Discussions on ethics and religion, on the significance of faith in the mediation of values and social cohesion, and on the risks posed by religions to tolerance and peaceful coexistence tend to be biased because of empirical shortcomings. Arguments are generally made in a way that we could call "a priori". This paper offers an "empirical" approach, meaning thereby an attitude that involves a minimum of conceptual biases, one that goes beyond the a priori and is open to the wealth of historical and cultural phenomena.
Ethics and religion; Sociology of morality; Secularism