Dr Paul Allen

By Peter Hitchens   In their attempt to argue that effective and binding codes can be developed without a deity , atheists often mistake inferior codes - "common decency" - for absolute moral systems. The Golden Rule , or doing as you would be done by, is such a code. But the fact that men can arrive at the Golden Rule without religion does not mean that man can arrive at the Christian moral code without religion. Christianity requires much more, and above all does not expect to see charity returned. To love thy neighbour as thyself is a far greater and more complicated obligation, requiring a positive effort to seek the good of others, often in secret, sometimes at great cost and always without reward. Its most powerful expression is summed up in the words, " Great love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." It is striking that in his dismissal of a need for absolute theistic morality my late brother Christopher states tha...