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To Ivor Wood: I can’t speak on behalf of Michael Martin, but your comment was so bemusing and devoid of logic that I couldn’t help but reply.
To deal with the point on which I agree first… yes, it is helpful for a society to have some basic, common “givens”.
The rest of it is entertainingly bemusing. Whatever the original basis of these basic, common “givens”, they are now determined in this country by law as set down in statute and case law. Even if I engage with your ‘it matters where the idea came from’ theory, as a starting point, and I can hardly imagine Jesus did all that much teaching about driving/riding/walking on the left or the right. Furthermore, Jesus categorically did not teach ‘Christian’ values because he was not Christian and Christianity was not in existence. So on the basis of your playground one-upmanship (“I was doing it first, you just copied me…”) Judaism beats Christianity. But really… who cares?!
I consider myself to be non-religious, though I was raised in the CofE. I also consider myself to be a moral person and yes, many of my morals overlap with the beliefs of numerous religious leaders and teachers. They also, I hope, overlap with basic principles of common decency external to any religious dogma. Am I precluded from saying that I think killing people is wrong if I say that the law should be based on morals as judged by society rather than purportedly handed down from a god?

And to Mr Lawton above: your apparent belief that the 'religious notions' you put so much faith in have never been manipulated by humans or have never evolved, progressed or mutated, is naïve in the extreme.

I do agree though that few people know or care about the particular ceremony that started this debate.

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