For the first time I've had to get another name; but I think I can't be accused of duplicity with this...
RWC;"But I would not agree that our morals are better now than in the past in the same respect you claim. For example, in the U.S. the divorce rate is now one in three in secular marriages."
Yup, which means that you don't have people pretending to be together in just plain wrong marriages, abusive marriages, marriages with sexually incontinent partners.
I think that broken marriages being allowed is better than fake marriages being common. My opinion, obviously.
"However, marriages that are Christian based where the coouple attend church reqularly, study the Bible, and actively pray, the divorce rate is one in a thousand."
Errrr, I have no doubt you believe those statistics, as I think you are utterly genuine. But [b]I[/u] would like a source please, and I would like to see the amount of 'self-selection' that the survey allows.
There's a famous story of a newspaper that polled its reader over who would win the elction, and got it exactly wrong, as obviously, the paper had a certain political bias, and was read by people with that bias, and who would vote a certain way. How do you determine whetehr the people polled actaully do "attend church reqularly, study the Bible, and actively pray"
The statistic you gave for secular marriages is wrong, by the way. For ALL marriages accross the USA, it is now over 50% (from memory).
It's good you realise that other religions have their own moral code. The fact that it is soceity, as in people living together, which creates a moral code, rather than a religion that creates a moral code is nicely proven by the areas of agreement of various religions moral codes. Details differ, big things are the same.
And you still talk of "individual moral beliefs" as if this were unique to athiest. Both religious people and athiestic people have "individual moral beliefs"... apart from cults where you are not allowed to use your conscience..., and in both cases they are reflections of the culture of that person, individual, but consonant.
The pointless of differentiating between secular laws and religious laws is demonstrated by this staement of yours;
"Laws and tangible harm are are good start, but people can act immorally without breaking any laws or causing tangible harm."
Oh yes they can; but 'immoral' is just "against religious law", in the context you use it, so if you state it more carefully, people act 'immorally' when they break religous laws... but that DOESN'T stop them breaking them!
And, you are right, everyone is biased. It's only dangerous when you stop being aware of it.
Thanks for your best wishes regarding my redundancy; praying for me is a little like cooking ice-cream, but it's nice of you.
