What is a Humanist? A Humanist is a person who uses the Scientific method and attempts to help others learn to use the scientific method so this can be a much better world.

What is the essential difference between Christian and Humanist ethics?

The essential difference between Christian and Humanist ethics is that while in the Christian views morality as concerned with the relation between people and God, in the Humanist view it is concerned with the relation between people and people. To the Christian, acting rightly means obeying divine commands; to the Humanist, it means acting so as to promote human well being. To put it yet another way, the Christian regards morality as something that has been imposed on humanity from above by a supernatural lawgiver, whereas the Humanist regards it as something that has been worked out -- and is still being worked out -- by men themselves, in the process of learning to live happily together in communities. In brief, Christian morality is largely authoritarian, while Humanist morality is social.

In the Humanist view, authoritarian morality is, quite literally, childish. It is like the morality of small children, to whom "right" means simply "what pleases the grown UPS)) and "wrong" means what makes them angry. As Professor Nowell-Smith has said, to the small boy the reason he must not pull his sister's hair is that mummy will be angry, or mummy will punish him. He has made a great step forward towards maturity of moral judgment when he realizes that the fundamental reason why he should not pull his sister's hair is that it hurts her. And there is a similar step forward in the morality of communities, when they pass beyond the idea that virtue consists in blind obedience to the arbitrary commands of some inscrutable authority, to the realization that, basically, to act rightly means to act for the common good -- in other words when they pass from authoritarian to social morality.

Now to build on Margaret Knights report, I feel the major finding was Roman Catholics -- have a delinquency rate two to three times that of the population in general: When this unwelcome fact is forced on their notice, Catholics usually argue that most of the delinquents are not "true" Catholics, but men and women who have lapsed from their faith. This may be so; but it has to be explained why lapsed Catholics are more prone to delinquency than lapsed members of other religious groups.

I have found several study showing  those who attend church are no more likely to commit crimes than then other persons , Those most likely to commit crime are   children who attend church where the supernatural is taught, and then stop attending. These are most likely to be criminal, get divorced and have other major problems.

To many churches teach children before puberty that any thing sexual is immoral and filthy.  That sexual thoughts words and deeds are sins even mortal sins.  This  can leave many of them unable to have close loving relationships. 

I believe this over emphasis of sex being sinful causes some to go mentally  adrift, mind dead to morality. They never develop their ability to really question, think and be free to develop their moral thinking. They murder, rob and rape as if they had no conscience, no feeling for others or thought of the consequences.

For a more complete explanation of what Atheist/ Humanist believe check out the humanist Manifesto I http://www.humanist.net/documents/manifesto1.html  or Humanist Manifesto II http://www.humanist.net/documents/manifesto2.html