Sam harris, How the Sausage of faith Is Made

[Atheistoz]

Almost every pro-religious argument I've seen asserts that religion has a moral value that society benefits from. Even if proponents concede that the truth value of religion is low, they remain proponents by saying that the moral value is high. In other words, they fall back on saying that religion plays an important function in society even if it is factually wrong.
I know a priori that I don't need a faith to be a positive component of my environment. My morality emerges from my empathy, my ego, and my reasoning. If it can work for me, it can work for others, and for society as a whole. For me, the recognition of this does away with religion's final handhold, its moral monopoly. The whole thing is superfluous to me.

[robvalue]

It's nonsense, I agree. Religion is nothing to do with morality, at least not any definition of the word that I consider important.

[abaris]

But I'm always amazed by people needing some posterhead to come to a self evident conclusion. Really, I don't see the fascination. It's not as if the OP was an original thought to be pointed out.

[Chad32]

Yes, there's so much suffering that happens to people that has nothing to do with what they've done in their life. They get cancer not because they smoke a lot, or anything, but just because it happens. Even in the case of someone kidnapping another person to use them as a sex slave, you could say god cares more about the free will of the kidnapper, than the kidnapped. The free will argument doesn't work.