Religion as a force for morality has--at best--a checkered record. It has been and is being used to justify all sorts of atrocities and injustice AND this is not just confined to Jihadi Islam--Fred Phelps, the Klan, and a whole host of fundy garbage is coming from CHRISTIAN sources as well.

Seems to me that maybe a little relativism would be a welcome change to any version of hard-line, mean-spirited fundamentalism--Christian, Hindu, Muslim or otherwise.

Religion is not the answer to our problems but the cause of far too many.

Thanks mytwocents for you contribution. Please don’t feel sad for someone who attempts to use reason and evidence to make sense of this complex world and to live a good life. I am not a relativist; I am someone who believes humans are born to be cooperative (good), but must be encouraged, and born to be self-interested, but must be persuaded not to be selfish. If you have children, you will know this. Moral relativism is the idea that morality consists of nothing more than the varying sets of rules across the globe and that there is no criteria for judging them. It is not true. Some cultures are better than others at accomplishing moral purposes such as ameliorating suffering and resolving conflicts. Those that promote freedom of thought, moral reasoning and social justice are the better ones. Those that promote strict adherence to a religious tradition have stilted moralities, fewer individual rights and less freedom.

By the way, the social wreckage you speak of does not exist in Sweden or Denmark, countries that are not Christian anymore, nor in Japan, which never was Christian. Again, if we want to strengthen families, we should promote social and fiscal policies that allow women to stay home with children, as they do in many European countries, or allow a single family member to earn a larger income.

Hi Maryann. Morality is not just a set of rules (otherwise relativism is true) but also our ability to reason about how best to live our lives. That ability can be taught, promoted, and enhanced, but it can also be neglected, rejected or masked by appeals to ancient religious tradtions. That was my original problem with the article. I am an atheist and believe that being good is quite natural, indeed, I think that is how we are wired in general (by evolution) and I am wired in particular (my character). I teach my children to reason, to want to be good, and to encourage their friends to be good. We shall all live better if we are the way we want our neighbors to be, and we should all aspire to be the kind of people our neighbors will want to live next to. You said that "the atheist's ability to recognize that humanity (the dignity of our own species) comes from a loving God." Funny, I am just the opposite. I believe that our common humanity comes from our common evolutionary heritage and led us in the past to create Gods as authors of what we couldn't explain in naturalistic terms.

Sartre is not entirely right. Those things are permissible that society allows to BE permissible. This has always been true. Look at the cafeteria treatment "Christian" morality gets. Jesus tells us to put away the sword and the early post Apostolic Christians had nothing to do with the military or military service unless they were forced or were already in the military when they converted. Today we treat military service like a sacrament in God's "real" Church the USA.

We talk about the evils of torture when Americans are tortured, but to save "American lives" we declare it OK to use "enhanced" interrogation techniques. Jesus pukes everytime this kind of hypocrisy rides out! "Real" Christianity--if there were such a thing--is transnational--in other words Jesus is not an American.

Raaaaaaaaaallllllllllllfffffffffffff--there the poor guy goes again.

That should be "comes from a loving God."

Dufus, I understand your point, I think. You didn't say what those reasons were that didn't require a Christian basis. Can you spell it out?

I know that some atheists are pro-life just because they can see the dignity of their own species. Correct, one doesn't have to be a Christian to see that- just human.

But as a Christian, I would say that the atheist's ability to recognize that humanity comes from loving God.

Try to explain one soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the life of his buddies to someone who doesn't believe in God. It's difficult to explain, especially when this life is supposedly all there is.

To me, all this is part of the natural law. Made in the image and likeness of God, we have the ability to see the goodness and potential of others.

I'm not explaining this in full because it's a busy morning, but if you're interested, we can discuss it further.

Good point Maryann - there were many Christians that fought against the injustice of slavery and segregation. But read MLK's Letter From a Birmingham Jail, where he has to use every rhetorical and logical tool he can find to convince Christian ministers of the rightness and methods of his cause. My point is that slavery is wrong not because of the Christian view of humans, but because it is wrong for many other reasons that do not require one to be Christian to assent to.

Dufus, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. began his civil rights marches often from a Christian church and ended them at another.

Also, Christian abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lyman Beecher, and William L. Garrison fought an earlier fight for justice in America. These people were listening to the Christian message about the dignity of the human being, and they carried it to a final outcome to end slavery and bring civil rights to African Amercans in America.

In the end the truth prevailed, with the help of Christians such as King and those Christians and others who marched with him.

Mr. Smith says that “The Christian religion built us a great country and gave us stability until things started falling apart in the sixties.” He blames moral relativism for “the social wreckage that is piling up.” Let me disagree by making two points: Firstly, before the sixties we had segregation and Jim Crow and before that slavery. We did not eradicate those evils by listening to Christian arguments. Indeed, many Christians held onto slavery as long as they could. Secondly, the social wreckage he speaks of is due in great part to the increasing poverty of the lower classes, a result of failed economic policies predicated on wealth trickling down from the rich to the poor. If Mr. Smith wants to keep families together, let’s seek agreement on what policies will work towards that end. That’s a practical discussion about goods, goals, methods, and outcomes, and it is a discussion that everyone should join - Christian, Jew, Muslim, and atheist. Arguing for a return to Christianity (whose version?) mirrors the same arguments made all over the world by other religious people to return to their sectarian views. Isn’t that the very essence of moral relativism?