God's law or private law?

[Belacqua]

I think they should begin hating themselves a little bit. There has to be some sort of self-critisism inside every man and woman in this world. (what are you even talking about?)

This seems like good advice to me. There's not enough self-hate in the world. 

I can't speak about Iran. To me, though, people often seem to confuse self-generated private law with God's law. They assume that because they feel really strongly about it, that God must be supporting it. This is what comes of having people say "I don't have a religion; I have a personal relationship with Jesus." 

Since America is built, supposedly, on self-reliance and individual liberty, the American brands of religion often support these independent qualities. More traditional religions, including Islam I suppose, say far more about the responsibilities one has to the group. The written law still has some sway with old-fashioned religions -- to be a good member of that religion, one might have to actually control his own desires. Americans hate the term obedience, and not pursuing one's desire is seen as weakness. 

By ignoring the difficult demands that traditional religion put on people, and assuming that what I really want is what God must want too, we lose a key method of doing self-criticism.

Recently on another thread we were talking about a certain TV series. It was explained to me that, according to the show, if something is really really important to you, you no longer have to follow the moral norms of your society to get or protect that thing. In other words, even for atheists the voice of the community is very easy to ignore -- if you personally decide that morality is not relevant to you, you can forget it. 

We need far more self-criticism, and more attention to ethical examples that demonstrate going against one's own desires.