Religion: Moral-ier than Thou?

I read this article with interest today. It is a response to an article written by Michael Perry, which purports to show that human rights are grounded in religious belief, and that athiests cannot support human rights as well as religious folk. Getting past the obvious fact that a vast perponderance of religious types have no care for human rights, we want to examine this premise, assuming that the religious belief is altruistic and not just a tool for personal gain. Religion will be construed as religion in it's purest form, where the believer's only motive is "moral". This creates commentary like the posts I list below, both from the same poster: At first glance, atheists and believers are on the same moral playing field because God has granted us free will. However, God has also provided us a remarkably similar set of moral laws through a variety of religions. Thus, atheists can only be on the same moral field as believers if they too choose to follow God's law, but will be unguided if they ignore God's law and will be acting immorally if they rebel against God's law.Unfortunately, I would note that those who are most prone to follow moral relativism are also the least likely to believe in God and follow His laws.After the utter evil of the secular fascist and communist mass murder movements in Europe, I find it amusing that Europe is being offered as a potentially more moral place than America. Nor do I find modern secular Europe's willingness to tolerate evil around them and not do a thing to stop it to be particularly moral. Second Post: All humans are imperfect and sinners - believers and non believers alike. My only point was that believers have a head start in living a moral life because they are given the law to follow and that secularists are often at a significant disadvantage because they moral relativists who either ignore or are in open rebellion against God's law.Sure, there are plenty of people who claim to believe in God and refuse to follow His law. That does not undermine the point I was making above. The first thing we notice in these posts is the implicit assumption that "God's Law" and "morality" are the same thing. This is made obvious by comments like "will be acting immorally if they rebel against God's law". Whether or not this is true, however, is a subject of vast interpretation. First, there are the obvious expansion issues (just what, exactly, does "God's Law" say regarding abortion, anyway? I have found no mention of abortion in the Bible, and equating abortion with murder is a subject of significant debate, and is not at all obvious within "God's Law".). However, lest we get muddled into this debate, I will assume the premise to be correct, and that "God's Law" = "morality", and move on. The next problem we have is man's imperfect understanding of God's Plan. If this isn't true, than we need a new explanation of all the inconsistencies and seeming atrocities in the Bible. It cannot be understood by man, as believers will readily admit (at least the Christian ones - the only religion I am intimately familiar with; you know, "he works in mysterious ways", etc.). This implies that no Christian can understand God's Law. Since God's Law = morality, we see that no Christian can understand morality. In simpler form: 1. God's Law = Morality (Premise) 2. No believer can understand God's Plan (Christian teachings) 3. God's Plan does not violate God's Law (logic) 4. No believer can understand God's Law (Combination of 2 and 3) 5. No believer can understand morality (Combination of 1 and 4) This is obviously not the result that the original poster wanted. Were he to combat the logic, then, he must either refute one of the 5 points, or the logical connectors. Point 1 is his premise, so no refuting there. Point 2 is Christian teaching - that looks OK. If the logic of point 3 is unclear, I'm not sure what to say. Points 4 and 5 are simply combinations of the other points. I cannot see how the logical combinations can be refuted, but perhaps I can be enlightened. If we assume that this progression cannot be refuted, I would expect the response to be similar to "well, believer's imperfect understanding aside - they still have a defined guide, which, even if imperfectly understood, is better than nothing." This takes us into the difference between "strict constructionism" (Originalism) and Progressive interpretation. The post here talks about this very problem, from Jesus's perspective. (Lawyers, pay specific attention to the part involving vows and oaths): Don't break your vows; fulfill your oaths. The Pharisees focused this law on making your vows or oaths correctly. -Since this was basically an illiterate society, business deals did not utilize written contracts or guarantees. -Deals were closed and guarantees were made by oath: "I swear by . . . that I will do this." -If a person did not swear by the right thing, the oath and the promise it confirmed were not regarded as binding. -Thus a person could lie and steal legally if he were imaginative with his oaths. Jesus said be so devoted to doing exactly what you promised to do that an oath is unnecessary. -Evil, dishonest people need oaths. -Honest people of integrity will do what they say they will do. Replace "oath" with "contract", or "campaign promise"... see what I mean?? Another good read is here: we recognize that Jesus did not dismiss the law, but merely re-interpreted it... Recall that the Pharisees, leaders of the church during the time of Jesus, were the authority in interpreting God's Law. They devoted their entire lives to it. However, we see the vast difference in interpretation between Jesus and the Pharisees, and the resulting differences in how they treated other people (how society "treated other people" -> human rights). This shows the "believer", an expert in God's Law, applying his understanding of the God's Law (morality) in a completely different way than did Christ. So, which way is "moral"? If the Pharisees, experts in God's Law, mis-interpreted it so completely that they were completely at odds with Jesus in so many arenas, how do we expect to interpret the law so much better? How does being a "believer" give an advantage in understanding morality and human rights? BTW: as a point of clarification, I am not suggesting the converse - that atheists are more moral than believers. I am simply refuting the notion that believers are more moral and support human rights better than are atheists.