[troutman]

Originally Posted by llama64

I do wonder though, without a religious system, what social mechanism will take up the charge of providing the moral standard for society.

My oft-cited quote:

Sam Harris in The End of Faith:

The pervasive idea that religion is somehow the source of our deepest ethical intuitions is absurd. We no more get our sense that cruelty is wrong from the pages of the Bible than we get our sense that two plus two equals four from the pages of a textbook on mathematics. Anyone who does not harbor some rudiementary sense that cruelty is wrong is unlikely to learn that it is by reading - and, indeed most scripture offers rather equivocal testimony to this fact in many cases. Our ethical intuitions must have their precursors in the natural world . . . concern for others was not the invention of any prophet. [Harris, p. 172]

http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDi...051275,00.html

CAN WE BE GOOD WITHOUT GOD

Behaviour, Belonging and the Need to Believe
Dr. Robert Buckman - Author

Buckman also examines the relationship between beliefs and ethics. Many of us use rules set by our religion to guide our behavior, yet now, more than ever, religious doctrine can seem out of alignment with our sense of ethical conduct. If you don't believe in God, can you still behave decently and ethically?