the only moral teaching you need is the golden rule. no need for religion and fairy tales to teach that.

kastor on December 21, 2012 at 10:07 AM

Then morality would be subjective to whim. If Mary feels suicidal, murders committed by her are sanctioned. If Bob feels like getting raped, etc…

So the alternatives are 1) letting societies vote on the fundamental “golden rules” (meaning rights are a product of the state), 2) believing that religions’ definition of God dictates the fundamental rules or 3) having an ideology like Objectivism that claims that an objective morality is apparent from reason and observation of the natural world.

moral orientation.
The one thing that religion has in spades, in a higher density than anywhere else, is good morals and a way to teach them effectively.

astonerii on December 21, 2012 at 8:49 AM

the only moral teaching you need is the golden rule. no need for religion and fairy tales to teach that. i get the “morality” of the teachings of jesus but again he pretty much said to be good to people, golden rule type stuff. the jeffersonian bible is a good tool.

but to say religion and the bible and god to be beacons of morality, well, that is a joke. i could go on and on about the shortcomings of the morality of god and the bible, but just to know that it endorses slavery should be all that you need to hear to be appalled.

Many scientists interviewed explicitly stated that they did not want to indoctrinate their children into atheism

This is silly. If you truly believe in something, then won’t you pass it on as truth to your children? Otherwise I have to ask if you let the kids discover that fire burns, gravity makes you fall from buildings, and you can’t breathe through a plastic bag all on their own, too?

(Disclosure: I am not an atheist.)