I agree with pretty much all of your points, especially the ones regarding American politics. But the Bible is a collection of books, none of them claiming to be the actual word of God but with authors (who declare themselves from the get go, usually, like in Ecclesiastes)… I think the only thing given divine origin is actually the TC? There’s a lot of wisdom therein, and also a lot of nonsense made my men in power to keep their power and excuse their excesses, that’s obvious. And in both the OG books and the NT, Paulian letters being the main example of NT nonsense (faith without works? That’s just hypocrisy, lol). Only someone who’s not read the Bible would say it’s the word of God, anyone who has would say it’s the word of nameless authors, and then David, Solomon, there’s the apostles in there too and also Paul.
And a society should still have a baseline ideology with a moral framework in it which should be inculcated in everyone since they’re young, else you have amoral beasts, hedonists, roaming around and no social cohesion besides meaningless things that can be used against you like race, for example. Religion in America, and Christianity in many places, is completely disconnected from morality, when the religion of Moses is, evidently, a religion of moral duty since the one thing God truly communicated was that! You can just confess, or trust the “grace” that comes from believing a man is a deity, or give money to your local megachurch pastor and you’re good! Nevermind God and his judgement, we can trick him! Lol. If you’re left with a nasty aftertaste from being and seeing what “religious” means in America, I understand, but know that, just like your for-profit prisons, police/school shootings and ICE, they are (at least to the degree they’ve been taken to) pretty much just American issues…
There’s no reason we can’t have a moral baseline based on philosophy, community and intrinsic fairness. What we need is secular education without an arbitrary morality being preached based on some sort of sky fairy.
That’s been tried in the West pretty much since the days of Nietzsche without any moral development. I mean, Western imperialism is as naked as it could ever be today. 🤷 But maybe, sure, maybe.
No worse that the faux morality that comes from religion. And generally a lot better as it can be questioned, discussed and improved. There are plenty of Western countries where religious dogma is no longer connected to governance. It’s really mostly just the U.S. that has regressed.
I agree with pretty much all of your points, especially the ones regarding American politics. But the Bible is a collection of books, none of them claiming to be the actual word of God but with authors (who declare themselves from the get go, usually, like in Ecclesiastes)… I think the only thing given divine origin is actually the TC? There’s a lot of wisdom therein, and also a lot of nonsense made my men in power to keep their power and excuse their excesses, that’s obvious. And in both the OG books and the NT, Paulian letters being the main example of NT nonsense (faith without works? That’s just hypocrisy, lol). Only someone who’s not read the Bible would say it’s the word of God, anyone who has would say it’s the word of nameless authors, and then David, Solomon, there’s the apostles in there too and also Paul.
And a society should still have a baseline ideology with a moral framework in it which should be inculcated in everyone since they’re young, else you have amoral beasts, hedonists, roaming around and no social cohesion besides meaningless things that can be used against you like race, for example. Religion in America, and Christianity in many places, is completely disconnected from morality, when the religion of Moses is, evidently, a religion of moral duty since the one thing God truly communicated was that! You can just confess, or trust the “grace” that comes from believing a man is a deity, or give money to your local megachurch pastor and you’re good! Nevermind God and his judgement, we can trick him! Lol. If you’re left with a nasty aftertaste from being and seeing what “religious” means in America, I understand, but know that, just like your for-profit prisons, police/school shootings and ICE, they are (at least to the degree they’ve been taken to) pretty much just American issues…
There’s no reason we can’t have a moral baseline based on philosophy, community and intrinsic fairness. What we need is secular education without an arbitrary morality being preached based on some sort of sky fairy.
That’s been tried in the West pretty much since the days of Nietzsche without any moral development. I mean, Western imperialism is as naked as it could ever be today. 🤷 But maybe, sure, maybe.
No worse that the faux morality that comes from religion. And generally a lot better as it can be questioned, discussed and improved. There are plenty of Western countries where religious dogma is no longer connected to governance. It’s really mostly just the U.S. that has regressed.