Apropos of Alex's post, from The Barna Group, A New Generation of Adults Bends Moral and Sexual Rules to Their Liking:
To what extent does faith make a difference among Busters? The research shows that born again Busters - a group defined not based upon self-identification with the "born again" label but based upon their beliefs about Jesus Christ and regarding life after death - were different from non-born again young adults on some issues. Born again Busters were somewhat less likely to illegally download music, to smoke, to view pornography, to purchase a lottery ticket, or to use profanity. However, young believers were actually more likely than non-believers to try to get back at someone and to have stolen something. Moreover, on eight of the 16 behaviors, the profile of born again Busters was virtually identical to that of non-born again Busters. ... The director of the research, David Kinnaman, pointed out, "The research shows that people's moral profile is more likely to resemble that of their peer group than it is to take shape around the tenets of a person's faith. This research paints a compelling picture that moral values are shifting very quickly and significantly within the Christian community as well as outside of it."
Judith Rich Harris has suggested that most of the environmentally shaped attitudes which vary across the population are due to peer groups. Cognitive anthropologists have contended that ideas, reflective cognition and conscious choice, are far less salient than we like to think. It seems likely that morality and ethics existed before and apart from religion, and it is the latter which co-opted universal ethics, as opposed to the former emerging from the mind of God.
