Firstly, I believe that there is a lot of evidence (behaviour genetics) that we are born with our characters. Our environment will certainly determine whether we are successful or not, but our characters are something we are born with.

There is increasing scientific evidence that this is so.

What you are saying is that religion helps those who are inclined to have weak moral fibre to up their game a bit. Yes, that is true. However, those people who are born with strong moral fiber don't need religion to do that.

I have never been drunk in my life. I have never taken a recreational drug. I have never done many of the things that are so prevalent in our societies. Yet, according to the current ethos, I should be a criminal, a drug addict, a murderer, and more. According to two counsellors I saw in my mid to late 50s in San Diego, people who had experienced the amount of abuse that I lived through are dead by the time they are 25. According to them, what I had achieved was a miracle. They also both admitted that I had taught them a lot. :)

So I think it's genetic character. Certainly, if I look at things like astrology, some of that is expressed. :) I take no credit for that. In Christianity, there is a verse that says that some are born evil and some are born good. I agree with that.

At best, what religion does is plaster a superficial coat over an undisciplined mind.

Once in Cape Town, I went into a mosque and listened to an Imam teach women. He said that women were equal to men, that they were entitled to their careers, etc. I was fascinated. I recorded a lot of it.

Afterwards, I spoke to him. He said that the difference between South African Muslims and Middle Eastern Muslims was that S.A. Muslims came from Malaysia, and that was a much softer version. He also asked me not to share the recording. I never did. What interested me was the implication that if the men heard what he told the women, he might not be an Imam anymore...

I think that alcoholism is the least of our problems. There are more people that aren't alcoholics than are alcoholics. No religion is ever going to make people be guided by mind rather than appetite.

Plato classified people his 'The Republic' as been those who are led by appetite and those who are led by mind. I am one of those led by mind. My appetites do not rule me - indeed, if I even have any appetites left. Most people, however, are led by their appetites - appetites for power, for money, for status, for sex, for success, for food and wine, and more. I think that is what makes human beings succumb so easily to the dark side.

Of course, enforced atheism won't stop crime. Atheism, at this point in time, is achieved mostly by people who have studied religion, and who have arrived, independently, at the conclusion that there is no god. This is why atheists tend to be better informed about the various religions that people who follow those religions do.

It takes a lot of inner strength to acknowledge that we are meaningless, that there is no life after death, that all that matters is how we live this life and what we pass down to our children, and what we pass on to others.

A rabbi i was listening to once said that there is a correlation between good character and intelligence. Apparently, there was a book written about that. I wish I could read it, but I have never found it. In other words, the greater one's intelligence, the greater one's capacity to live an ethical life.