Russia says it will arrest openly gay tourists

[kılıç_mehmet]

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.

For a moral standard to be superior, it only needs to gain acceptance from a large number of people. For example, is it moral to implement a policy that would distrupt social peace, but perhaps grant a single individual the right to do that?
In my opinion, morality is not defined by singularity, it is defined by multitudes, and what they have agreed upon as being moral, and indeed beneficial to society.
In many ways, this is yet still secular, meaning, worldly, and as you believe that all religions and gods are false, you also assert that any morals that stem from religion are also worldly. On the other hand, those who believe in them, state that these morals come rom God, and indeed, who would prefer the moral standpoint of a human to that of a God?
In any case, what you deem to be secular is a matter of how you look at it.

As to come to what you define in your so-called secular moral viewpoints, I can say this that your morals actually do describe the bare minimum moral standards for a person to get through the day without killing maiming, or otherwise raping or robbing someone. Live and let live, and as long as you can manage that, you're good to go. However, as with everything that your secular morals, in actuality, a way of feeling better when you do things that you know that normal society detests. Many of those who speak to me of such morals deem it perhaps quite moral to commit adultery, two legit people who agree on sexual intercourse, in spite of being legally married. However, in my viewpoint it is morally wrong to claim that such things are morally okay.
So is for example, lying to someone. In most cases, lying really hurts no one. One side is certainly nothing more than ignorant about the issue that concerns the lie, and the other is aware.
So from your so-called secular viewpoint, committing adultery, and then lying about it to your spouse is morally okay. Your spouse knows nothing, and you've gotten away with what you've done. But no one got harmed, and you also have pleased yourself, something which ought to be moral, as you feel good while you're doing it.

In truth, this is what it's all about.
A drug user too, only hurts himself in a physical sense, but he also allows for the production, sell, and widespread usage of such vile substances that also promote social and moral decay, with his contribution to it. Is his use of drugs moral? No. But since you view morality on a very individual basis, you simply regard the very basic concepts as the only moral guidelines in your life. You do not value anything beyond the ego, the self, as a standpoint for your morals.

Traditional morals on the other hand, provide people with a purpose of serving a greater whole, and therefore, serving oneself, and ones who he holds dear to him/her. Traditional morals are those who actually promote the well treatment of your fellow man. Obviously sexually immoral acts, such as public indecency of all sorts, harm society as a whole, as they perpetrate the notion that a person only exists to sample the pleasures of life, while having no greater purpose beyond that of serving one's carnal desires, and also drive "the economy" as you said, a nice way to put it, considering today's economy is ruled by your lax moral standards, in which people only serve themselves.

I'd like to add one thing, religion for the most part, does not drive the traditional morals of any society. Its use is to reinforce it by giving it a celestial origin, while you obviously reject the notion of that aswell, I'm not really sure why you oppose people who would rather claim a divine source for their otherwise very worldly morals.