> Yes, lots of things can override empathy in some people. Likewise, lots of things can override religious beliefs in some people, making them kill another person. So what's the conclusion?

That they are both very useful in restraining murder ?

Yes, both are useful, but more importantly, neither can prevent murder. So while it's true that "lots of things can override empathy", it's also true lots of things can override religious beliefs (not to mention when those beliefs are used to justify the murder).

Having empathy for others is not the same as doing "whatever you feel like", by the way.

Empathy is an emotion and is not sufficient to restrain murder. You should use everything you can to restrain it. It is not either or. That is my point. Plenty of irreligious mass murderers out there by the way

Empathy can be sufficient to restrain murder, but sometimes fails. Religious sentiments can also succeed at preventing murder, but many times fail as well. You can indeed use every tool at your disposal to restrain murder -- well, any tool you can believe in, of course.

> Plenty of irreligious mass murderers out there by the way

Yes, there are irreligious murderers. Also plenty of religious murderers, and lots of nasty actions have been committed in the name of religion. So what conclusion can we draw from it, other than "both religious and irreligious value systems have been shown to be not enough to prevent murder"?

You single out empathy, but in fact every value system fails.

I did not single out empathy. The comment I was replying to made the impression that was the only tool we are allowed to use and that religious people were somehow unempathetic since they need religion to not be murderers

Oh, ok. Now I understand your point. I understood the comment you were replying to differently.

To explain where I'm coming from: one typical argument made by some religious people (not all!) is that atheists will inevitably degenerate into criminality, since -- the argument goes -- if you don't have religion to tell you something is immoral, and there are no consequences in the afterlife, what's the point of behaving well to others?