It's a classic canard to argue that all chaos would break loose in a secular or atheistic society, because the only way you could possibly have morals is from religion. A recent example may well be this post at Pharyngula with comments. Obviously, moral codes change over time, different religions have different morals and philosophers have discussed morals without religion ever since Plato. One clearly doesn't need religion to create morals or ethical behavior.

However, as Jesse Bering recounts on NPR's "All Things Considered", imaginary beings are just as good for preventing cheating in children as are adults who are actually present in the room. Maybe gods initially were good for policing a continuously tempted populace in times before police were actually invented? Gods knew everything and saw everything and no bad deed could go unnoticed. The effectiveness of this constant surveillance is exemplified convincingly in the experiment referenced in the NPR story, where they also speculate on how this might have helped religious tribes gain evolutionary advantages over non-religious tribes in early human evolution. I find this argument to be rather intriguing, even though I think there are many more facets to the evolution of religion than just policing.

In secular societies this surveillance is missing. Maybe it is not a coincidence that a country which by several measures is among the least religious in Europe and hence probably the world, the UK, is also among those countries with the largest per capita number of surveillance cameras? Cynically speaking, is it possible that the UK is just among the first to realize that the surveillance vacuum that has been created by finally freeing ourselves from the shackles of religion has to be replaced with real-world surveillance?

As more crimes and misdemeanors are publicized as being caught on camera, like the recent incidence in the UK of a woman throwing a cat into a trash can:



or in Germany, where violent beatings have also been caught on surveillance cameras placed in subways and other public transportation systems:



as these images become more engrained in people's minds, they will feel just as surveilled as they felt when they used to be religious.

Consequently, religious people should welcome these cameras as they hold non-religious people to the same high moral standards as their religion holds them

Alternatively, secular societies have to work hard: not only to educate and train the public in all manners of self-control, be it anger management, or simple restraint when the urge to shoplift overcomes you. In addition to these psychological factors, secular societies also have to to reduce the socioeconomic factors influencing crime.

Religion, cameras, conditioning or welfare - which is the golden road to a civil and peaceful society?

P.S.: Obviously, some people, especially in the USA, are going to argue that arming the public is yet another way to a civil and peaceful society...