Also, I completely disagree with the notion that our ("western") moral values somehow stem directly from the 10 commandments. Every culture that has advanced enough has developed similar moral values sooner or later - regardless of their religious views.
Yes, but that does not prove the implication false. Western culture has moral values which we can find mirrored in the Ten Commandments. Clearly this has nothing to do with whether they are a message from God or from the milkman, but the connection is there. The fact that more or less every other civilization has come to similar conclusions is also not a spectacularly strong argument against either the divine origin of the values themselves, or their still bearing weight until this day. Actually, quite the contrary, as it seems fairly easy to imagine a supernatural entity who whispers similar information in the minds of individuals in very different cultures.
But I understand that my opinions are often pretty much just negatory of anti-religious views, while they seldom add anything (since, after all, I'm not a believer myself). So let me try to gently prod the discussion in what I consider a more productive direction.
It's pretty much universally agreed upon that moral values and the strategies for a community's (or the entire species') survival overlap, up to a point. Stressing how prohibiting rape and murder is perfectly rational is unnecessary, in this conversation, because we know it. Religious people do, too, unless they're utterly stupid. Then again, if they're utterly stupid they remain unaware of the implications even if they're not religious, so we're back to square one.
The reason why some remain religious
despite agreeing on the biological, physical, and ultimately rational connections between morals and convenience is that they understand God to have been orchestrating the whole mess
beforehand, down to all the natural explanations and basic instincts (yes, he directed the movie as well) the human mind can discover and comprehend.
To have this topic go somewhere - besides the usual animosity - we could discuss what non-believers think lies behind the structure of the physical world: is it happenstance? necessity? things are just happening in random directions and humans try to force them into a meaning? on the contrary, things could never be any other way because there are no multiple possibilities, only a single reality?
It is common sense for a civilized person not to steal, not to kill and not to hump your neighbor's wife
Well, it depends on what you call
common sense. To me, common sense is when I pick up a plate straight from the oven once, wail and weep in pain nursing my burned fingers, and never do it again. It's "sense", because I learned from experience to avoid unnecessary pain, and it's "common" because everyone who's not short a couple of chromosomes can get there.
With due respect, I wouldn't put all crimes in the above category. Not even most of them. And, while I might feel instinctual aversion towards rape, someone else might not, and I still hope he can find reasons to resist, no matter how appealing it may seem to him.
Sweeping everything under the "if you think about it you'll see it's wrong" carpet is a mistake: it takes far more than a pinch of goodwill and some logic to stick to the rule of never killing anybody, for instance. Conflicting circumstances throughout history gave people reasons to doubt whether killing should be warranted. Systems of beliefs are involved when you have to take a stance about suicide, euthanasia, and hundreds of other issues. In short, it's not math. And while I support a non-religious approach to each and every one of these issues, I don't encourage facing them as if you were an accountant, where the smallest body count always wins.
Religions provide their followers with the codes we all need to determine right or wrong in situations that are far from black and white. A personal set of beliefs aims to achieve the same things, and those among us who have no spiritual beliefs whatsoever do draw their conclusions about good and bad from somewhere else. Somewhere deeper and more elaborate than common sense.
- only a person without actual moral values needs to be afraid of hell not to do those crimes.
Fear of punishment has a similar value in most religions as it does in secular law: it's supposed to be subordinate to an understanding of the reasons why you shouldn't act in a certain way, and it ends up coming to the foreground when the individuals involved are, for lack of a better term, idiots.
This is to say that "Thou shalt not commit adultery, for it maketh thee impure, and also lest the fiery pits of Hell shall scorch thy flesh for eternity" is a lot like "If you fuck your neighbor's wife things are going to be a mess, so please don't. Oh, and by the way, if you do I'll force you to pay alimony through the nose". You might as well say that only a person without actual moral values needs to be afraid of going to jail not to commit crimes. Again: idiots!
We can do "good" even if we are not told by some "holy person" what that "good" includes
Christianity contends that God and the set of values the Church calls good existed before said Church, and it was therefore possible to do good even without anyone telling you. Furthermore, it is nowadays possible for a stranded heathen on the island of Buggerall to do good without even suspecting the existence of the clergy. The point you want to criticize here, the point you
really want to criticize here (I think), is that religions assume "good" is an absolute they alone know inside and out, and everyone else who does good stumbles into it, as it were, by accident.
If you've waited until now to read something unbeliever-ish, I'll give you this: a merciful and just God would
not allow this diatribe to take place again on this forum.
