I'm agnostic at best but was very pleased with the discussion that took place between my Facebook friends when I posted the article there. The main players in the conversation were me, a close personal friend for more than 20 years named Bryan, and a brilliant local comedian that I hold in high regard for his humor, humility, and powerful intelligence: Bill Kilpatrick. I am on the anti-religion side, Bryan falls on the pro-religion side, and Bill is somewhere in the middle, too informed for his own good. Here is how it went:
Bill: I was just thinking about what a pariah religion is. You don't really fathom the mind-abuse until you start pulling back the layers.
Bryan: That's because kids are basically mini retards until the brain fully develops analytical thought around 18 to 25 years of age. Faith is the most challenging thing there is to hold on to, but something made the Big Bang occur..... I rest my hat on whatever started that is the intelligent designer and science is us peeling back the facade of its blueprints. I do believe hardcore bible-banging parents/guardians can be abusive in pushing their kids too hard to believe something that their minds can't fathom. Sound moral and ethical teaching can be derived from the New Testament, though, whether you believe it to be true history or not.
Mike: That's an entirely different argument, Bryan. This article cites the fact that we are trying to teach the developing mind how to be analytical, while simultaneously filling their head with counterproductive magical faith fairy tales. Why is it okay with us as reasonable creatures that a child believes that a Supreme Being took the form of a burning bush to talk to a man, but we have to eventually tell them that Santa Claus is not real? Morality and the ethical treatment of others are not founded in religion but related to basic humanity. Religion does not equal morality any more than the lack of religion equals lack of morality (for examples of quite the opposite, see also: Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, the current Muslim extremism, genocidal tribal conflicts in Africa, etc.). We should only be teaching children known scientific facts, and leave it up to their parents and themselves as to whether or not to take on religion or other beliefs pertaining to faith. And we should not be surprised that they have difficulty in grasping scientific concepts and basic problem-solving skills when we teach them that was created in 7 days, a woman was made from a man's rib, and that prayer is the most powerful thing in the universe. We'll have to see how far that gets them on their biology exams.
Sound moral and ethical teaching can also be derived from the Koran, the Old Testament, and good teachers with absolutely no religious affiliation whatsoever. It makes me nuts when people say that we need to get our moral and ethical guidance from any stupid religion. This is basically saying that we as human beings are entirely incapable of being moral or ethical without religion. Meanwhile, we wrote these books. God did not.
Bill: In the Holy Bible, mankind plummets from grace for eating the wrong fruit from a tree placed smack-dab in the middle of the garden; Cain murders his brother; God decides to drown the entire human race; Noah gets drunk, gets naked and curses one of his sons; Abraham lies about being married; Abraham knocks up the maid, then his wife kicks her out; Isaac blesses the wrong kid; Jacob cons his brother out of his birthright; his uncle tricks him into marrying the wrong daughter; Jacob beds four women who compete for his love by having 12 kids; a prince rapes the sister of Simeon and Levi, so they trick a village into getting circumcised, then slaughter the men and take their wives and children; Joseph's brothers beat him, bind him, toss him in a hole, then sell him into slavery; to hide their crime, they lie to their father and tell him his son was devoured by beasts; Moses finds God while on the lam for killing a guy; God makes the Egyptians an offer they can't refuse by killing the first male in each family; someone is killed and cut into pieces and the pieces are scattered; Samuel cuts a king's head off; a woman makes love to a man and then drives a nail through his head after he passes out; Judah bangs his daughter-in-law after confusing her for a prostitute, then wants her set on fire till she produces evidence of his involvement with her; God sends a wild bear to devour teens for mocking his prophet; David knocks up Uriah's wife, then makes sure he dies in battle; one of David's sons rapes his sister; a prophet marries a known prostitute and gives their children weird names; Elijah slaughters the priests of a rival cult; and that's just in the Old Testament. P.S. I left out the part where God commands Moses to commit genocide. P.S. II - I left out the part where Lot bangs his daughters in a cave.
Mike: Brilliant, Bill. Really speaks to the "moral" lessons of the bible.
Bryan: Bill, you're awesome. Seriously, I love an intelligent argument. I hear what you are saying and battle with those same arguments in my mind all the time. I believe we humans have pussified God and don't want to recognize that He is extreme justice! That is why it is wise to fear God. I'm not an advocate for the bible in the sense that I believe everything stated actually is meant to be taken as fact, but a lot of it is stories to emphasize some point or to give examples of the powerlessness we have to God.
