Religion is Marginal

“Whether or not we believe in God, we inhabit a culture in which religious teachings are marginal to many people’s moral choices. When did we last hear, in a television discussion or a newspaper editorial, the simple assertion that something was wrong because God or religious doctrine said so? Even a religious leader who said this in the course of a public debate would nowadays be branded a fundamentalist. Our moral language has been effectively secularised. Religion enters our conversations obliquely and with embarrassment.”

The Persistence of Faith, p. 36