Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-174.22.192.132-20161104024309/@comment-28794147-20161209034852

Catfishperson wrote:

Rocket Engineer wrote: Lets try this again, minus the insane formatting screwup.

Actually, I'm pointing out that it's rather difficult to objectively verify that an atheist hasn't taken their moral code from a variety of religions, due to the fact that over their life, they were probably exposed to many religions and their teachings.

Politics and religion are and have been entwined for centuries. Religion influences the politicians and judges who make laws and enforce them. In addition, religion provides something that very few other things can provide: a coercive force which encourages politicians to act in the best interests of the people. If you believe that not doing so will result in eternal punishment, you would be a bit less likely to abuse your power. And the final reason is one which is, as you've pointed out, is pure speculation and opinion, and its that religion provides a moral backbone for the government.

As for the Constitution being a work of politics and religion, some sources for the ideas present in the Constitution were religious in origin, in addition to the ideas provided by John Locke and others. George Washington said "The adoption of the Constitution will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Providence as any event in the course of human affairs can designate it", one of the many statements by the founding fathers expressing their belief that God enabled the Constitution to come to be.

There, thats better. Again, when I first created, and adjust "my" moral rules, I am very, very, very careful to use purely my own judgement, and not let myself be influenced in any way by outside ideas. Really, I think all a person requires to come to any moral decision, is sympathy for others (you may dispute this.) I find it hard to believe that any person who is born with sympathy (and thats most everyone) will come to a conclusion different than most religious texts on "important" issues, (such as whether murder is bad.) And again, their are a few ideas in the Bible that I would classify as very imoral... For example, slavery, or that very large populations of people deserve to suffer the greatest possible torment for things that are not capable of changing...

I'm not denying that some people's political decisions are influenced by religion, I am saying that I think thats a bad thing. And no, I don't think people need the promise of eternal punishment for misbehavior to behave. I don't, for one (I think,) nor do other non-Christians/Muslims/Jews that I know. And like I said earlier, whenever religion gets to involved with politics, we get things like tyranny, manifest destiny, genocide, and mass-oppresion.

What sources would these be? George Washington also said "The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on Christian religion."
 * cough*

The Vatican isn't a tyrannical place. And neither was Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire. And neither was England until the Anglicans (no offfense to Anglicans by any means). Are you thinking about the Muslims, who have a real bad tendency to by tyrants?