group is the “picture of the way things in sheer actuality are, their concepts of nature, of self, of society.”4 The ethos is the group’s tone, character, or moral style, and it is never divorced from the larger perceptions of reality. Geertz writes: “The source of its [a religion’s] moral vitality is conceived to lie in the fidelity with which it expresses the fundamental nature of reality. The powerful coercive ‘ought’ is felt to grow out of a comprehensive factual ‘is.’ ”5 All moral reflection,