[ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 179, Issue 2

[William Flynn Wallace]

I think the best counter to the morality question is to direct them back to
their own holy books, and ask why, for instance, they don't own slaves,
beat their wives, work on Sunday, avoid wearing mixed fabrics etc., etc.
(best not ask these kind of questions of islamic fundamentalists, though!).

-- 
Ben Zaiboc

I went to a Southern Baptist college for three years (the first thing I
would pick if I could change my earlier life), and I can tell you what they
say when you confront them with contradictions.  Ask why women don't wear
something on their heads in church (mandated in the New Testament), and
they get a little embarrassed and say that well, it's just a custom and
that was back then, and this is now, and it doesn't have anything to do
with being holy, and so on.

Then ask them if some things are relative only to the time when the Bible
was written and some things are eternally true, how do you decide which is
which?  Which is absolute?  I have never gotten any answer to this one.

The Old Testament is generally ignored by the Baptists except when they
find something they like there.  Leviticus in particular is avoided.  (My
OT prof taught us that wine in those days was like Coca Cola - we were way
too afraid of him to differ).

Hypocrisy abounds, as we all know.

Ben is right in that religious courses tend to be Christian and
proselytizing.  But that's not to say that it can't be done right.  I would
have it taught as a history course.  The first thing I would teach:
Empiricism, Rationalism, Authoritarianism, Intuitionism.  And so would many
other teachers and that's why it is not taught at all.  Protestants in
general in my experience don't want students taught how to think.  They
want them taught what to think.

bill w

On Sun, Aug 5, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ben Zaiboc <ben at zaiboc.net> wrote:

>
> On 04/08/2018 17:38, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote:
>
> We sadly need religion taught in schools, despite the biases and evils
> that can occur.
>
>
> It has been amazing to me the number of people who ask how atheists can
> have any kind of morality outside of religion, and even assuming that we
> don't!
> We sadly need religion taught in schools, despite the biases and evils
> that can occur.
>
>
> We badly need education *about* religion, that I'd agree wholeheartedly.
>
> Sadly, 'religious education' seems to always consist in religious
> indoctrination, and is biased towards the particular religion that holds
> sway where the students happen to live.  Even when the RE includes other
> religions, it still takes a superstitious, supernatural worldview as the
> norm, and doesn't actually investigate what religions actually are, how
> they arise, and why.
>
> I think the best counter to the morality question is to direct them back
> to their own holy books, and ask why, for instance, they don't own slaves,
> beat their wives, work on Sunday, avoid wearing mixed fabrics etc., etc.
> (best not ask these kind of questions of islamic fundamentalists, though!).
>
> --
> Ben Zaiboc
>
>
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> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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