Are the moral views of atheists more beneficial to society than those of religious people?

[GCSTroop]

My honest opinion is that most worldviews, morals, ethics, etc... are actually formed free of religion. It is religion (the organized kind, especially) that has had to conform itself to the changing status quo in society rather than the other way around. A hundred fifty years ago, many churches in America used religious support for societal incantations to suggest that slavery was OK. Sixty years ago, churches tried to use their influence against a society that was shifting its views towards blacks and whites inter-marrying. Now, not a peep is heard. In today's society, there are great divides amongst some churches over the idea of gay marriage, gay clergy (and the acceptability of it), etc... I imagine in forty or fifty years, most will look back on it and think about how ridiculous it was of the churches to be so ardently against homosexuality.

While the changing status quo of society should not be labeled "atheistic" in nature due to the cultural intermingling of everyone within the society constituting a makeup of different beliefs, I think it would be somewhat fair to assume that these changes occur due to more secular reasons often fashioned by pop culture, different rises in technology (the internet, et al.); and even certain books which can be read by large groups of people. Prior to The Da Vinci Code how often did you ever hear anyone say that Christmas was a Pagan holiday?

What we see from the church and much of the religious community are those members of the society who do not wish to conform to the changing status quo and that is often where the divide is drawn and what I suspect most people have in mind when they think of the outlined moral views postulated in the original post.

The very nature of religion seems to be centered around the conformity of the more conservative viewpoint because what is already acceptable within society reflects greatly on what most people feel their God is also 'OK' with. Thus, while society may make transitions that are very awkward for the churches to make a vast jump to, eventually, when they are hurting for cash enough, they will make the jump.

Anyway, I think that religion just tries to solidify and reinforce more "conservative" and certainly less "progressive" societal ideas. It's funny, though. Even the most conservative of churches today would be seen as 'Satanic' in light of the more Puritanical churches of 1600 New England.