Religious beliefs also provided shared moral codes—a Constitution before there were constitutions. The atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens was fond of saying that there is no moral behavior a believer could perform that one cannot imagine a nonbeliever performing. That is undoubtedly true. But that doesn’t mean religion isn’t a very effective way to get large numbers of people to follow a moral code. Religion is certainly not a prerequisite for morality, but the fact that religions are ubiquitous suggests that they have been a highly effective system to get people to act in ethical and
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