Sorry, just reading some random posts, thought I would add in a little which may have been said already:
The inherent problem in turning to law over religion as a guiding principle is
a) laws are largely dervied from religious principles initially anyway. Without some foundation for laws to be based upon why would we not kill steal or do anything else we might otherwise innately do to otherwise ensure our own survival? In otherwords, why would lawmakers think those acts ought to be illegal and punishable when they are nothing more than tools of survival, which is perhaps an instinct in life as a natural law.
I'll use the example of killing, which most people agree generally is wrong? Why? We kill lots of non-human things all the time, animals, insects... Saying killing of humans is wrong is perhaps more acceptable to us because it provides us some sense of security that if I believe it, perhaps others will too, which creates a veil of false security that other humans won't kill me. But ultimately it's nothing more than a rationalization, even if you want to differentiate man from all other beings based on intellect. Try telling a lion killing is wrong when it charges at you and you're still going to be mauled, and the lion sure as hell is not going to feel guilty about it. Perhaps it is instinctual to have deeper emotional ties to one's own species which makes that sense of remorse apparent, and you may now have a foundation for law that extends beyond religion. The problem would now be to define what behavior is instinctual for humans.
b) Law in itself is created by men, and as such contains only the authority men are willing to give it, and puts the utmost faith in those who create it. Given the current state of laws, I'd say most laws written are excessive, cumbersome and prove that those writing them often are out of touch and mildly inept. Law is merely a system to govern, a compact between a group which decides to coexist for the protection/survival of those within the group. That's why different societies have different laws, because there is no natural foundation for it. Law provides its own hypocrisy countless times just like punishing people for murder by murdering them. I follow law because I accept the compact by which it governs, not because I believe it has some morally correct or higher meaning behind it by which I should govern my life. I can make my own determinations about right or wrong, but those often do not impact my decision to generally abide by the law.
Law and religion are just two sides of a very similar idea.