http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...798944,00.html
Well, have any of you religious guys got any defense?

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It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

Yes,

Saudi Arabia. The lowest crime rate are in Muslim countries especially Saudi Arabia despite POLITICAL corruption.

So, in conclusion and overall observation it does not matter if a nation is religious or secular.

Because we could find both type of nations having a low crime rate. One could be secular and one religious and both could have a low crime rate, low abortion or low suicide or low sexual promiscuity.

Where has there ever been a human society without a religion? Where is the control group for this study?
While I agree that a religion, especially some particular religion is not necessary for morality, I fail to see where these people found a society without religion.

As I see it,

There is a possibility that a society could exist without religion and achieve those goals especially if there is a strong central government.

China may come close to this example but I have a disagreements with absolute state control.

One thing I have observed is that even secular states derive their laws in some way from a "religious" source.

The comparison was of the UK and the US. The UK is alltogether less religious than the US and the report was saying that there is no need for religion to have a moral society and that in some cases religion makes a worse society.

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It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

That makes more sense. Tolerance of religious heresy is a likely catalyst for fewer social problems. Whether people kill in the name of God or Communism, it is the enforcement of orthodoxy that is the real problem. It's too bad many Americans want to increase the intolerance of heresy.
On a tangent, the most eye-opening indictment of the American or European atheist was by the maladjusted individual Euronymous from the infamous black metal band Mayhem. He referred to the typical atheist or even Anton Levey-type Satanist as Christians. After all the first argument of an atheist against religion is about opression and violence. Euronymous held that fundamentalist Christians, despite his hate for them, were his brethren because they brought suffering on the populous and oppressed the weak. That was the truest claim of Satanism as an evil religion vs. the libertarian Luciferianism of the so-called "Satanists."
The lesson is straight from evil's own mouth. We who cherish life and oppose suffering are brethren as the fascist fundies and true-blue devil worshippers are brethren. It's too bad we usually draw the lines a different way and get into useless bickering trying to change which side of the bread each other person butters. Who cares if people are gay or straight or believe man is a monkey descendant or were created by an invisible man or were beamed down by Martians? We're all in this mess together. Rather than demonizing one another maybe we can try to understand each other's points of view.

I was simply doing what the people in the link were, that is dispelling the myth that religion is needed for a moral society.

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It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

I see the point of the article.

I believe that the issue of which state is more "moral" is not based on the application of religion especially on the case between the US and the UK.

The article proves one point:

THE HYPOCRISY of the RELIGIOUS RIGHT !

Or rather the incompetence and the lack of moral vision by the Political Right and even Left.

Religious principles are NOT been applied accordingly and this leads many to abandon or disobey religious principles. I think that MATERIALISM plays a big role in this disintegration of the lack of MORAL vision. Especially in the case of the US.

Materialism is pretty problematic. But I don't believe that one has to have a religion, especially any one particular religion, to avoid materialism. Materialism is a pretty empty way to see life. It is its own incentive for non-materialism. I'm not sure that last sentence made sense, but oh well.

"Materialism" is the belief that the universe is comprised only of material objects, matter. The only time that becomes problematic is when people decide that life revolves around getting as much of that matter as possible.

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"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." - Hassan-i-Saba