[js1138]

You didn't say it, but you are insisting that there is no evil without religion. With a few notable exceptions, the laws and commandments deal with our relations with other people. Those of us lucky enough not to be raised by wolves know these commandments in our hearts, because our mother taught them to us.

Why do mothers teach these things.? I think some of it is cultural, passed on from generation to generation, and some of it is inborn, part of being a mammal. I had a mother cat one time that couldn't eat due to an absess in her mouth. We didn't know about this and she couldn't talk. When she got too thin to feed her kittens she brought them to us. we didn't understand at first, and put them back in her nest. This was repeated several times before we figured it out.

You can say whatever you want about original sin, but there is also original virtue. And it appears to be coded in our genes.

[Tribune7]

You didn't say it, but you are insisting that there is no evil without religion.

No, you missed the point I was making. Cruelty exists without dispute, and regardless of religion it is evil, and we all have an inherent understanding that it is.

I'm saying that if we were here by accident -- and not made in God's image -- we would not have this understanding.

Regardless of what one believes, evil exists. And God exists.