Bruce Gleason and the Backyard Skeptics of Orange County had a great idea. The Bible is full of immoral laws that no decent modern Christian or Jew would follow. Why not remove them from the Bible? For example:
- If a man finds his wife not to be a virgin, the community can stone her to death. (Deuteronomy 22: 14-31)
- Stone disobedient children. (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
- Only women who have children will be spared hell. (1 Timothy 2:15)
- Prostitution is punished by burning the woman alive. (Leviticus 21:9)
- Jesus said, "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." (Luke 19:27)
What did the Christians say about this? Well, good ol' Ray Comfort (the infamous banana man who has been widely ridiculed) showed up to give his usual silly response. Basically, his message was we shouldn't "blame Christians for Jewish Scriptures." Wait ... wasn't Jesus a Jew?
Ray Comfort went on to enlighten us even more. "Atheists are a very, very tiny minority, but very loud. They're like chihuahuas. They're yappy little creatures because they've got an inferiority complex."
Good stuff, Ray! How thoughtful!
It should be a fun meeting the Backyard Skeptics on Thursday. See you all there!
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I have no morality. I have ethics.
ReplyDeleteMorality is an evolved social trait, shared by only two species, man & chimpanzee (but not the bonobo).
The purpose of morality is to overrule the primary evolved instinctual behavior of all social animals: you don't kill your own kind.
While there are common behavioral tactics involving infanticide (harem keeping males often kill all the young when taking over the harem to eliminate the competition from the genes of previous dominant males), there are powerful hardwired behavioral restrictions on killing those of your own species, as evidenced by limits on mate competition (it is extremely rare for mammals to kill competing males for access to females) & patterns of play in social animals.
So, what is morality and how did it evolve?
Morality is evidenced in chimpanzees by the practice of gangs of young males who patrol/invade territorial borders for the purpose of finding & attacking isolated males. When the gang finds a victim he is attacked & brutally mobbed, with special attention being paid to mutilation of the victim's sexual organs. Such attacks are nearly always fatal. There is evidence that some bands of chimps use these techniques so effectively that they exterminate neighboring groups by killing the males & kidnapping the females.
We humans also have evolved such "morality", leading to most of the horrors of human history. We are able to act "morally"; hating, dehumanizing & exterminating our peers because of their "immorality".
Perhaps someday we humans might abandon the destructiveness of behaving "morally" for some genuine ethical behavior before we exterminate ourselves.