Russia says it will arrest openly gay tourists

[DeistPaladin]

I kind of start to like this Putin guy. His speech about minorities was quite inspiring, and the fact that he also puts value on traditional moral values in contrast to, "western liberalism", which I also stress when speaking about the recent moral decay in my country is a problem in many nations that refuse to be dominated by western cultural imperialism.

You know, in my post on "why secular morality is superior", my first point to support this thesis is that secular morals focus on what's really important (how we treat our fellow sentient beings) while religious-based morality gets distracted by a lot of crap that has nothing to do with morality, be it matters specific to the agenda of religion (prohibitions against blasphemy, idolatry and apostasy), the upholding of traditions specific to a given religion (prohibitions against homosexuality, dietary requirements, not working on the Sabbath, etc.) or exalting useless activities like prayer, church attendance or ritual performance.

Worse still, religion frequently places a priority on the said crap over how we treat one another as fellow sentients. Flip through the Bible or Koran and you'll often see references to "evil" that pertain more to the crap than to the real moral issues. For those who don't have time to read through either book, simply peruse the 10 Commandments and you'll see the first four speak about the jealous god and condemn blasphemy, idolatry and apostasy. 2 others are prohibitions against disrespect of one's parents (some parents are abusive and earn no automatic respect) and against "coveting" (a harmless activity that drives the economy). Only four out of ten deal with real moral issues.

Your post blathering about "moral decay" is a great case in point of how religion poisons our discussions of morality and ability to understand it. By persecuting homosexuals and inflicting misery upon them, Russia is actually acting immorally. In fact, very often "legislated morality" is an infringement on the rights of others, demonizes certain groups and jails and/or punishes people for victimless crimes.

At best, religion simply confuses our understanding of morality, dumping a bunch of pointless crap into the moral landscape, making it needlessly complex. At worst, religion inspires otherwise good people to do evil things.

Thank you for underscoring my point on the problem with religious-based morality and why non-believers and free-thinkers hold the moral high ground.

EDIT: To provide link to post on why secular morals are superior.