Religious Behavior Modification

Not all religions are intolerant, anymore than all atheists are tolerant.

@ geoih:

While you may reasonably argue that individuals who happen to identify with a particular brand of religious belief may be tolerant, it does not necessarily follow that the individual's stated religious tradition espouses tolerance. In other words, we all know there are people who are tolerant of others that happen to call themselves religious. That does not mean, however, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (to name one sect - feel free to insert another common religious tradition instead) supports tolerance for homosexuality, or marrying someone not of the same religion, for example.

While no one wants to over-generalize or stereotype people, at a certain point you have to note general trends in behavior without stopping to apologize for failing to acknowledge constantly that not every person holds every single part of a certain ideology in the same measure or interpretation. We KNOW there are tolerant theists - but it's definitely not the norm.

To all those who believe in God, you cannot stake your claim to moral authority based on your belief in Him. For all you believers...... Your God is the geatest mass murderer in history as recorded in your Bible. I have to assume you know about the little story of Noah and his ark right? Well why did Noah have to build said ark again? Oh I remember..... God was about to wipe the ENTIRE human race off the face of the earth save Noah and a couple of his family members. And please spare me the miller lite version of Jesus Christs' teahcings. The tastes great and less filling version is the result of a sect of Jewish people realizing their God was a jealous, vindictive and cruel God and wanting to establish a new religion where they could still keep ties to Yahweh but find some form of salvation, mercy and love from a new deity who was not so evil. So since Yahweh will not help us reclaim our holy land and it appears He may not be real or has forsaken us Jews; lets create a new God who not only loves us but all humans. Sound familiar to anyone? Moral authority from God? Please!!!

My post was cut short so here is the end of it...... So for all the Christians who will come back and quote John 3:16: "For God so loved the world....."; any rational and logical person will point out that this is the very same God who in Genesis, stated He despised and hated the world so much He detroyed it and your fellow mankind. So often our Christian friends do not want to acknowledge the deeds of their God in "the beginning". As I have stated in previous posts, Christians cannot steal Yaweh and the OT to gain legitimacy for their new relgion and Godman; and then abandon its wickedness and evilness when it no longer suits their purpose.

Ahhh morality! This quote encapsulates the whole dilemma: “I have noticed very high instances of immorality stemming from their religious beliefs.” I agree with this statement as I have observed the same results from the same crop of faith-based squawking. Religious indoctrination has nothing to do with critical thinking on matters of moral judgments and it is more akin with behavior modification techniques springing from the lowest form of rule-following to please a god…Just ask any kindergarten teacher with 22 five-year-old moral bodies in the classroom. The problem with religious behavior modification is that it quickly becomes entwined with narcissism and scrupulosity to the exclusion of reflection, evidence, generosity, discerning wisdom and even good humor.

I’m willing to bet that many of us who came to a secular view of morality and abandoned the religious straightjacket did so because we began feel a violent unease with the moral preaching of our faiths. The preachments became so vile that they triggered the gag reflex, like watching flies feed. We left the cult because of “high instances of immorality” which we were taught to view as “normal” from the time we were knee-high to a disturbing dogma. The unease with religious morality precedes, in many cases, a thorough critique of the god belief. In other words, we felt icky before thinking rationally. We lost sleep. Sentient beings seek the scent of true perspective. We knew that self-righteousness, bigotry, absolutism and exclusiveness might please the desert god but were morally wrong.

"The atheist forms their morality based on what is best for their society, their empathy toward their fellow human, and their own enlightened self interest." Who all is participating in your society? Is it all atheists or all kinds of people? Who is your fellow human? Is there no commonality in enlightenment or is all your enlightened self-interests separate you into your own world? It is easy to paint with the brush of generalization. I could agree with Sam Harris that there is no Christian morality or Muslim morality. Morality is also not relativistic. Something either must be right or must be wrong. Atheists use self-defeating terms when trying to defend a relativistic morality. They place absolutes and imperatives into their own relativistic argument. To use 3 such statements: (borrowed from Doug Groothius)

1. We should *never* affirm our own moral views as universal or absolute.
2. Moral absolutists are *absolutely* wrong.
3. *Everyone* should be a relativist.

None of these statements even withstand its own relativism. If I gave you a list of human acts, one of which says "Rape is always wrong", the very standard that relativism sets allows for the act to occur somewhere with no consequences because morality is both culturally and individually relativistic. You say, "In its purest form, morality can be defined as an act or action that is the result of the decision-making process that reflects individual points of view." Based on this "pure" argument you allow for anything and everything that has ever been considered with deep revulsion to occur. Within this relativistic worldview there is the deception that only religious morality entails fear of punishment and hope for reward. Yet, the relativistic worldview has the same criteria only with different results as its punishment and rewards.