On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:47:49 -0800, johac wrote:

Sam Harris on religion and morality.


---
Bad reasons to be good
Sam Harris
The Boston Globe

It's hard to imagine how anyone could disagree with what Sam has to say
about the evils that are inherent in religious belief. Of course, the
theists will try to find reasons. They will fail, but pretend they have
succeeded.

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:47:49 -0800, johac wrote:

Sam Harris on religion and morality.


---
Bad reasons to be good
Sam Harris
The Boston Globe

It's hard to imagine how anyone could disagree with what Sam has to say
about the evils that are inherent in religious belief. Of course, the
theists will try to find reasons. They will fail, but pretend they have
succeeded.

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:47:49 -0800, johac wrote:

Sam Harris on religion and morality.


---
Bad reasons to be good
Sam Harris
The Boston Globe

It's hard to imagine how anyone could disagree with what Sam has to say
about the evils that are inherent in religious belief. Of course, the
theists will try to find reasons. They will fail, but pretend they have
succeeded.

johac <jhachmann@sbcglobal.com> wrote in
news:jhachmann-4AE991.23474930102006@news.giganews.com:

---
Bad reasons to be good
Sam Harris The Boston Globe

JHac, I simply don't have enough time to spend online browsing for such
articles. Do you regularly post such to A.A? I greatly appreciated the
posting of this one and have added it to my personal collection. Thank
you for posting it. Thank you very much.

Pangur - nonchristian theist

johac <jhachmann@sbcglobal.com> wrote in
news:jhachmann-4AE991.23474930102006@news.giganews.com:

Sam Harris on religion and morality. ---
Bad reasons to be good
Sam Harris The Boston Globe

America's midterm elections are fast approaching, and their outcome
could well be determined by the "moral values" of conservative
Christians.

While this possibility is regularly bemoaned by liberals, the link
between religion and morality in our public life is almost never
questioned.

One of the most common justifications one hears for religious faith,
from all points on the political spectrum, is that it provides a
necessary framework for moral behavior. Most Americans appear to
believe that without faith in God, we would have no durable reasons to
treat one another well. The political version of this morality claim
is that the country was founded on "Judeo-Christian principles," the
implication being that without these principles we would have no way
to write just laws.

It is, of course, taboo to criticize a person's religious beliefs. The
problem, however, is that much of what people believe in the name of
religion is intrinsically divisive, unreasonable, and incompatible
with genuine morality.

The truth is that the only rational basis for morality is a concern
for the happiness and suffering of other conscious beings.

This emphasis on the happiness and suffering of others explains why we
don't have moral obligations toward rocks. It also explains why
(generally speaking) people deserve greater moral concern than
animals, and why certain animals concern us more than others. If we
show more sensitivity to the experience of chimpanzees than to the
experience of crickets, we do so because there is a relationship
between the size and complexity of a creature's brain and its
experience of the world.

Unfortunately, religion tends to separate questions of morality from
the living reality of human and animal suffering. Consequently,
religious people often devote immense energy to so- called "moral"
questions - such as gay marriage - where no real suffering is at
issue, and they will inflict terrible suffering in the service of
their religious beliefs.

Consider the suffering of the millions of unfortunate people who
happen to live in sub-Saharan Africa. The wars in this part of the
world are interminable. AIDS is epidemic there, killing around 3
million people each year. It is almost impossible to exaggerate how
bad your luck is if you are born today in a country like Sudan. The
question is, how does religion affect this problem?

Many pious Christians go to countries like Sudan to help alleviate
human suffering, and such behavior is regularly put forward as a
defense of Christianity. But in this case, religion gives people bad
reasons for acting morally, where good reasons are actually available.
We don't have to believe that a deity wrote one of our books, or that
Jesus was born of a virgin, to be moved to help people in need. In
those same desperate places, one finds secular volunteers working with
organizations like Doctors Without Borders and helping people for
secular reasons.

Helping people purely out of concern for their happiness and suffering
seems rather more noble than helping them because you think the
creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing
it, or will punish you for not doing it.

But the worst problem with religious morality is that it often causes
good people to act immorally, even while they attempt to alleviate the
suffering of others.

In Africa, for instance, certain Christians preach against condom use
in villages where AIDS is epidemic, and where the only information
about condoms comes from the ministry. They also preach the necessity
of believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ in places where religious
conflict between Christians and Muslims has led to the deaths of
millions.

Secular volunteers don't spread ignorance and death in this way. A
person need not be evil to preach against condom use in a village
decimated by AIDS; he or she need only believe a specific faith-based
moral dogma. In such cases we can see that religion can cause good
people to do fewer good deeds than they might otherwise.

We have to realize that we decide what is good in our religious
doctrines.

We read the Golden Rule, for instance, and judge it to be a brilliant
distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across
another of God's teachings on morality: If a man discovers that his
bride is not a virgin on their wedding night, he must stone her to
death on her father's doorstep (Deuteronomy 22: 13-21). If we are
civilized, we will reject this as utter lunacy. Doing so requires that
we exercise our own moral intuitions, keeping the real issue of human
happiness in view. The belief that the Bible is the word of God is of
no help to us whatsoever.

As we consider how to run our own society and how to help people in
need, the choice before us is simple: Either we can have a
21st-century conversation about morality and human happiness -
availing ourselves of all the scientific insights and philosophical
arguments that have accumulated in the last 2,000 years of human
discourse - or we can confine ourselves to an Iron Age conversation as
it is preserved in our holy books.

Wherever the issue of "moral values" surfaces, ask yourself which
approach to morality is operating. Are we talking about how to best
alleviate human suffering? Or are we talking about the whims of an
invisible God?

International Herald Tribune

Beautifully written. A condemnation of (especially fundamentalist)
christianity which is well deserved. And a logical, sensible, sane
suggestion for creating a 21st century civilization based on care for
others - even animals - and which alleviates suffering.

"The truth is that the only rational basis for morality is a concern for
the happiness and suffering of other conscious beings." is my favorite
statement.

Pangur - nonchristian theist - who is considering the comment about
rocks and morality

--- http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/30/opinion/edharris.php

johac wrote:

Sam Harris on religion and morality.


---
Bad reasons to be good
Sam Harris

<snip>

International Herald Tribune



---
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/30/opinion/edharris.php
--
John Hachmann aa #1782

Damn! This guy is good.
Very clear articulation of some key ideas.

I had heard his name before - but never actually heard or read him.
Now I will keep an eye out for anything from this guy...

Mark.

johac wrote:

Sam Harris on religion and morality.

<snip>

Consider the suffering of the millions of unfortunate people who happen
to live in sub-Saharan Africa.

<snip>

Isn't "sub-Saharan" simply a weasel-word that means black used by people
who know blacks in Africa have (are?) a problem but doesn't really want
to confront the thought head-on because it makes them queasy? Point to
sub-Saharan Africa on a map, then point to "black Africa". Notice
anything? Calling it sub-Saharan Africa makes it appear to be a
geographical issue not a "race" issue, so that's alright then, isn't it?