Why Secular Morality is Superior

[DeistPaladin]

To my knowledge the Amish have similar or more severe positions re: blasphemy, idolatry and apostasy as other Christians, yet increasing their numbers isn’t a high priority. This isn’t glossing over the point. When you make a claim regarding the nature of religion, showing counterexamples is sufficient to refute the claim. A big problem with your initial post is that it has a number of such sweeping and unsupported generalizations regarding both religious and secular positions. You’d do well to restate it, narrowing the scope to a single religion.

You're desperately trying to muddy the issue.

Theistic Morality: Tends by nature to be concerned with victimless crimes like blasphemy, idolatry and apostasy as well as exalting useless activities like prayer and adherence to rituals.

Secular Morality: isn't

You are free to say, "but Christians can be good people too" and "well, what about this passage in the Bible that says good things" and "oh yeah, well this religion is a little different" and all that is beside the point (and smacks of red herring evasion).

And the fact that the Bible includes it [the golden rule] shows that the Bible does offer explanation regarding morality, refuting your charge that it merely says GodWillsIt.

Again, this is beside the point. Sure the Bible contains some good stuff but all of it can be just as easily admonished by secularists without the need to a god.

The argument I'm addressing when I use the term GodWillsIt is the belief among some apologists that morality requires a celestial lawgiver. My refutation is that GodWillsIt is neither necessary nor helpful to understand or discuss morality.

Sure. Your point 3 regarded satisfying rational explanations of morality. A system which is admittedly arbitrary by definition does not supply such answers.

You're right in that I misspoke. I meant "the worst of", since Yahweh's dictatorial edicts on morality have no more validity than that of a mafia don or a tin-pot dictator and, reading the Bible, they're just as prone to changing tomorrow on a whim. Yahweh can say "thou shalt not kill" one day and order a genocide the next.

As previously noted, you do this yourself, although I wouldn’t call you slick at it.

Logical Fallacies: Ad Hominem Tu Quoque and Bare Assertioon

Biblically, everyone is damned. This is an act of justice, which is getting what you deserve. Salvation is not an act of justice, it is an act of mercy and grace. Mercy and grace are undeserved, and God can deal them out as he likes. Like many critics, you incorrectly conflate justice and mercy.

1. No, nobody deserves to be tortured for all eternity.
2. This "mercy" you speak of is only doled out to the gullible and sycophantic, indicating what's really important to your god Yahweh. This is not about punishment or justice but control.

Your god sounds like a wife beater and you like the battered wife trying to justify the abuse saying "he really loves me and I guess I deserve it when he beats me."

We don't require a woman to marry her rapist but Yahweh does.

Where does he require that? I’ve debated this before and doubt you’ve really considered the passages in question.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law...2_28a.html

...and the flimsy apologist rationalizations ensue in 3... 2...

The word genocide itself was only coined in the twentieth century to refer to current events. And again, sex slaves in licensed German brothels.

Oh well then, I guess since the word wasn't around and that some humans still commit crimes, I guess that completely refutes my argument that human society has determined things to be wrong that Yahweh couldn't.

You stated plain out that secular morality is superior.

...and pointing out that there are other bad ideologies out there is a logical fallacy called "Ad Hominem Tu Quoque." Just because there are other bad ideologies out there too does nothing to justify the abuses of religion.

Regarding group dynamics, both religious and secular groups can be dangerous. It’s a function of groups, not religion.

Any religion that promotes the idea of a faith-based scheme of salvation is inherently dangerous, given how high the stakes are. If saving thousands of souls for all eternity means killing some unrepentant heathen to prevent him from corrupting those thousands and leading them off the path of salvation, isn't that a good thing?

Religions also have reality checks that can eventually stop them. If the proof is in the pudding, consider that Europe hasn’t had an inquisition in some time now.

You can thank secular reason and modernity for that.

Seriously? A paper by a dinosaur illustrator with no training in social research is the best you can do?

Is ad hominems the best you can do or would you like to refute his findings?