Date: 04-21-2007 11:17
Subject: religion/morality
The reason academics do not validate religion as a measurement for right and wrong is that too often religion is used as an indoctrination process to manipulate power and support a personal agenda. Indoctrinating the young when they're at their most vulnerable and religion go hand in hand with institutionalizing (read Foucault) which necessarily marginalizes and/or trivializes
Think what indoctrination did for Hitler.
Think who benefited from marginalizing did to the Native Americans and Japanese families after WWII.
Think clan.
Think what Christianity did for the Spanish Inquisition and Holy Wars.
Because we are terrified that natural man is evil, people feel religion is the only way to keep us in line. I see it from another perspective. If there is a GOD and It is indeed perfect and GOD created man, man would then have to be perfect. I had to ask myself if the reason I don’t covet other husbands is because Moses received something in stone telling me not to do it. No. I simply don't have an interest in any other man besides my husband. Nobody has to tell me to be that way. It just is. And lets say I did have that need, that tablet sure wouldn't stop the need. My thought would be it was time to separate ways, not support an unfulfilled desire.
We know right from wrong. We see consequences ourselves. Laws don't keep us from breaking them. We are necessarily dependent on something being "out there" to keep everything in order and secure, but frankly, those who are wrong are doing wrong. The Laws are supposedly there so we have some sort of recourse when our personal rights are being infringed on. The fact that our courts are so overloaded as to allow real criminals to get lost in the system and not being punished is a whole other story. Think Charles Manson.
Indoctrination doesn't solve anything. It only makes us conflicted. The reason an academic ethicist doesn't rely on religion to clarify a wrong is because religion doesn't give answers outside of "God said so." The question is then, who can really speak for GOD? Isn’t putting GOD into a religion like pouring the Nile into a thimble? There is no religion that can hold all of GOD. So much in this Universe we have yet to see...So much we don't know...
To find Truth, we must leave religion out of it and to find the right and why its right is not only to have a better argument, but a firmer sense of personal identity.
No comments:
Post a Comment