I was just offering an example of a place where morals and ethics could be found, such in the parables of the New Testament and definitely Proverbs! However, as you state, morals and ethics don't have to come from religion. You don't have to have any religious beliefs to be a great person. That can just be a part of your character.
Mike: Man created myths, legends, and religion as a way of explaining things that could not be understood at the time, and to guide social behavior for the betterment of mankind. We didn't know why that big hot ball was in the sky, so we made up Apollo and his chariot. Mishandled pork products led to the "cloven hoof" rules that observant Jews follow, infection issues led to circumcision, and so on. When technology, philosophy, and other forms of human enrichment expanded our understanding of the universe around us, we dismissed these myths as misinformed tales of a primitive society. Curious that we hold on to this in this day and age. Sure, there are gaps in our understanding ("What created the Big Bang, then?"), but we should not hang our hat on the definitive answer being that it is "obviously" God. I won't rule it out because IT IS STILL NOT UNDERSTOOD, but that certainly isn't the only possible explanation, and it is furthest from the most logical.
Bryan: I called God a "He" dammit! I hate when I do that as that's been ingrained in my head! Mike, God is just the term I use for the creator. In my logic, something started it all and whatever that is/was to be God.
Mike: To your point, Bryan. I'm obviously not religious, but if I were, I don't see how a creator made us in his image, supposedly loves us, but demands that we always fear him or face smite and damnation. That's not something that I'm interested in worshipping. He's an abusive father, drunk with power, and lacks fear due to having no equal. I'm not going to be the beaten girlfriend pleading to the cops not to take him because "I had it coming! If I'd only shut my stupid mouth!"
I don't fear anything that never actually proved itself to exist. I fear car crashes and polar bears and weaponized uranium in the hands of religious fanatics and unruly children, but I don't fear ghosts, gods, or Michael Myers. To the best of my understanding, those things have never actually happened.
Bill: There is a huge leap between allowing for the existence of God (whatever that term may mean; there's no consensus on the definition) and the Bible's front-loaded answers: His name is Yahweh; he's got anger-management issues; he created the world in six days, took a powder on the seventh; he sometimes goes by Elohim, which is confusing because it literally means "the gods"; made men from mud, women from a rib; he lives in Heaven, which is actually the arch or expanse between the upper and lower waters (That's why the sky and ocean are both blue); he made fish and fowl the same day; he made the first day before he made the Sun; he made the stars "also"; he is a "jealous god" and has homicidal impulses; he made rainbows as a "whoops," not as the diffraction of sunlight by the presence of precipitation as a prism; there's only one God but he's also a single parent but it doesn't matter because he and his son are one; he plays favorites with the different tribes of mankind; he likes Israel - undoubtedly because of the moral behavior exhibited by its history - even though he has also allowed Israel to be held captive by the Egyptians, partially scattered by the Assyrians, scattered again by the Babylonians, freed by the Persians, decimated by the Greeks, scattered again by the Romans, slaughtered by the nazis and then brought back by the UN, so that Israel could get shelled by Palestinian amateurs, so that the IDF could turn around and slaughter Palestinian kids at play; he hates smart fruit; he also hates ham and shellfish; he commanded Moses to make the 7th day holy, along with a bunch of Jewish holidays - until the Christians came along, changed the sabbath to Sunday and replaced Jewish holidays with Pagan ones; he sent his son/himself into the world to bash Jews, suck up to the Romans, get killed by the Romans, blame the Jews, have his body disappear, declare the missing body evidence that he is arisen; and start a whole new deal with the human race: Believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God Almighty and pray to him; if you do this, you go to Heaven, regardless of what you did in this life; if you question this story, you go to Hell, to burn for all eternity, along with every non-Christian - good or bad - because God is about justice.
Mike: I love you, Bill, and I don't care if the bible frowns upon it. BTW, I love this thread and everyone on it. It's not heated, argumentative, or attacking. And everyone here seems to know what they're talking about, no matter what side they are on. Good job for once, Facebook.
Bryan: Awesome comment: "He hates smart fruit!" I'm gonna keep that one in mind. I hate typing on my phone so this philosophical-theological debate is over for me, but I'm glad Mike keeps intelligent company. I have many thoughts upon all these matters that would agree with probably 50% of your points, but I can tell the most fundamental aspects would be disagreeable.
So people from different backgrounds, experiences, religious beliefs, cultural ideals, ages, and ideologies can have intelligent conversations? On social media? Without anger, racism, hate, or otherwise disagreeable behavior? Maybe we're not doomed...
For more discussions like this, or to start one of your own with me, check me out on Facebook here.
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