I wish I could remember the details of the conversation, but one of my Christianity discussions with my aunt a few months ago did involve the aspect of morality. I forget exactly what was discussed, but the overall jist of it was related to the idea that one of the main virtues of religion is that it is meant as a moral guide. But my question to the believer on that topic would be:
Would you go around stabbing, raping and robbing people and kicking puppies if you didn't have a book to tell you it's wrong? If your answer is yes, then you need to be put in a mental institution. But for sane normal people, the answer is no. I do think that parents should most definitely teach the basics of right and wrong to their kids, but do those basic common sense principles like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" have to come attached to these supernatural rewards and punishments like heaven and hell? Why can't it just be common sense advice, i.e. "If you steal other people's things or call people names, everyone will think you're an asshole and you'll have no friends." Done. "Before you think about doing something bad to someone else, imagine yourself in their shoes and think how you would feel." Done. If anything it's way more concrete and tangible then all this stuff that happens AFTER you die. And as your kids get older you can get into stuff like "help the needy for the betterment of society. If you ever find yourself in that position you'll want people to help you." It's still much more tangible than heaven and hell. And it's a conclusion that any sane human with a brain and common sense should come to anyway.
And of course the problem or complication that can come into play when using a religious text as your moral guide (let's use The Bible for this example since it's the one I'm most familiar with), is all the OTHER preposterous crap it says in there that you're basically forced to ignore because it's so stupid, irrelevant to modern society, and/or downright awful. Such as:
- It's fine to own slaves. You just have to let them go after 6 years (very kind). But if a male slave marries and has children while you owned him, then you get to keep his wife and children when he goes free.
- A child who curses or hits his parents should be executed.
- You can kill your slaves as long as you do it in a manner of slowly beating them to death rather than just outright killing them right away. Because after all, they are your property.
- An uncircumcised boy must be shunned by his community.
- You should kill animals to prove that you love God (or if you sin). And I think there are at least seven plus chapters of Leviticus devoted solely to the gory details of how to do this. I'm still unclear if you can eat the sacrificed animals though ... I guess you can, but the rules are all wacky. At least if you're eating them then they're not going to waste. Oh here's a good example: You can eat the meat, but if you eat the fat, you should be exiled by your people.
- You can eat fish, but you can't eat any sea creatures that don't have scales. They are an abomination. God doesn't like shrimp or lobster, or clams or oysters. There's a whole chapter on the food topic. No pigs of course. And you can't eat bugs or bats (I'm fine with this one).
- After a woman gives birth, she's considered unclean for a few weeks after that. Because giving birth is ... gross? Bad? Why would God design mammals to give birth this way if he thinks it's gross? And if she gives birth to a girl, she's considered unclean for twice as long as if she gives birth to a boy. Because girls are lame.
- Gay people should be executed.
Etc., etc., etc., etc. I just sampled from a few books here, so I'm sure there is much more where that came from (especially in the Old Testament). And of course, whatever snippets of this type of crap from various religious texts that can actually be used against others in today's society tends to drive the "morality" of countless numbers of idiots all over the world today.
On a civil rights level you have situations like the gay rights issues today. Stupid people use the Bible as a shopping cart to pick and choose which verses can allow them to meet their ridiculous goals. The ones about slaves and cattle and eating pork/shellfish are useless, so toss those out. Pork and shrimp are yummy so of COURSE they're not gonna follow those ones. Duh!! But they sure can use the ones about gay people to oppress that group!! Gay people are icky so heaven forbid we'd have to actually serve with them in the military or allow them to get married.
And then of course you have the most dangerous of all, terrorism and war based on various interpretations of religious commandments or moral guidelines, as well as disagreements between people of different religions. On Twitter my friend David retweeted a funny tweet from someone else a couple weeks ago. It reads:
"@Donkey_Sosa Hey, remember that time an atheist committed an act of terrorism based on his/her lack of belief in a higher power?!?! Anyone? Anyone?"
Yeah. Me neither. Then a couple days later I saw this cartoon on AHughman08's YouTube channel which states the exact same thing:
In my mind, it's getting into the subject of morality where religion starts to turn from simply not being something I believe is necessary, to something that might actually be evil. Well, I shouldn't say "evil" as a sweeping generalization because of course that is wrong. I have NO problem at all with someone who is a GOOD person following the teachings of Jesus because they want to help out their fellow human beings and make the world a better place. I definitely respect these people for trying to do good in the world. What I should say is that in the hands of the WRONG person (someone who is either a bad person or an idiot or both), religion can be a very bad thing. And unfortunately there are a lot of stupid people and a lot of bad/selfish people out there who seem to just be looking for any situation where they can have an excuse to try to get a leg up on some other group of people. Or an excuse to not have to think for themselves.
