Re: "most important book"
"I'd argue that they didn't, or at least that no society had hitherto been founded upon them. The Roman and Persian empires, China, Japan, the other ancient empires I have read about, ran on completely different moral codes."
Don't confuse morality and customs. Morality is fundamental and is the same for everyone because it is determined by laws of nature. Customs are whatever rules and edicts considered expedient for inclusion by the author of the particular rule book, given his own baggage of life experience, understanding (or not) of it and political ambitions.
Every religious book starts with the fundamental morality and then tries to distort it to justify and support enforcement of unrelated, petty and self-serving rules designed to preserve the position of power of the authors or their sponsors.
"hence much trouble in today's world"
I believe that the fact that our moral code is being routinely ignored by our own leaders has more to do with that then some fundamental difference in moral principles of different cultures in today's world.
And also the internal conflict of some of the tribal/cultural/customary rules with those determined by fundamental morality.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
