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- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!zazen!uwec.edu!nyeda
- From: nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu (David Nye)
- Newsgroups: alt.atheism
- Subject: Re: Moral Liberty
- Message-ID: <1993Jan2.234441.3030@cnsvax.uwec.edu>
- Date: 2 Jan 93 23:44:41 -0600
- Organization: University of Wisconsin Eau Claire
- Lines: 29
-
- [reply to wooyoung@acs.bu.edu]
-
- >Whether one believes in god or not, he or she cannot deny the fact that
- >religion is a social institution that guides the morality of the
- >society...The religious organizations should learn and adopt to the
- >societal changes. They should try to balance Skinnerian approach
- >(inducing behavior with positive and negative feedbacks) with more
- >humanistic approach (e.g. educating the value of "just" behavior)
-
- While it is true that religions have traditionally been the teachers of
- morality, there is nothing about a belief in God that makes one more
- moral. In fact, religion confuses morality by mixing ethics with taboos
- and superstitions, and it hardly needs mentioning that a great deal of
- immorality is committed in the name of God. For example, the current
- war in former Yugoslavia is not an ethnic war but rather a religious
- one. The warring Serbs, Croats, and Muslims are of the same ethnic
- origin but have different religions.
-
- Secular Humanism was founded as an atheistic ethical philosophy. It
- proved that it is quite possible for people to agree on an ethical canon
- (the Humanist Manifestos I and II) just by asking what would lead to the
- best existence for all mankind. I sincerely believe that the world
- would be a better place if everyone abandoned religion and became a
- Secular Humanist. I don't really buy the argument that fear of Hell
- keeps people in line. If there is any effect of religious membership on
- moral behavior, it is more likely peer group pressure.
-
- David Nye
- nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu
-