If this was an issue that rarely occurred (after all, you certainly don't have to be religious to be a dolt or a crazed maniac), it's not something I would really worry about. The world will always have crazy people whether religion exists or not. BUT, when you watch the World Trade Center fall because of it, see large groups of people being blown up by terrorists all the time in the middle east, hear about the Taliban's evil rule in Afghanistan, watch large groups of people in the U.S. be denied the same rights of others, see the disgusting way women are oppressed in certain countries, etc.etc., then yes. It's a freaking issue. It's NOT just the fringe elements of society. It's very large groups of people thinking this way and oppressing other large groups of people.
For example, a majority of voters in California (one of the most liberal states out there) vote for Prop 8 in 2008. They voted to deny a very large group of people rights that everyone else has. Why?? What is their reasoning behind this? Do they think gay is contagious? If Johnny and Bobby down the street get married, what will happen?? Will their "gay" creep down the street to your house?? If they have children and raise them properly, will their children grow up to be freaks or serial killers? Umm, no. No to all of the above. So why did so many people vote "yes" on Prop 8? IMO you have two types of people who voted yes: a) The people who have a fear of everything I stated above and more (i.e. they react to unfamiliar things with fear), so they used Prop 8 to keep out the "bad" scary stuff. b) The people who didn't think at all. They just knew the Bible says it's wrong, so they chose "yes". They acted like sheep. Acting like a sheep is very, very dangerous. If you believe in God, then God must have given us brains for a reason.
And if you want another example, read this story if you want a to get really really angry: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/world/asia/31herat.html People who seem to be fine with letting church and state meld into each other need to think twice, because this is where it can lead you.
Anyway. As you can see, this particular topic gets me pretty worked up. I could bitch and moan forever about it so I'll stop here and get to my conclusion. And that is the following:
If a person uses their brain and their common sense in their every day life and if they learn from their mistakes and from the mistakes/advice of others ... isn't that enough to know what is right and wrong? Isn't it enough to be able to figure out how they should help others and also be responsible people? There are a LOT of great teachings in the Bible (and I'm sure other religious texts as well), I would never argue otherwise. I haven't read the entire Bible but I plan to, because I want to make sure I have a full understanding of it to help inform my life views. However, what I know of Christ's teachings are extremely positive. BUT ... any text ... any text that is written by man ... especially a very LONG text that is thousands of years old ... it's gonna have a lot of absurd stuff in it to muddy the waters of all the good stuff. It's going to add confusion. It's going to mislead people who either don't use their brains, or use their brains for bad things. And for me personally, I don't feel that I need to identify myself as a particular religion in order to have good morals, because I have a brain and I have common sense.
Now despite the fact that I don't choose religion for myself, I am completely fine with those who DO choose it for themselves, so long as they use their frakking brains and think OUTSIDE the box of what their religious text is telling them. Keep your minds OPEN to what else is out there people, having a lack of perspective is VERY dangerous. Listen to what people out have to say, regardless of what religion (or lack thereof) they are coming from. There are SO many smart people and great philosophers out there (past and present) that are both the theist and non-theist. PAY ATTENTION. They have important life advice.
I'll end this by saying that praise Jeebus (heheh), my family uses their brains on most of these matters. I think. I'm pretty sure. I know they do, for the most part anyway. I actually watched my aunt Amy change some of her life views (which stemmed from her religion) based on life experiences she had, that she learned from. She took those experiences, applied them to her life, and made changes in her approaches as necessary. She also trickled that down to her children. THAT is what I am talking about people. One of the many many things that contributes to my bitterness regarding her suicide is that I felt like she was just starting to come out of a shell in certain areas so to speak, and I had some really really great conversations with her about this type of stuff in recent years. I wanted that to keep going and now it can't, but that's a different topic for a different day.
Bottom line. Use your God-given (if that's what you believe) or nature-given (if that's what you believe) resources to THINK FOR YOURSELF. Learn from wherever and whoever you can. Apply it your life. Rinse and repeat. Putting on blinders will get you nowhere in life, whether you are religious or not. If everyone lived their life this way, then most of my frustrations with religion would not exist! And IMHO, the world would be a better place.
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