[MD] The Moral Landscape

[Platt Holden]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 8:55 AM, Steven Peterson
<peterson.steve at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Platt,
>
>
> Platt:
> > Today's NYTimes has an interesting article entitled, "Morals Without
> God?" The
> > author, a biologist, writes:
> >
> > "It is impossible to know what morality would be like without religion.
> It
> > would require a visit to a human culture that is not now and never was
> > religious. That such cultures do not exist should give us pause."
> >
> > Some cultures come very close to being "without religion." Their
> contribution
> > to human well-being is somewhat less than Harris would approve. North
> Korea
> > comes to mind. And looking back at cultures without religion in the 20th
> > century -- "The horror!"  Concentration camps, gulags, the Great Leap
> Forward --
> > those are just the tip of the human misery from "rational" social
> policies,
> > exceeding by far the suffering caused in the name of religion.
> >
> > The author concludes with this observation:
> >
> > "Any framework we develop to advocate a certain moral outlook is bound to
> > produce its own list of principles, its own prophets, and attract its own
> > devoted followers, so it will soon look like any old religion."
> >
> > A cautionary note lest our approval of Pirsig, Harris or any other
> > "rationalist" becomes a cult.
>
>
> Steve:
> I haven't been following moq,org for a while. Did I miss the part
> where you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? It is my
> understanding that you don't accept the truth of any of the world's
> religions, yet you seem to be arguing here that religion is
> nevertheless necessary. Necessary for _other_ people. You seem to
> think that you are defending religious people, but on the contrary,
> your view is entirely condescending towards them. You see them as
> dangerous children who need religion to keep them under control so
> they don't turn into Pol Pots. Though you don't believe in virgin
> births, living gods, and the like, you think that it is good for other
> people to believe such falsehoods. Maybe you are right (I don't think
> so) but let's at least be clear about which one of us is treating
> religious people as responsible selves who have worth as individuals
> and would prefer not to be deceived about the world and which one of
> us treats human beings as sheep who need comforting falsehoods. Unless
> I missed something and you have recently found Jesus, then your
> so-called respect for faith is no more than condescension.
>
> Platt
You appear to transferring a lot of your own feelings towards "religious
people" to me. I don't think a lot of the moral teachings of various
religions are "falsehoods," nor do I think persons of faith are necessarily
"deceived." Rather I think anyone who thinks they know better than
other people about spiritual matters is not only deceiving himself, but
poses a danger to others. Certainly history shows that to be the case.
What I know is that I know little. So I don't condemn an entire group
who, by their acts of charity, may have something of value to teach me.

Best,
Platt