From: Stephen Buckley <sbuckley@sfu.ca>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: atheism
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 21:47:58 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> writes:

>Stephen Buckley <sbuckley@sfu.ca> writes:
>> Forrest Black <mailrus!gatech!unmvax!cfblack@uunet.uu.net> writes:
>> >in some of the values that are presented by these organizations.  The
>> >scary thing for me is that my ideas of good values and reasonable
>> >conduct conflict in a glaring fashion sometimes with the followers of
>> >major organized religions.
>> 
>>   can you give an example of one of your ideas of good values and reasonable
>> conduct that conflicts with those of religious followers?

>Well, one problem with many religious ideas of morality is that they're too
>reliant on rules.  Lists of thou shalt nots and thou shalts.

>Over the years I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to behave
>in a reasonable moral way purely by following lists of commandments.
>Given a simple list of rules for moral behaviour, there are always situations
>where adhering to the rules results in ludicrous or unpleasant behaviour.

 thanks for your reply.  i agree totally with your ananlysis of the failure
of lists of rules to guide moral behaviour.  in christian lingo, the old
testament was just that--a list of rules--which was replace by the covenant
of the new testament in jesus, who [and this idea is rooted in the bible
and present in the lives of spirit indwelt christians] once living in a 
persons heart is a tremendously powerful force to guide a person [me for
instance] to be christ-like--i.e. living according to a morally perfect
role model.  the teachings in the bible, when rooted in a personal relation-
ship with god, are far more effective than when we just try to wing it on
our own by following those rules.

>Learning moral behaviour isn't just a matter of learning rules; you have to
>understand *why* the rules exist and *when* they are applicable.  Religion in
>general seems pretty bad at teaching this; the why is usually given as
>"because God says so" and the when as "always".

  and there are many christians who are testaments to how ineffective
the church is at helping people understand why, when and how to live 
according to biblical morals.  that's a totally valid critique.

>In a different direction, and more specifically...

>Religious followers seem to have a tendency to define people as 'good' or
>'bad' based on what kinds of sexual behaviour they enjoy.  I tend to feel
>that morality is more a matter of how you treat people.

  sometimes that general tendency is accurate.  but even as you recognize,
it is a generalization.  jesus said to love everyone regardless of what
disagreements we have.  there are christians who are pretty bad at this
and those [tho none are perfect] who are really good at loving people in
spite of differences.  look for them, they're out there.  and when you
see a christian, for example, living a hypocritical life, point it out to
them [in a spirit of constructive criticism], for they should welcome 
the feedback--for it helps them be less hypocritical.  this applies
to all of us hypocrits--constructive criticism should always be welcomed.


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