First, what does it matter if morals are based on a 2,000 year old philosophy? Is not much of math based on a 2,000 year old Euclidean geometry? I do not see how the Ten Commandments are any less intuitive than Euclid's five postulates.
Though, 2000 year old science and math wouldn't take you far now, nor would the accompanying ancient perspective. Math, science and perspective evolved into what we have now. Though, in my opinion, math still has a ways to go. We only have linear tools to work with. As for the Ten Commandments, while I'm not atheist, there is nothing intuitive about the commandments related to God, idols and sabbath or any that are morally or culturally relative (e.g. adultery). The God concept is not intuitive, and with respect to, say, adultery, the Bible itself even has examples of moral/cultural relativism (e.g. forefathers had concubines and multiple wives, Canaanite religion involved prostitution).
Indeed, the fact that a religion has withstood the test of time does mean something. It doesn't prove anything, but it does mean something, interpret it as you may. Also, you ask if I happen to know the frequency of wars in the absence of religion; all I have to say to this is, do you?
I do not know, that is why I asked. You seemed to implicate that the absence of religion would mean more war/crimes/etc... did you not?
Second, of course moral philosophy can reinvent itself; else we wouldn't have "two thousand years" of moral philosophy. That's why for every Kierkegaard we have a Nietzsche. There's no monopoly on such matters. Christianity is but one religion, one philosophy; nowhere in Christian morality is there an explicit clause for intervening in other religions. It may express views on other religions, of the "wrongness" of other religions, but do not all philosophies, all scientific theories, all civil governments, tacitly declare all on the contrary to be false? Is that not a precondition of a conclusion? Is "thou shalt have no other gods before me" not the same negation of other religions as the theory of relativity is a negation of the ether? or as democracy is of monarchy? Does not the statement, a separable metric space has a countable dense subset, not negate any contrary field axioms?
Christianity seems to be quite vague in itself. Many denominations tend to include doctrine not included in the Canon (e.g. stories of Lucifer in Catholicism). In fact, the history of the Canon/Church is quite brutal, and frankly, scary. To this day, I am at a loss of explanation as to why these particular books, among hundreds, were chosen. Some of these books are thought to be outright shams (e.g. it is thought, through etymological evidence, that Timothy and Titus were not written by Paul).
A good scientist would not declare anything correct/incorrect without proper reasoning and experimentation. However, ground truth is reality (i.e. experimental results), not ideals, principles and opinions. Mathematicians, too, can only dictate correctness/incorrectness by what is dictated by theory and axioms. There are known mathematical questions that are unanswerable (for example, cardinality). Religion does not have the ability to objectively discern Truth, because it is not rooted in reality. Many religions have come and gone with nothing to show but a cultural imprint. What does this tell you about religion in general? What makes, for example, Christianity so special when compared with the now dead Mithraism? What is to prevent Christianity from the same fate as Mithraism or any other dead religion? Test of time is meaningless...Zoroastrianism is the oldest, but its on its death bed with dwindling followers.
A conclusion is a conclusion is a conclusion, is a negation of the contrary. If you do not find enough reasoning to support the conclusions of Christian morality, you should read how a religious philosopher or theologian supports it, like Kierkegaard for one.
Well, history seems to indicate that morality is relative...what makes Christian morality more correct than another morality? I tend to think Christian morality causes psychological damage, especially, with respect to sex, marriage, and sexuality. There are examples of urban legends purported to be Christian in origin regarding masturbation. Though research has shown this to be normal human behavior. Research has also shown correlation between reduced risk of prostate cancer and masturbating...what does this tell you about baseless morals? What about young men who psychologically torture themselves because they feel guilty for being a normal human being by committing sexual acts? Christianity helps you accept yourself by teaching you that man is evil...nothing like paradoxes.
Third, you laud the LHC for its potential, or more generally science for its accomplishments, and wonder how religion can measure up to that. But I ask you how many lives has religion saved, in the past 7,000 years of civilization? How much comfort and conviction and meaning does it give people? How many bonds does it make? How much order has it created? (Once again you must not focus on the bad branches; a religious war is but one branch of religion, just as an atomic bomb is but one branch of science.)
In the absence of religion, how many lives would be lost in the past 7000 years? Why do you suppose people need to fabricate meaning to feel comfortable? Humans are naturally social, wouldn't they bond regardless of religion? Couldn't there be order without religion? You seem to implicate things that cannot be known to support your argument...
And as an aside, I was not "conditioned".
We're all conditioned man
This is why it is important to seek out the perspectives of others.
