Maybe religion can still do ‘comfort’ and ‘social cohesion’.

It’s just as the ministers feared: If you offer secular ethics, no one’s going to want religion anymore.

Scripture classes lose half of students to ethics, say Anglicans

THE controversial trial of secular ethics classes has ”decimated” Protestant scripture classes in the 10 NSW schools where it has been introduced as an alternative for non-religious children, with the classes losing about 47 per cent of enrolled students.

Seems that religion’s attempt to evolve has led to a conflict. See, back in the old days, religion offered a view of the earth’s history and future that claimed to be true. When that turned out to be a load of old bollocks, some religions decided that providing ‘moral instruction’ was more in their line. The problem with that was that secular people are already doing morals, thank you very much, and the morals they’ve come up with are a lot more relevant than those of the world’s religions.

I can’t say it better than Dawkins did (and ex tempore too).

Religions are not all that good at moral instruction. Their scriptures are punctuated with unprincipled savagery, and the behaviour of their leaders has been at times reprehensible. (And I forgot to mention in my original post: one recent study showed no difference in the ethical behaviour of atheists and church-goers.)

There are some good bits in with the nasty bits, but on the whole, what a mess. Leave it out of schools, and let the secular humanists present a view of morality that is well-thought out, and centered on what’s good for humans, not for imaginary people or their representatives.