[DuFresne]

All right, Here's my thoughts. I hope this makes some kind of sense. I'll admit that I don't really answer your question, though:

Non-theistic evolutionary morality, the kind often cited by atheists, relies on the precept that survival and cooperation are inherently "good." As long people have a drive for individual and special survival, our inborn genetic morality works pretty well to keep us from robbing, assaulting, et cetera. Theistic morality relies on the precept that pleasing a deity or deities is inherently "good," and as long as people have the desire to please the deity it seems to work fine as well.*

The problem with both cases, of course, is that there will almost always be people in any given society that will reject whichever given precept the society's rules are based on, or who break the rules for other reasons entirely. So neither system of morality is ever perfect. The best one can hope for is that the vast majority of people do ascribe to a precept and the morality that follows it.

But after you've established this, the question still remains of which system is more efficient. Short answer: I have no fucking idea. As an atheist, I assume that Darwinistic morality spawned theistic morality in all its forms. Was that out of necessity, or was it ignorance? Both? Something else entirely? I dunno.


*Speaking solely in terms of getting people to follow the respective rules. I'm not getting into the whole "but relijunz cauzd da warz!!!!!1" thing. That's another argument for another day.