I would also recommend Daniel Dennett's recent book re religious belief "Breaking the Spell" -- he has an excellent treatment of the relationship between religion and morality, which you might find useful. Another thing to consider -- not what you asked about -- is whether there is any genuinely coherent way to ground morality in religious belief, for if there isn't, then the theist has no advantages over the atheist and they both have to find alternative frameworks. And there is plenty of precedent for challenging the religious basis of morality, dating back to Plato's Euthyphro dialogue -- where Plato explores the question "are the morally right things right because the gods approve them [basing morality in religion], or do the gods approve them b/c they're right [thus basing them in something else]?' ... In my recent book "The God Question" I present a number of philosophers' views on the precise relationship between religion and morality ... and finally let me add: there is a TON of literature on...

What fun! But there are disanalogies -- the Christian view doesn't quite hold there ever was nothing, for there always was God -- and also I don't think it's exactly accurate to describe the Big Bang as 'first there was nothing then there was something' (it's rather: everything in the universe can be traced backwards to a singularity/explosion but nothing can be said about what if anything preceded that moment) -- but more importantly I would take issue with your claim that they have equivalent 'epistemological status' (if you m ean that in any technical sense): for scientists believe in the Big Bang as a result of a tremendous amount of empirical evidence while religious belief in divine creation is based on no such thing. So even IF both were versions of 'first nothing, then something,' the reasons for believing in them are extremely, profoundly, and fundamentally different -- hence they differ in epistemological status. hope that's useful -- best, Andrew Pessin

Well THAT'S a big question, I won't attempt to answer. But I might phrase it differently: 'should' they have that right ... since I prefer to assume that we get to decide which 'rights' to apportion, rather than that we somehow discover the 'rights' that already exist .... And to begin an answer to such a large question you'd have to begin working out very general views on the nature of morality in general, as well on the relationship between public and private, and more -- and no doubt you might like to distinguish between such cases as "purely" elective abortions v. those which are in some sense medically-motivated or "necessary" (eg threatening the life of the mother) ... Even more interestingly, esp with respect to the latter distinctions, you might want to explore exactly how it is that abortion has come to be so vehemently opposed by the Catholic hierarchy -- in fact I recently was reading that until the 20th century the Church's opinion on abortion in general was far more liberal and lenient...

What a deep and important question! Obviously a detailed answer might look at the detailed tenets of various religions and evaluate them individually ... But a briefer reply would offer both something in support of, and something at odds with, your own way of thinking. First, in support: there's no question (it seems to me) that human beings vary along every possible dimension, and that there are both 'good' and 'bad' (and 'great' and 'horrible') people to be found both within any major religion and outside them. For many individuals, their goodness/badness may well be prior to, independent of, their religions -- and in no way dependent on the religious belief. (They may even choose their religion because it best expresses their pre-existing goodness.) Moreover, in further support, it's not very clear just what ARE the specific official tenets of any particular religion -- each individual believes some particular set of beliefs which may overlap little, much, or almost not at all with...