You seem here to be admitting that the law should reflect the consensus view, and that our ethics then are very much dependant on subjective beliefs and values not determined by science.
I don't think anyone would argue against that, except to add a small caveat that minority {subcultures\groups\individuals} should be protected from the tyranny of the majority. Science is not about what is good or bad, that is the field of ethics with some philosophy thrown in for good measure.
Considering a great deal of those ethics stem from religion, ...
This is where you run into problems. There are a number of quite different religions in the world, so if this were the case then you would see drastically different laws and cultural ethics comparing them to ones that are all from a similar religious background. In point of fact you see a variety of laws and cultural ethics within each religious system that varies more than the differences between the religions. Across cultures there are remarkable similarities in the intents of the laws and morals and ethics. This would argue that such values can be derived through logic and rational thinking.
So this would argue that we are only speaking of cultural norms, right?
Right. And ignoring religious ones, because the culture norms are the basis for the morals and ethics, and the religious values that are adapted are ones that match the morals and ethics of the cultures. Thus we see that the religious values evolve over time to keep pace with the cultures.
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