C.S. Lewis wrote, in The Screwtape Letters, that the earliest converts were converted by a single historical fact -- the Resurrection -- and a single historical doctrine -- the Redemption -- operating on a sense of sin which they already had ... against the "old, platitudinous, universal moral law." He wrote that when he was an atheist, he was angry:  angry against God for allowing cruelty and chaos, and angry against Him for not existing.  But where, he asked himself, had he gotten this concept of injustice?  A man does not call a line crooked unless he has seen a straight line. If "the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z," how could a man who was himself the letter G, and part of the show, find himself in rebellion against the alphabet? In the act of trying to prove that God did not exist -- via an argument that no rationality existed -- he found himself assuming that a fatal sector of reality (man's concept of right and wrong) was rational.  "Consequently, my atheism turned out to be too simple.  If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have discovered that it has no meaning." ............ It is an odd thing to find a "Law" that is not, in fact, obeyed.  The law of gravity is observed by stones tossed out of train windows.  The law of momentum is observed by freight trains that discover a trailer on the tracks ahead.  But the "Moral Law" is not observed by man.  What sense does it make to postulate a Law that does not, in fact, describe reality? ........... There is no such thing as a society in which men are admired for betraying and killing those who have helped them the most.  There is no such thing as a society in which a man is admired for making a promise to his bride and breaking it, and then scorned for making a promise to his bride and keeping it.  To say that a society might run very well on stealing, lying and kidnapping is like saying a Martian car may run very well on triangular wheels. All moralities share one trait in common:  they codify behavior that their staunchest proponents then fail to practice.  All men have guilty consciences.  They stand condemned, not by your code of ethics, but by their own.  All men are conscious of guilt. The devil -- or whatever forces of evil might exist -- cannot hope to convince you that you do not feel guilty.  You will notice that he does not even try. What the devil does do, is try to tell you that your sense of guilt comes from outside -- that if only that silly 4th-grade teacher hadn't said such silly things, you would be a self-secure, self-actualizing individual. A moment's thought gives this the lie:  whatever our own values, once we clarify them, we realize immediately that we have broken them, and broken them badly.  My self-image needs rescue, not from the opinions of others, but from my own.  This is true of every (mentally competent) person I've ever met:  he is either sheepish about himself, or is busy about the task of arguing that others have falsely accused him. .................. Humanism's "good news" is that you can shed the opinions of others, and its promise is that if you do, you will be pleased with the way in which you comply with your own code of ethics.  I believe that you need only a few moments' honest thought to see the false seduction of this. Christianity's "good news" is that once you acknowledge your problem, you can have a fresh start, and its promise is that if you do, you will get help in reconciling your life with your own code of ethics.  This is self-actualization. Kind regards, Jeff