godless morality is inferior? (religiorant)

Far too often, I've seen religious people imply that the atheist or the agnostic person is somehow less endowed with morality than the religious person, some of these religious fundamentalists will even contend that the A/A crowd have no morals at all.

God abiding morality is the only morality?

Ignoring the actual morals themselves for the moment, but how can a such a close minded staunch religious person accuse the A/A crowd of having lesser morals or even no morals at all, in the first place?

Especially hypocritical is how this type of religious person doesn't even *know* the people they are accusing of being immoral! This attitude says to me that they think god abiding morality is the only morality, because morals can only be possessed by those who believe in god.

Which is exactly what many christians will even outright say themselves.

But anybody summarily dismissing the morals of another person out of hand without even knowing that person, simply because they don't believe in the same god as them, has little to no reason to refer to themselves as being morally superior.

Religious Morals are Superior?

Morals are not things that are black and white, how can they be?

Sure it's wrong to kill, but what if in defending yourself you accidentally kill a person attacking you? is it moral that you be punished for defending your life or even your family's lives?

Another issue that deals with a morally vague area that's being kicking around a lot lately, the delicate issue of abortion, or rather how the religious have grasped onto that issue in the election in the USA because Obama is "pro-abortion" or whatever it is and this issue was being used as a way to make Obama "evil" or some shite.

From their ramblings I gathered that a lot of the religious crowd would have no abortions performed anywhere *ever* for any reason, because to take a life, is an immoral thing to do and well, it is, in most cases.

But the issue of abortion is not as black and white as the staunch religious person would have you believe, because in this day and age when morally legitimate circumstances arise, an abortion *can* be safely performed.

i am not trying to be insensitive here and i apologise if anything like this actually applies to you, but think about these few examples:

• is it a moral thing to let a young girl, impregnated by rape, carry that child to full term when she has only just barely started puberty herself?
• is it a moral thing to do to bare a child if it is known that the unborn child has been exposed to high levels of radiation or dangerous chemicals that are known to cause deformities and congenital conditions?
• is it a moral thing to do to let a pregnancy go to full term when it is highly likely that the mother could very well die in child birth or even mid-term, killing both mother and unborn child?

again, apologies if it hits a nerve with these examples, but some of the religious crowd would mandate that all those three examples go to full term with no discussion at all from the people *actually* involved, and in those cases above:

• hasn't that little girl been traumatised enough?
  
  sure the new born child could be adopted but a little girl not even a teenager, raped and then carrying that child? is it really worth putting that little girl through the pregnancy as well?
• would *you* really want to be that child that was affected in the womb by something that would permanently cripple you or have you live a life of constant pain?
  
  i know it's insensitive and not that very likely to happen anyway, but to just appease someone who has nothing to do with the raising of that child, not to mention living that life when it's *known* that the foetus has developed or has a high chance of developing debilitating conditions or even dying at, or before birth, seems to be the greater immoral act, at least to me.
• would you want to risk losing your life *and* your child by letting a highly risky pregnancy go to full term?

the possibilities beyond the black and white are endless, and these are obviously very sensitive issues but it seems to me that a lot of the religious crowd, would say that an abortion is not justified, *ever*.

Sure, abortion as a form of birth control is probably not the most practical nor the most moral thing to do but, the anti-abortion religious person would have you believe that every abortion is wrong because it is terminating a life, but what if the abortion saves a life?

In all of those situations above, having the child could see entire families affected, with long term stress and depression for all involved and could even lead to multiple lives being lost in the long run due to the despair of being involved in caring for a special needs person because not everyone has the strength of character or financial ability to care for such unfortunate individuals.

Ultimately, I feel that an abortion should be up to the woman, or the parents of the girl if she is under age to decide what is the best course of action. If the woman is incapacitated or guardians are not available, medical and psychiatric professionals or possibly even the courts at the recommendations of health professionals should act in the best interests of the woman.

That seems to be the most sensible thing to do, doesn't it?


So to my point:

A person that can evaluate individual morally challenging situations based on their individual circumstances and make an informed decision based on what may or may not happen if the "immoral" action is, or is not performed, is the person with the superior morality.

Yes - it's a little bit more complicated than the black and white system, but that's what our brains are supposed to be used for and with the aid of compassion for the individual, a better solution that speaks to that individual can be applied.

The morally superior person not only speaks to the consequences of action or inaction in the here and now, but they also speak to the consequences of an action or inaction in the future and this person will also speak to the individual rights of a person, in spite of what is "normal" for everyone else.

Abortion is just one example where morals are simply not black and white and morals are certainly not the exclusive domain of the religious, far from it. In fact, it seems to me that these religious black and white morals, are very much backwards, outdated, anachronistic, and ultimately inferior in this day and age where people supposedly are allowed to have their own individual rights.

These religious black and white morals may have held up well thousands of years ago, but as in the issue of abortion described above, thanks to advances in science, abortions *can* be performed safely when the circumstances give moral and compassionate reason to go ahead with the procedure.

Anyone still holding on to such black and white morals, such absolute and rigid lines in the sand, is not as compassionate as they think they are, nor are they willing to think outside of the box they call their religion to fully participate in the human race and show some of that unconditional love and compassion that they so often preach to the bleeding ears of the world, deafened by centuries of hypocrisy.

If you are unable to think outside of your religion's values, then it's no big deal to stick to your indoctrinated beliefs, as they still apply to most situations and it's probably unlikely that you are going to be exposed to such morally vague situations anyway, probably...

That's OK, but can we leave all the hard decisions in life to those who actually *can* think beyond morals that were carved in stone thousands of years ago, especially when you are not even following those teachings in the first place?

For example, I've seen so many christians telling lies that this commandment of not bearing false witness would seem to be an optional one and if one commandment is optional, then why not make the rest of the ten optional as well, depending on how many degrees the teachings have previously been distorted? Not to mention that Jesus superseded the Ten Commandments and taught two of them that can basically can be summed up by saying...

"be good to other people, especially to those in need and to those who would call you their enemy, that is how you show your love for me"

ie. Jesus taught that we are to love everyone, including our enemies, so how can there have been any wars involving any moral christians in the past two thousand years if these moral christian people were truly living up to the moral standards as commanded by their Messiah? hmmmm? ....

this is ultimately what disgusts me about christians; christians aren't even following these morals that they so loudly and proudly claim are so superior in the first place!

and christianity isn't at fault here, because it is just a fucking story and if you want to believe in a story, that's great, but when the story that you supposedly believe in says that you are to love everyone and yet you do no such thing, then you are lying that you are christian because what you believe in, isn't christianity, it isn't the Jesus from the bible, it is your *own* version of Jesus, that you made up yourself.

Your own ego is Jesus/god, which means you are worshipping a false god. This god might be a little bit like Jesus from the bible, but you have gone and made up your own "teachings of Jesus", so therefore your morality, just like the non-believer, comes from your own ego anyway.

At least the non-believer doesn't pretend to aspire to the teachings of god and then just totally fucking ignore everything that god supposedly taught them, anyway...