From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Removing "god" from morality. (was: Moral liberty)
Date: 24 Jan 93 06:02:36 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <108114@bu.edu>, wooyoung@bu.edu (WooYoung Chung) writes:
|>
|> Do you really think mankind will be better off without religion? 
|> Let's say we bring up the new generation of kids, without exposing 
|> them to any types of religion, would they be better off?  (This 
|> is NOT a rhetorical question.)

The claim the exposure to religion somehow makes people better
is one that is often heard.

The first problem with this is that it seems to be wrong on a
factual basis.   There does not seem to be much correlation
between religion and being a better person.   If you think there
is, I'd be interested to hear it.    I've seen this debated many 
times on talk.religion.misc, and what usually happens is that
the religion fans present a circular argument by claiming that
belief *itself* has a positive moral value, or that the same
action has a higher moral value if carried out by a believer
who thinks God orders him to do it, than if the action is 
carried out by an unbeliever who simply thinks it's the right
thing to do.

The second problem is that religion is a product, and like other
products it aims to create a market.   Religion doesn't just
offer itself for sale: it asserts that you, the consumer, are
in a defective state without it.

Now, we know other products that do this.   Smoke enough 
cigarettes and one morning you will wake up needing a cigarette.   
So are you better off if you get one?    No: you want a cigarette 
because of a need you have developed, but filling that need,
although it might reduce your stress level and leave you better
off in a temporary sense, doesn't leave you better off than if 
you had never smoked in the first place.

We also know that the particular religion that people are claimed
to need is highly biassed by culture.   By some coincidence,
people born in country A claim to need and to be improved by
one religion, showing the foolishness of the chumps who live in
country B.   While the people in country B claim that all their
problems are solved by a different religion, proving that the
inhabitants of country A are congential idiots, as suspected.
When country A and B are the same country, as in Ireland for 
example, this can cause serious problems, but it doesn't seem
to deter people from being savage partisans for one religion
or another, or from behaving in an ugly fashion towards people
in their own culture who don't fall for the prevailing drool.

So yes, if a person has been brought up in a society with a
strong cultural bias towards a particular religion, and this 
person is the kind of person who just can't run their lives 
without someone telling them what to do, then in a temporary 
sense they might be better off with that religion.   Better 
off, that is, than being isolated and orstracized, and better 
off than if they imagined that there are no moral codes than 
religion.  If religion has an arm-lock on the culture you
live in, and has screwed around with your head to the extent
that you feel guilty without it, and the people around you treat
you as some kind of monster because you don't mouth the right
drivel, then it might reduce your stress level a bit to give 
in, but it's a pretty sad state of affairs all around.

And no, a person can perfectly well develop a strong moral
sense and a productive way of living if they have never been
exposed to religion at all, and have never been sold this 
crazy tale about everyone being "naturally" religious and 
being incomplete and amoral without religion.   Life won't
be quite so simple, and the answers won't be quite so easy,
but in the end you will develop a moral *sense* and not just
a collection of someone else's moral rules.

jon.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism