Religious Tolerance is a worthy cause

He has forfeited his round because I missed mine (due to out-of-town work commitments). He did not have to do that. Now, to the issues. 1. "Hasty generalisation" is simply the name of a logical fallacy that basis itself on drawing a full conclusion based on a small sample of data. The word "hasty" is just part of the name of the fallacy. . http://en.wikipedia.org... 2. My opponent now says that every religious doctrine he has encountered validates and authorises vile and perverse behaviour. Now, that of course is incorrect. "Love your neighbour" is an example of a well-known religious doctrine. And clearly I find it doubtful that my opponent would argue that "love your neighbour" is morally reprehensible. 3. Of course, what I said above might be splitting hairs because it seems that my opponent has simply applied the wrong term "doctrine". What he perhaps really meant to say was that every religion CONTAINS doctrines that validate or authorise "vile and perverse" behaviour. But there are serious problems even with this contention. a) First, my opponent has not provided any evidence at all that even the two religions that he uses as examples (namely Islam and Christianity) contain any doctrines that validate or authorise perverse behaviour. He gave examples of Islamist courts sentencing people to death for adultery. But he provided absolutely no reference to show that those practices are in fact a valid part of the religion called Islam. In other words, the fact that those governments CLAIM to be acting under the auspices of Islam does not mean that they are. People have abused religion in their pursuit of power. There are plenty of examples of this throughout history. And there are plenty examples of people abusing power without religion. Indeed, Stalin was notably a huge murderer. And his killings were not in the name of religion; quite to the contrary. He actively fought religion and was opposed to religious tolerance. What can we conclude from all that? It's a bad thing (if we agree on a model of morality in the first place) to kill people without justification, whether in the name of religion or of free thought or of anything else. c) He also gives an example of Christianity in the context of gay marriage. He says that Christianity's reluctance to accept gay marriage is immoral. But why is that so? Because it causes unnecessary harm, he says. So he seems to be relying on the "Harm Principle" model of morality (yes, that's what it's called by philosophers). But if causing unnecessary harm is immoral then a huge many things that we do every day are immoral. For example, rejecting someone's romantic advances. In doing so, we hurt the other person. It would cause nobody any harm if we had a fling with them. By rejecting them, we are causing them unnecessary harm. We must, therefore, be acting immorally, by my opponent's test. d) The problem with the above goes further. As mentioned already, the Harm Principle has serious problems in itself. But in addition, there are a great many people who disagree that the Harm Principle is the correct model of reality at all. They claim that morality comes from a god. And there's no independent standard by which we can measure where morality comes from or which type of morality is a better type of morality. Let me illustrate this by a hypothetical example of a conversation between me and my opponent: My opponent: "Immoral things are things that cause unnecessary harm". ME: "Immoral things are things that my god (the Flying Spaghetti Monster) says are immoral". My opponent: "My model is better because it prevents harm". Me: "But that's circular. You can't rely on the Harm Principle itself in order to support a contention that the Harm Principle is a better test of morality! " e) And of course my opponent has not showed any evidence that, even within the Harm Principle, same-sex-marriage is something that should be supported by law. There are many people who are opposed to it for other reasons, such as issues of children, family values, etc; arguments that have nothing to do with religion. f) Embryonic research and abortion. My opponent says that the principle that "life begins at conception" is a religious principle. Well, maybe so. But it also happens to be true. Life DOES begin at conception. The real question is whether this life is deserving of legal protection at that stage. And there are plenty of arguments that it should, for a variety of reasons, including the very future of mankind. The same goes for abortion. There are plenty of secular arguments against abortion! Is it ethical to destroy an unborn human? If so then is it ethical to do so two days prior to birth? Most would say "no". Where do you draw the line? You can draw it arbitrarily, as the laws of many countries have. But what's the basis for that? Because unborns have no conscious thought? Well, we don't know if they do or not. We do know that we don't consciously remember things that happened before we were born. But we don't remember the first 1.5 years of our lives either. Would it then be ok to kill a one year old baby? Most would say "no". But why? 4. My opponent's REAL ARGUMENT My opponent says that if there were a religion that did not promote anything that he finds immoral, but which instead focused on the benefits of mankind, he would endorse it. Well, if that's the case, why doesn't he endorse my local Catholic Parish? You see, that parish does not preach about FIGHTING abortion or gay marriage. There are millions of Christians who do not involve themselves in legal or political issues. They might believe that abortion or gay marriage is immoral and they would not do those things themselves. But they do not interfere with others' liberty to have other moral standards. So what's my opponent's objection to those millions of Christians? He can't have one. And their religion is as much a religion as any other. 5. "Without religion, society could think more critically about what actually is and is not moral, rather than simply accepting what a text written by a human being ascribes to a deity. " Here my opponent is saying that people should think critically about what is moral and what is not. But what about those who don't want to think critically? Should people not be free to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong and why? And if they wish to rely on an ancient (or even modern) text, should that be forbidden? 6. I admit that my claim that my opponent's attitude promotes religious violence was a little harsh. But it's true. "My morality is better than yours and I refuse to tolerate yours" is the exact thing that drives abortion clinic bombers to their actions. In conclusion, it makes no sense to refuse to tolerate religion. It would amount to depriving people of freedom of thought. What does make sense is a refusal to tolerate practices that we find disagreeable. But that's something we already do.