was there to support you case it might be worth persuing, but it simply is not. 2 problems.

1/ The philosophical and logical.
2/ The Empirical/practical.

Philosophically, the abandonment of God, means the embracing of an existential self and all it can conjour up. Such truth is in abundance on existential and humanistic web sites so I won't bother sourcing this. To me, the far more important issue is the adherance to the 'correct' version of God. Now..I can see your eyebrows raising there, and you bigotry meter clangon the full scale deflection stopper, but bear with me.

When I say 'correct' I DO mean the Judao Christian Salvation history found in the Bible. But again, the important point is 'what does this mean' for humanity when correctly interpreted.(by 'correctly', I mean by applying the same principles you are doing right now to this post)
Jesus said the Law is summed up in this:
a) Love God with all your heart.
b) Love your neighbour as yourself.

Self evidently, no person will "love from the heart" when forced to do so. So, 'correct' interpretation of this precept is 'it must by by choice'.
We have Christs:
-teaching.
-example.
-The apostles application of these in real life.

None of that is physically threatening.

Then we have "Mohammad,Islam and the Military expansion" ... do I need to qualify that further? Please refer to my Quran quotes above.

To Runner and Boaz.
Thank you for your comments. There is no evidence that religious people have a greater sense of ethics and/or moral behavior then non believers. Pedophile scandals and the poor management of church orphanages for instance, suggest that religion and immorality may go hand in hand. Archbishops have been known to behave badly.

SEVERAL SYSTEMS OF ETHICS HAVE BEEN DESCRIBED:

DESCRIPTIVE OR CONSENSUS ETHICS: This requires pollsters and social scientists to determine how the majority behave. The majority view is then the norm.

METAPHYSICAL ETHICS: This is a subject that goes back to the ancients. What is the nature of good and evil?

AUTHORITARIAN ETHICS: Religious ethics for instance. The bible, the Koran, the headmaster dictates we should do this or that. Religious ethics also blends in with metaphysical theory.

NORMATIVE ETHICS: We should be behaving so as to do the great good to the greatest number. We should protect the weak.

EGALITARIAN ETHICS: We should treat all as equal. Egalitarians may speak of a social contract between people. The professions may claim that their special privileges are based on a social contract or promise of good behavior.

BIOLOGICAL ETHICS:
a) Certain patterns of behavior are learnt and assist in the survival of the individual, the group, the tribe, society etc.
b) Another biological principal is pleasure seeking. To behave in an ethical way (as considered by that society) earns praise, respect, honors etc from ones peers.

In brief there is no one system of ethics that fits all sizes. Religion is certainly not a prerequisite for ethical behavior. Religious people are just as prone to “get it wrong” as non believers. By the way I understand that there are many believers too who accept the necessity of therapeutic and/or social abortion.

George Orwell’s remarks on patriotism:

"The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions—racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war—which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action."

John Derbyshire on multiculturalism and secular Muslim leaders:

"It’s hard not to admire these brave people, most of whom are under fatwas of one sort or another, liable to be hacked to death by some frothing Muslim lunatic any time they step outside.

The tragedy—and I am using that word in its full and proper meaning—the tragedy is, that these westernized Muslims are banging their heads against that Orwell quote. They have signed on to the modern world and its multi-culti fantasies. There was plenty of courage and good sense on display at St. Petersburg, but not much of those energizing principles Orwell spoke about: “racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war.” It’s the jihadis who have those."

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=6582&sec_id=6582

Repeat, "IT'S THE JIHADIS WHO HAVE THOSE" - not the intellectuals. The Muslim intellectuals are not going to save us from the radical Muslims who steamroll everything in their path. Only radical measures will stop this rabid culture from spreading in the West.

Dear Anti Green
I appreciate your considerable effort in outlining the various systems of ethics. I'm sure now we are all better informed about this matter... I certainly am.

A couple of points though.

1. You lumped the Bible into 'Authoritarian'_ethics, along with the Quran. The Quran is definitely such, but the Bible no.

Bible/NewTestament has its context in the living Body of believers who themselves may be subject to a code of ethics such as 'do not commit adultery' where, if someone does and is not remorseful, they will be surely disciplined, with a worst case scenario of being socially ostracized. This is not usually neccessay, as (and I'm thinking of a Pastor I know) the level of public humiliation is far worse than any other form of 'punishment'. The pain, sorrow and anguish will never in this life change what has happened and is now known by one and all.

2. The difference between the 'metaphysical' sources of ethics, and the material/purely philosophical is that they are a grab_bag of choices with no utlimate sanction.

They work well while the agreement holds, but it only takes one persuasive dissenter to dismiss them, and it can all fall apart.

When 'Thus_says_the_Lord" is our source, its 'final'. But lets be clear. What God says is just 2 things (when it all boils down)
1/ Love God.
2/ Love your neighbour.

Point 1 can only be by 'choice'.

All this now leads to the issue of "Islam".
I would socially accept a renaissance in Islam which repudiated Surah 23:5-6 and 9:30 as "unfit for mankind" -nothing less. Islam offers a 'State' with the Quran as its lawbook. (see 9:30 please) Christ offers a new birth and a new life and a new community.

Your points about some Bishops/priests abusing children are factual, but they are not 'of Christ'. Each abuser answers to man AND....God.
Such abuse is not a denial of the reality of the Biblical Gospel, merely an account of mans response to it.

A renaissance would be great so long as it is accompanied by a reformation.

anti-green:
“Napoleon: You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe.
Laplace: Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis.

This only proves that neither Napoleon nor Laplace could distinguish between mathematical models of physical reality (that Laplace was in fact writing about), and religious models of transcendental reality, a distinction that, of course, makes sense only to those who believe in the existence of both. You can study not only classical mechanics, but also relativity theory, evolution, quantum mechanics etc. without needing a hypothesis about the existence or non-existence of God.

Ameer Ali,
Thanks for this stimulating article. Let theologians and imams determine what Christianity and Islam have in common, and what not. (On 15/10/2006 thirty eight Muslim scholars wrote an open letter to the pope in response to his Regensburg lecture: do you - or anybody on this thread - know of a link where one could read this letter in English or German?)

However, one thing that Christians and Muslims have in common is quite obvious: they both are on the receiving end of abuse by those who cannot understand the rationale behind the belief in a personal God, are uneasy about it, and feel urged to attack verbally those whom they cannot understand. Islamists also attack those who see things differently, unfortunately their attacks go well beyond verbal and that is a big difference. Nevertheless, we have to keep in mind that the abusive atheists are a small minority among secular humanists, the same as aggresive Islamists are a small minority among Muslims.