Why Secular Morality is Superior

[John V]

You said two things are in the nature of religion – gaining more followers, and gaining increased obedience among existing followers. I clearly gave the Amish as a counterexample to the first, not the second. You’re applying them to the second, for which I gave a different counterexample. Are you being purposely misleading, or are you just too lazy to look back and follow the arguments?

Hmmm, let's go to the tape, shall we? And please read the whole thing this time.

1. (Perhaps most important) Theistic morality confuses the issues of what morality is and what is moral.

By its nature, religion will be concerned with gaining more followers and gaining increased obedience with its established followers. This is why when you read through the Bible or Koran, often what is described as "evil" are such victimless crimes as idolatry, blasphemy and apostasy. Other moral issues and labeled "abominations" have to do with failure to adhere to rituals and traditions, like not working on the Sabbath or not eating certain kinds of food.

Read the 10 commandments if you don't have time to read the whole Bible. You'll notice that the first four, the one's that Yahweh thought of first and foremost, have to do with religious adherence and not real moral issues. A few deal with how we treat others (don't murder, don't steal, etc) but the majority prohibit victimless crimes. This muddying of the waters is not helpful to our understand of what is moral or what morality is.

By contrast, secular morality focuses on the issue with laser-like precision.

This obsession you have with finding small insular religions that are suspicious of outsiders

One example is not an obsession.

(the exception and not the norm, based on total population of religions people and each religion's share of it) has caused you to focus on a part of my post which really isn't the point I was making.

If you didn't mean it, you should have omitted it or retracted it. It's poor form to call me obsessed for addressing your lead point.

The point, if you read my entire post quoted above, is that religion focuses on the "evils" of victimless crimes like idolatry, blasphemy and apostasy or exalting useless "virtues" like prayer, rituals or church attendance and that these distractions are not only not helpful but confusing to the topic of morality, as outlined in the bolded section title.

If you're retracting the first line, then my response is that you haven't supported your assertion that "Morality is a function of how we treat our fellow sentient beings."

Tell you what, if we just delete that first sentence, will that help you zero in on the point and not get side-tracked by issues beside the point?

Depends on how many points you're going to claim as side issues.