Well good advice is not dependant on religion. Religion can be a vehicle for trends and mindsets but religion isn' t the cause for these changes. A lubricant at best. I haven' t read a all of the Quran so I don' t know what medical benefits you' re talking about, unless you had pshychological stuff in mind. In any case, I' d much rather depend on modern medicin especially psychology to tend to my needs, as opposed to any book that is hundreds of years outdated.
Moving on to morality, religion borrows common sense and calls it their own. And that' s only if they aren' t completely bullshitting us. For example in Christianity, thou shall not steal. Well that' s just common sense. That' s a landmark in morality, and if you need the promise of heaven to know not to steal then you have a very poor sense of morality. One of the faults of religion is that they give you the mindset that you should be rewarded for making good moral judgements. The irony is that it' s a false promise (from an Athiest point of view). What I' m saying is that you can' t make a good moral judgement for the wrong reasons. You certainly can' t make a good moral judgement if it' s purely objective. Which I consider the biggest offence of religion. There are times when it would be amoral not to steal. It' s not the action that matters. It' s the consequences of the actions. Moraility is supposed to be a system of measuring the consequences of your actions, rather than a list of actions that are forbidden.
It' s very short sighted to measure morality by the action the way religions do. This is when you give a simple law without any room to interpret or gauge circumstances. For example " thou shal not kill" . It' s a generaly accepted that killing is bad. It' s an obvious strike against performance of our species by directely opposing survival. However, what if it was in self defence? What if the person you want to kill is an evil dictator?
Sometimes morality conflicts with itself, and you have to measure the lesser of two evils What if you need to steal a loaf of bread to feel your kids? Would that not be better than watching them starve to death. The rules in Christianity are either insufficient (by not allowing subjective reasoning), or they' re just wrong completely. Like " Neither shall you desire your neighbor' s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." SLAVERY Holy Shit! Then I would talk about the whole invisible sky daddy and how ridiculous that is. But I' d rather focus on why religion has it' s morality all wrong.
Much of Islam seems to be overt superstition. A lot of it is guidlines to life, we have much better material for that today. In some cases, you see strong signs of oppression in the laws. Ignorance is the root of religion. You can' t even start a religion today because peope are too smart, and information is accessible. Look at Scientology, people laugh at them. The only reason Islam and others still stand is because they have history and culture attached to them. These two things are important.
Wheather there is a god or not, I can tell you with 100% certainty that the Quran and the Bible are both full of shit. If you read it and you have to convince yourself against your better judgement that it might make sense, that' s your bullshit detector going off. Can' t eat meat? We' re omnivores for f.ucks sake! Look at our teeth. Maybe 5% wisdom, 80% stupidity and 15% lies.
< Message edited by agent ghost -- 12 Apr 08 17:38:04 >