Are there any militant secularists on this forum?

[KimberleyChris]

Yep, don't confuse being 'secular' with being anti religious.

Believe in Jesus, Islam or Jack and the Beanstalk for I care, but I want to be ruled by a written 'rights of man' system, not a system based on (albeit well intentioned) myth and legend.

[BrilloPad]

I want to be ruled by a written 'rights of man' system.

I would like to hear alot more about responsibilities rather than rights.

BTW ever heard of the Magna Carta? Hardly conflicts with Christianity does it?

[KimberleyChris]

I would like to hear alot more about responsibilities rather than rights.

BTW ever heard of the Magna Carta? Hardly conflicts with Christianity does it?

Again, I am not saying 'throw the last two thousand years away and let's go back to the swamp'.

Our laws and rights were all mostly inspired by Christianity. Good...and as somebody quoted earlier, 'This myth of Christ has served us well'.

But it is a myth. We would probably have arrived at much the same point by adopting a proper 'honest' myth such as that of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. Both myths reflected the nobler ethics of their authors.

We can continue to live 'right' without throwing a 2000 year-old fairy tale into the ring as justification.

[d000hg]

Religions provide not just the 'rules' but the justification behind them too. Very hard to arbitrarily come up with a set of rules based on secular morality, when the very concept of morality is highly intertwined with religions through the millennia.

[KimberleyChris]

Religions provide not just the 'rules' but the justification behind them too. Very hard to arbitrarily come up with a set of rules based on secular morality, when the very concept of morality is highly intertwined with religions through the millennia.

I don't believe that you are only 'good' because you happen to believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. I don't think that you were evil before, and if you ever lost your faith you would not suddenly turn evil either.

Don't forget that Christianity is a late-comer on the religious scene. There was good in the world in separate places long before he was even born. It is 'better human nature'.

Yes, there was also evil, but there still is.....

[xoggoth]

Very hard to arbitrarily come up with a set of rules based on secular morality, when the very concept of morality is highly intertwined with religions through the millennia

What is wrong with rules based on human needs? It is normal to want to live in a stable, crime free society as per the US Declaration of independence, Life, liberty etc. People will generally follow what they have been brought up to believe and it doesn't need to be based on religion, we need to raise people with a sense of community. Japan has a very low level of belief and seems to do quite well.

Religious morality is also not necessarily a good morality, with hatred and marginalisation of those who do not conform, as we have seen in our own past and still see in Islamic and some black Christian countries. Try telling a copt in Egypt or an Ahmadi in Pakisan or a gay in Uganda about high religious principles.

Here we are, all the morality we need:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...y-1850416.html

[KimberleyChris]

Also, we do not even know if the man ever existed in the first place.

You would think that a man, 5012 other people, one basket of bread and fish, and a small army of clerks writing down his every word 24/7 would have attracted attention.

But there is nothing. None of the major chroniclers of the time said a word, and 'The Letters of Pontius Pilate' was written as a fictional work.

Myth...all myth.

[xoggoth]

Forget the theory, is there any difference in the morality of the religious and non religious in practice? How law abiding you are, what you do for other people is dependent on your nature, not the ideas in your head. Abstract ideas are too easily bent, we change them to conform with what we want, we change them to justify whatever we want to do.

Why did priests who are supposed to be abstinent and believe sex outside marriage and homosexuality to be sins abuse young boys? Why are Catholics and Muslims so overrepresented in UK prisons? Why are so many religious countries, like Mexico or South Africa or Pakistan, so violent? How come young girls in Conservative Uganda are at high risk of rape just walking to school?

Religion does nothing at all for human behaviour and it never has done.

Maybe the problem is that the penalties of sin are too remote. If we had gods that smote people with lighting bolts for every transgression like we used to, religion might work better.

[KimberleyChris]

Maybe the problem is that the penalties of sin are too remote. If we had gods that smote people with lighting bolts for every transgression like we used to, religion might work better.

And why should it all be one way?

After seeing his 'mercy' at work first hand, I'll be taking a hammer and three big nails with me when I go.

[BrilloPad]

I don't believe that you are only 'good' because you happen to believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth.

Too right. But you will find alot more good people in church. I have posted a few times about the shortcomings of churchgoers. But they are on average far better people.

Personally I would rather trust my priest than some politician.