The problem with religious morality is that it often causes people to care about the wrong things, leading them to make choices that needlessly perpetuate human suffering. Consider the Catholic Church: This is an institution that excommunicates women who want to become priests, but it does not excommunicate male priests who rape children. The Church is more concerned about stopping contraception than stopping genocide. It is more worried about gay marriage than about nuclear proliferation. When we realize that morality relates to questions of human and animal well-being, we can see that the Catholic Church is as confused about morality as it is about cosmology. It is not offering an alternative moral framework; it is offering a false one.
- Sam Harris (The Moral Landscape)
Monday, 11 October 2010
Religious Morality
Friday, 8 October 2010
Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian
10 - You
vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions,
but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
9 - You
feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people
evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim
that we were created from dirt.
8 - You
laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
7 - Your
face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to
Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered
all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of
entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and
trees!
6 - You
laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping
with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated
Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and
then ascended into the sky.
5 - You
are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the
scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find
nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in
their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
4 - You
believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those
who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will
spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion
the most "tolerant" and "loving."
3 - While
modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince
you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in
"tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove"
Christianity.
2 - You
define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered
prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that
the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
1 - You
actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible,
Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian. (link)
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