Why Secular Morality is Superior

[John V]

It could be that secular morality has issues not found in some religious moralities.

Such as?

Such as animal rights, as I went on to say.

Let me give you an example of the crap that religion dumps onto our understanding of morality and how it's harmful and confusing: homosexuality. Both Islam and Christianity demonize it. Many devout Christians and Muslims consider it "immoral". This crap in turn leads to bullying and ostracizing of gays, creates self-loathing among gays, leads to gay suicide and the murder of gays and in some cases creates laws in which gays are actually put to death. In efforts to be moral, religions societies that embrace this crap become immoral.

Are you seriously claiming that no secular societies have discriminated against gays?

This seems to be why you're afraid to consider animal rights.

Start a thread on animal rights and I'll participate.

I just don't want you to get away with your tactic of red herring evasion. You're trying to muddy up the waters in the hopes that you can push a draw. I want to keep this discussion "simple". Can you justify the extra crap or no?[/quote]
By keeping it simple, you mean that you want to focus on the one part of your four-part argument which I’m not particularly protesting.

Here’s a fun analogy.

DP: Fish that doesn’t contain mercury is superior to fish that does contain mercury.
Brand A fish contains mercury.
Therefore Brand B fish is superior.

JV: Hold it there, cowboy. You need to evaluate brand B for mercury before making that conclusion.

DP: No I don’t! You’re muddying the waters with red herring diversion tactics! Can you justify the mercury content in Brand A? If not, I WIN, dammit!

JV: WTF…

And I addressed it. And your example of the ban on pot is arguably a religiously motivated law (most examples of legislated morality find more support among the devoutly religious than among atheists).

I was wondering when you’d fall into circular reasoning.

Holidays? Flags? These are "moral issues" to you?

Yes. Go burn a flag at an Independence Day celebration and you’ll find out that I’m not alone in that assessment.

Show how it isn't. I've now provided one example of how the extra crap is harmful.

Actually, no, you haven’t. The extra stuff consists of meaningless virtues and rituals, remember?

And yes, extra pointless complexity = bad. As Einstein observed, everything should be as simple as possible but not simpler.

Appeal to authority fallacy.