The Prodigal Son

[robvalue]

Lol yeah...

Except I wasn't raised in any religion, and I do just fine. And England is full of irreligious bastards, but it's not the blood fuck fest you would imagine from such statements. So who is it for?

Either the "being religious" requirement is irrelevant, or else God has implanted the morality in us and we're good to go. So again, it's irrelevant.

To me, it's obviously an attempt to explain the fact that we aren't all bashing each others' faces in, when we have "no reason not to". Except we do have a reason not to: empathy. It's a much simpler explanation. We didn't understand this in the past, so the appeal to magic was somewhat understandable. I hate the implication that is sometimes made that we are all basically psycopaths, and need religion to keep us leashed. Some people really believe that about themselves. And I highly doubt it's true in most cases.

And unfortunately, immorality sometimes gets mixed in as well, such as prejudice against certain groups. So it's obvious morality, but warped into something worse.

The only card such theists have left to play is circular definitions of morality, in order to exclude anyone not agreeing with their religious morality.

This isn't all theists, by any stretch. I'm talking about some, who make such overreaching claims about the morality of their religion.