"Why Believe in God" ad campaign

[Ghoulish Delight]

Still feeling the effects of last night's dose of NyQuil, so forgive some level of incoherence in this post

Originally Posted by David E

Saying religion should be abolished because of its historical abuses is like saying you want to abolish car travel because of accidents.

And saying that religion should continue to be accepted because it's the contextual basis of our current morality is like saying slavery should be reinstated because it's the contextual system under which our country was made as strong and powerful as it is.

Just because something produced a positive result by one definition of positive does not make it a good thing.

But let me be clear on a few things.

1) I am not arguing that religion should be "abolished". I'd prefer it if people would move beyond it and stop teaching it, but I would never support any sort of legal authority to abolish it.

2) It's not because of historical abuses that I prefer people move beyond religion. It's because of future ignorance. Religion, by definition, promotes irrational thought and requires flatly ignoring observable fact.

Israelis and Palestinians are killing each other. Why? You can trace it right back to the fact that both sides are certain that their religion gives them justifiable claim to a chunk of desert and that any deaths resulting are a small price to pay for doing god's work. And if you think that's just from the Palestinian side, you are sorely mistaken.

STDs and unwanted pregnancy continue to be a major issue in this country because we can't have an honest, open discussion with our children because sex is dirty and wrong because god said so.

Irish schools remain segregated by religion, perpetuating centuries old hatreds that result in bloody deaths.

These aren't "historical abuses". These are real, palpable consequences of the absurd notion that the world should be separated by which invisible deity you pray to.

So here's the calculus that I see.

Without Religion - A continual social discourse on what morals we should ascribe to. Individuals will disagree, individuals will purposely attack that morality and act without it. As a society we would be continually evaluating new knowlege and how it might help better promote morality and well being

With Religion - A continual social discourse on what morals we should ascribe to. Individuals disagree, individuals purposely attack that morality and act without it. Those individual are given extra ammo to act immorally based on their belief that they have moral superiorty granted by god. As a society, we are afraid of new knowledge and actively work to slow its progress because it doesn't agree with the version of the world laid out in contradictory texts.

It bears repeating that there is no evidence that the morality that you are arguing for can be attributed to religion. Religion mimics morality. Religion has changed as morality has changed. Religion doesn't cause that change, if anything it resists it until it begins to lose its influence, and then it changes to garner back more followers.

[David E]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

And saying that religion should continue to be accepted because it's the contextual basis of our current morality is like saying slavery should be reinstated because it's the contextual system under which our country was made as strong and powerful as it is.

I gave the car travel analogy as an example of an invention that works pretty well, despite what problems it has. Not as an example of a an enduring institution. If we had hover cars, we would switch to those. Changing my analogy to something evil like slavery, which then implies a correlation to religion, isn't fair.

Just as a matter of historical clarification, now that you do mention slavery, it is not what made the US powerful, in fact it tore it apart. The slave states were pretty much only agricultural, party because of the longer growing season, and yes, because of the labor situation. The north, where slavery was prohibited, prospered much more in every other regard: manufacturing, trade, diplomacy, the arts, charitable institutions, urban development, etc. And don't forget that the abolitionist movement was Christian.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by David E

And don't forget that the abolitionist movement was Christian.

Alas, so was the pro-slavery faction.

[David E]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

Alas, so was the pro-slavery faction.

In profession and affiliation more than in deed. It's hard to live up to standards and do the right thing when you have a lot on the line. In historical context, slavery was near universal for all of history, and after US abolition, only took 50-100 more years or so to clean up most of the world.