Can you be good without God?

From billboards to books, columns to community projects, atheists and other non-believers have campaigned that morality can be separated from religion. Unfortunately for them, many around the world see a belief in God as a prerequisite for being moral.

A majority of people in 24 of 40 nations surveyed by Pew said it's necessary for a person to believe in God to be moral. In the U.S., a slim majority (53 percent) said the same.

This position is most prevalent across the Middle East and Africa, while substantial numbers in Latin America and the Asia/Pacific region agreed.

In every European nation, a majority disagreed, with France, Spain, Czech Republic and Britain having the highest percentage of respondents who specifically said that having good moral values did not require a belief in God.

Pew reported significant correlation between the wealth of a nation and their citizen's agreeing that a belief in God was necessary for a person to be moral. The more wealthy a nation is, the less likely the people are to think good values comes exclusively from a theistic belief system.

The major exceptions to that rule – the U.S. and China. People in the United States are much more likely than those in similar nations to say belief in God is essential to morality, while those in China are much less likely.

If you've ever consumed food after dropping it on floor and then wondered what sorts of diseases you might be contracting, here's a new study that may put your mind at ease (or not). New research out of Aston University in the U.K. finds that there may be some truth to the old wives' tale, often called the "five second rule," which suggests that it's ok to pick up dropped food as long as it's within a five-second limit. Many people halfheartedly teach their kids this first "rule" of food safety, because, hey, it's better to risk disease than to waste food.

But take this with a grain of salt. The study doesn't appear to be peer-reviewed or published anywhere. We need other researchers to have a chance to review these results and then re-do the experiment before we can be sure it's OK to eat that bagel you just picked up.

For the study, Anthony Hilton, a professor of Microbiology, and his students considered a variety of foods – toast, pasta, cookie, and a sticky candy – to see how much bacteria (E. coli and Staphylococcus) they attracted when allowed contact with the floor. They allowed the food to lie on various types of flooring – carpet, laminate, and tiles – for 3 seconds to 30 seconds.

Not surprisingly, the longer the food was allowed commune with the floor, the more bacteria it accumulated. And the surfaces differed in how likely they were to transfer the bacteria, with carpeting being the least likely, and tiled surfaces and laminate the most likely. "We have found evidence that transfer from indoor flooring surfaces is incredibly poor with carpet actually posing the lowest risk of bacterial transfer onto dropped food," said Hilton in a news release.

Every day since his son Matthew died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound nearly a year ago, Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church has found himself in tears.

He has spent his nights journaling, trying to discern God's purpose in the pain that Matthew endured over his 27 years living with mental illness, and in the loss Warren and his wife, Kay, have felt since Matthew left their lives.

Warren has asked God why he took his youngest child, whom he remembers as a troubled but "kind, gentle, and compassionate man" with a "gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room."

He has prayed that something good might come out of something so awful.

On Friday, just eight days before the anniversary of their son's death, the Warrens launched a new chapter in their ministry, which has used its megaphone as one of the nation's largest and most influential churches to address alcohol addiction, drug abuse, orphan care and HIV/AIDS. The Conference on the Church and Mental Health, a daylong event at the church's main Lake Forest, Calif. campus that will be broadcast online, has amassed 3,000 registrations and features a lineup of pastors, academics and psychiatrists hosting panels and prayers to tackle the stigma of mental illness and suicide in the church.

"In God's garden of grace, even a broken tree bears fruit," Warren said in an interview with The Huffington Post, reflecting on a journal entry he wrote when Matthew was alive that's taken on new meaning after his death. "We knew that even with the massive pain we were going through, we would have to use it to help others."

Friday's conference, for which Saddleback has teamed with Bishop Kevin Vann of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange and the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Orange County to host, is the first step in what will be a long-term campaign to launch discussions of mental health in pulpits and pews across the U.S. Friday's workshops include "Christianity and Depression," "How to Launch a Support Group and Counseling Ministry in your Church," "Suicide Prevention: Saving Lives One Community at a Time" and "Food and The Body: Three Steps to Healing Eating Disorders through Community."

"There is no shame in diabetes, there is no shame in high blood pressure, but why is it that if our brains stop working, there is supposed to be shame in that?" said Warren, who said the family kept Matthew's illness a secret from the public not because of shame, but "because it was his own story to tell."