When I visited Jerusalem in 2008 and absent-mindedly told a religious lady I did not believe in god, besides her visible shock, she asked me who I looked to for authority. I have to admit the question took me off guard because I come from a tradition that views all religious texts as written by human beings so the ‘rules’ one finds there make perfect sense given the milieu in which they were written. I had recent dealing with the British police and have visited British courts assessing a trial and the whole idea of authority is obviously one that possesses the imagination of human beings to a great degree.
I wonder if this is natural of the outcome of societies being based on who the strongest are?
It seems to me that despite appearances the actually idea of addressing an authority outside of oneself is not in keeping with the democratic spirit, which much like the religious monks of old, appeal to the individual to be self-ruled. I know people tend to think this means there would be many different value systems, and in the main there would be but then there are now. But the fact is that we know the value systems that we all agree upon and have agreed upon for millenniums, for the idea of not killing or stealing from each other never came from a god but from people trying to live with each other without dissension.
We actually all know how best to live with each other, we just wait for others to tell us what to do because until they do we can get away with not listening to ourselves.