Religion does not supply an a priori unchanging objective a system of morality.

My argument about defrocking priests comes in part from the broad rejection of Liberation philosophy by the Church and the current Pope in particular. here's a bit from Wikipedia on the subject In March 1983, Cardinal Ratzinger made "ten observations" on aspects of Gutiï¿½rrez's theology, including accusing Gutiï¿½rrez of politically interpreting the Bible and of supporting a temporal messianism. Ratzinger also declared that the influence of Marxism was proven by the predominance accorded to orthopraxis over orthodoxy. Finally, this document states that these conceptions necessarily uphold a similar class conflict inside the Church, which logically leads to a rejection of hierarchy. During the 1980s and 1990s, Ratzinger continued his condemnation of these strains within liberation theology, prohibiting some dissident priests from teaching the doctrines in the Catholic Church's name and excommunicating Tissa Balasuriya in Sri Lanka for doing exactly that. Under his influence, theological formation schools were prohibited from using the Catholic Church's organization and grounds to teach these condemned theological formulations. The Catholic church almost always supports rightest governments and rightest insurgencies. It played a pivotal role in bringing Pinochet to power in a bloody coup, the most recent coup in Haiti, and the most recent coup in Venezuela's. It played a huge role in the election George W. Bush and the subsequent abandonment of constitutional government in America. It supported keleptocracies through out eastern Europe where state property was either corruptly sold at ridiculous prices or outright stolen causing the collapse of virtually all the economies as well as a dramatic drop in life expectancies. Despite what church leaders say Jesus was not a precursor Adam Smith. He did repeatedly remind people that spiritual help was greater than material help. But he encouraged people to give all their money to the poor, to pay taxes, not to worry about future, and to obey temporal authorities. Here is the wikipedia link to Christan socialists http://en.wikipedia.org... It is hard to read about the life of Jesus and believe that he would have more in common with the conservative Christians who preach several heresies such as that taxation could be construed as theft. On the torture front you are simply wrong. Both Religious and secular authorities incorporated elaborate torture as part of the execution of Prisoners. It was common for example to cut out the tongues of heretics, which would obviously tend more towards precluding confession than facilitating it. My central argument is that Churches claim that the oppose homosexuality, abortion, and even the progressive income tax because it is forbidden in the bible and that they endorse always living according to the morality in the bible is just flatly a lie. Christians churches have not consistently observed all, most or even the most significant portions of morality as it is presented in the Bible. It is especially telling that the two major issues for conservative Christians where nowhere mentioned by Jesus. Even though Jesus lived in the midst of Hellenistic society which definitely included the Roman providences which are now part of present day Israel, he never said a thing about homosexuality which was an institution in Hellenistic society. Jesus also did not say a word about abortion though it was common practice. The bible nowhere says that life begins at conception. The implication of God's creation of man is clearly that life begins when the soul enters the body with the Babies first breath. Which is also supported in the scientific fact that in comparison with other vertebrates, humans are born with almost no software. If you feed and take care of a baby but don't interact with it socially it will not "boot up" and will simply turn itself off. Returning again to the things that Jesus did say to do. He specifically endorsed taxation although the Jewish people being occupied at the time hated Roman taxes. He said that it was very difficult for the Rich to receive salvation. The church said that slavery was ok because it brought savages to Christs. But it opposes a progressive income tax which Jesus clearly indicates would save more souls. Simply put In many churches their message is a blend Christianity and of Rightest political philosophy with no particular emphasis on Christianity. Summing it up: Conservative Churches do not promote all aspects of morality presented in the bible and actively oppose some parts of the bible. While there are some Christian virtues that could be considered a core part of Christianity conservative Christians do not universally promote or even accept these virtues. The main point is that conservative religious leaders claim that they get all of their morality from the bible and the follow it consistently. However the reality is the morality presented by conservative religious leaders comes from a variety of sources with no particular preference given to the sacred books that underlie their religions. While they claim to subscribe to an objective moral system, their positions are actually more variable than those who adopt a relativistic moral system.