Atheism Examined

Well, I disagree. It is possible for religions to stagnate, it is possible for individuals to stagnate. It is also possible that mere change does not equal bettering a society. Societies have often changed for the worse. Just calling a thing 'society' does not make it immune to poor behaviour. Just calling a thing 'religion' does not make it unaccountable for poor behaviour. It is an on-going process for everyone who cares a lick about themselves and others. Religions can not make laws governing society. But they can and do speak out against injustices and racism. If you are talking only about the issue of gay marriage, that is by far not the big picture, it's not an issue solely for people of faith, and it revolves more around determining what marriage 'is' than about who can do it. If you want to be so detailed it would work both ways. There are many examples of religious people who spoke against things that society was 'ok' with.The one thing that I find disconcerting is the adamacy with which people claim that morality is relative. Even with this, it is extremely common for us to judge another person's or group's morality. If we are not judging them with our own 'better' morality, then what are we judging them with? It seems clear to me that all of us believe that one morality is more moral. With all of this conflict, how do we know who is ultimately right? What ALL of us see is that human rights and love of one another are good. It is a constant battle and a constant task to make this world a better place form the individual level up to the state level. One can not succeed without the other. Religious people, as individuals and as members of society, are not immune to the challenge of self-improvement.

I think what you are trying to say us that being idealistic doesn't accomplish anything with some practicality? Dreamers versus Doers?

Religion is accountable. Many churches are attempting to stand by one teaching in the face of the fact that it produces discriminatory effects that were not foreseen. Again, if this is your only example of how immoral it can be to 'hand our morality to God' (as you say) it is not a good one and doesn't prove anything except that people have different opinions about what marriage is. If that is clouding, well, I don't know how else to express it.So anyway I don't want to talk gay marriage. I only intervened to say that the idea of God morality leaving too much to chance was off base to me, because especially from an atheist point of view where there is no God and hence no God-given morality, it seems apparent that all morals come from societies regardless of what we god people say. Oh, but the issue was very general, and now your beef with religion seems to centralize around this one issue that is extremely contemporary and not easily resolved. If you think you are going to make a case for all religious folks to be against gay marriage, and all atheists pro gay marriage, you will fail. Since this is the case it is not religion but society in general that has hang-ups.

Why do you think the ten COmmandments are limited to the exact words? They are just categories.

They are all under the category of 'love thy neighbor', which was the greatest commandment. I can't believe you guys are having this conversation. No offense.