Ash, how have you come to the conclusion that morals that are present today due to religion? Sure some animals exhibit a certain degree of "fairness" and what not, but then again a lot of animals also exhibit as shit load of pointless violence. See dolphins.
Tell me this: if you came to the conclusion that god does not exist, would you go around murdering and raping people?
Could you say with certainty that if religion was completely removed that slowly humans wouldn't become more cold hearted and callous, and remove those who a select few deem too genetically weak to pass on their traits?
Can I say with certainty? No, but that's because absolute certainty is not a part of my philosophical vocabulary.
With near-certainty? Yes, I can, but I'm going to wait for you to answer the above question before I demonstrate this.
As for you suicide bombers, many of them are fairly young, i.e. in their teens when they are extremely susceptible to outside influences. They are brainwashed. Not by religion, as that is impossible. Religion can have no effect what so ever on a persons mental state, except perhaps happiness. They are effected by those who wish to wield religion to their own means and gains. Religion I will admit is a very useful tool to gain what one wants, you only need to look at the "Crusades" and the modern Jihad. You are blaming the gun for shooting someone.
The middle-eastern suicide bombers are brainwashed with a supernatural claim, Steyner. How could one brainwash them without invoking the supernatural? They live a sexless existence, and as teenagers are very sexually frustrated. They are then told that they will be given 72 dark-eyed virgins in the afterlife by their lying leaders if they kill themselves in jihad. As desperate as they are, they don't hesitate. I'd be interested to hear you name one secular way to do this, secular from any claim of the supernatural.
As for you saying that someone with no belief wont commit a crime on their ideology, pah. While they mightn't do it for a benefit for their ideology, they still will do it for the better of understanding of humanity. Again someone might kill another person because the other person believes in a deity and person one thinks that person two is far too stupid to be allowed to pass on their beliefs on to others.
That's not a result of the absence of a belief in a god, Steyner, that's a result of the belief that people who believe in a god are too stupid to be deserving of life. Try again.
