ABSTRACT
Ethical codes are the result of complex interactions between our environments and our inner impulses. And one of the strongest factors in an environment is often a religion or a church. To attribute certain commands to a god may not ensure that they are more closely obeyed but it may alter the spirit in which they are carried out. The especial barbarity of religious wars is due partly to other causes, but partly to the idea in the minds of the victors that gratitude to one’s own god demands the overthrow of his rivals, the destruction of their temples, and the killing of those who refuse to change their faith. Christianity could hardly have survived, and would certainly not have attained its dominating position in Europe, if it had remained a group of persons who despised wealth and power and whose instinctive reaction to aggression was to turn the other cheek.
