Morality
Christians speak of an “objective moral law giver” or “God” as being imperative to having a basis for morality. But a “moral law” is an oxymoron. Morality comes from within not without. It is a personal response to a particular situation, the consideration of consequences to one’s actions. It demands the best of us— wisdom, empathy, and courage not mere obedience to authority.
My friend, Jason Heatherly, shared this story about his experience with Christianity. His willingness to question authority and his courage to go against the grain of a group’s idea of goodness, is to my mind, an excellent example of true morality:
“I grew up protestant primarily because my mother’s father was a protestant preacher. My dad never really claimed a denomination, just sorta went through the motions. In High School I was involved in a christian group called young life. It's pretty popular amongst HS kids and it was mostly just to socialize for me more than anything. The summer I graduated from HS in 2001 I went to a camp in Virginia and Florida and West Virginia. It was a blast. White water rafting and the beach and the girls on the trip I didn’t mind either, but then we got to the actual camp and I sat through and listened every night to what these guys were telling me and I just couldn't buy it. It was all scare tactics.
“There was a moment out in the camp where we were to all go somewhere and sit by ourselves and “think” for 15 minutes. I sat there, and watched everyone else sitting there and thought something was off. We came back in and everyone was to pass a mic around and say they have “given their life to christ” or just pass the mic. Well, out of 500 kids, I was the only one to just pass the mic. I remember afterwards my camp leader, who was also my basketball coach, asked if I had a bible. I remember laughing a little bit.
“Since then I got really into learning more about religion, and that just turned into realizing how much sense it actually doesn‘t make. So I have been an atheist (not as outspoken as I used to be about it) for about 5 or 6 years. I have lost friends over it, had gf break up with me over it, had people tell me they feel sorry for me. Nothing actually irritates me more than the ‘religious right.’”
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5 comments:
This is an inspirational story. The further I get away from my christian roots and deprogram myself, the sillier the whole thing looks to me. Sometimes it seems like fewer people than ever are getting the message. I have a hard time understanding why people do not notice that when there is religion, there is usually irrationality. Example - New UN Resolution on Defaming Islam. It's 2009 people - this is MAJOR scary. Check out this website: http://www.usmessageboard.com/current-events/70382-un-to-make-defamation-of-islam-illegal.html
Nice to hear from you, Janet! Thanks for the link. Scary indeed! I think any time freedom of speech is curbed it is frightening. But it is a tough area to navigate.
It seems it calls for common sense (seemingly more and more lacking in our world). We should all be free to voice our opinions, to criticize a belief or behavior, etc, but obviously we have to draw the line at someone inciting hatred and violence and navigating what exactly crosses that line is not always so easy.
Another article from my man Hitchens on the UN resolution:
http://www.slate.com/id/2212662
Hitchens nailed it. It's surprising to me that in an era of increased access to information that much of the world is becoming much more regressive. It's like a backlash against a potentially healthy and cooperative world. These religious nuts just can't have it. If they don't have division and anger, something to fight for, they have no purpose. Even the American GOP is becoming scarily similar to extremist Islam. They call for the overthrow of democratic government in favour of theocracy and far-right ideals. I personally believe that if it were not for religion, and the imflammatory nature of 'holy books', we would have evolved much further as homo sapiens.
I think there is little doubt that religious belief has set us back hundreds of years in so many ways. Technological, scientific, human and animal rights, concern for the earth itself.
Thinking about the brutal murder of Hypatia at the hands of Christians and the torching of the Library of Alexandria filled with the wisdom of the ages will forever make me sick.
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