BBC
Slightly professional rant here - but why does the BBC insist on lumping together religion and ethics?

Granted, many religious people think that they have special ethical insights. But of all the ethicists I know or have met - and that's a lot - I can only think of a small handful who're religious. Of those, the couple that bring religion into the debate are the ones with the least good arguments.

By this, I don't mean that their arguments are weakened by being religious - I mean that they're just weak.

Combining religion and ethics seems to be much more important to the religious than to ethicists...

Interesting, that.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 14:44, 8 replies)

Isn't it because the whole of Christianities
moral/ethical superiority* is predicated on the story that God himself called Moses to the top of Mount Sinai and handed down to him the Ten Commandments. A text that deemed exactly what was morally/ethically correct behaviour

Therefore, because they believe the word of God is infallible then their moral code is infallible too

*"we are moral and non-believers are dirty, amoral sinners destined to spend eternity in hell"
( applehead herp derp, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 14:57, closed)

...
Oh, there might be all kinds of reasons for it.

Oddly, the religious moralisers seem to go rather quiet at the mention of the Euthyphro dilemma...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 15:00, closed)

You've lost me there!
I suppose my reply could be summed up with the phrase "The religious are of the belief that they have the monopoly on morality/ethicality"
( applehead herp derp, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 15:05, closed)

Euthyphro dilemma
the religious have to take the "its moral because God says so" route to have any logical coherence to their system.

I would be fed up with Teh Rightious insisting that a moral system requires a sky fairy but since I'm the High Pubah of the Church of the *Spanky Lesbian Pixie Wenches* that would be hypocritical.
(Falco, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 18:43, closed)

bbc breakfast
I guess you saw that excuse for an item this morning, is Josef Fritzl EVIL.
I though it was a religious Item rather than news.
(Acidhouse, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 16:10, closed)

I'm glad I'm not the only one affronted by this little shortcut
I really resent the assumption made by a lot of people that being atheist means you have no moral basis to your life.

I think I may have to put up a post about the little booklet I was handed outside Clapham Junction, which tells us all, through the medium of a little comic book, why atheists are analogous to Nazis...
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 17:42, closed)

Totally agree....
.. It's much more significant to act in a moral way because that is how you believe you should live than to do so because you believe you will be damned for eternity if you don't do what God tells you.

Chimps, dogs, even crows I believe, can be shown to have an innate sense of fairness. If they can find this, we should be able to do so without that sort of threat.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 18:16, closed)

Spot On
Most religious types just do what the Big Book of Rules says (or what some has told them it says). Where's the bloody ethical judgment there? Anyone can follow a book of rules.
(ubergeekian, Sat 21 Mar 2009, 20:11, closed)