Once again, John Staddon maintains that religious morality is superior to...

Is religious morality superior to secular morality?

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The answer to that question depends, in part, on whether a religion (Christianity, say) is true.
If Christianity is true, then human beings have moral duties (e.g. to know and worship God) that a secular system of morality is bound to miss the mark on. :slight_smile:

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Same with Islam?

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Based on my (admittedly incomplete) knowledge of Islam - perhaps even more so.
Now, I’m not claiming that religious systems of morality are necessarily better in all respects than secular systems of morality - only that, if some religion is true, a system of morality incorporating truths of that religion will probably get certain theologically oriented duties right where secular systems will probably get said duties wrong. So the question of whether religious or secular systems of morality are better isn’t independent of the question of what religion (if any) teaches the truth about God.

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Are those the most important moral duties according to Jesus?

Yes. Jesus affirmed the Shema: Deuteronomy 6:4-5:

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

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And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.
Mark 12:30-31

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By definition? Are these moral duties an intrinsic part of “Christianity is true”? Otherwise I don’t see it. Even if the Christian God exists, it otherwise doesn’t follow that we have a duty to know and worship him.

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Why do they have that?

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From the link in the OP

Staddon has doubled down on the “See, you’re just as bad as we are” argument. “You have faith, too” is an obvious bit of projection.

Also, Staddon doesn’t seem to get what secular humanism is.

I would hardly call that nothing.

I think there is some deep confusion in this conversation about the meaning of “faith”. I do not think everyone is using it the same, and it is not necessarily pejorative.

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There is an attempt to draw a false equivalency, which is why Coyne describes it as “See, you’re just as bad as we are”.

It is easy to see from Staddon’s own words that if secular humanism is based on reason then it is above religious faith. This is why Staddon tries so hard to create an equivalency between secular humanism and religion.

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I saw this a couple of weeks ago from the Atlanta Journal Consitituion just after reading a thread about racism and MN. I thought it might fit in here.

While Cleveland said it was not an issue in his decision on whom to hire, he did share his beliefs about race.

“I’m a Christian and my Christian beliefs are you don’t do interracial marriage. That’s the way I was brought up and that’s the way I believe,” he said. “I have black friends, I hired black people. But when it comes to all this stuff you see on TV, when you see blacks and whites together, it makes my blood boil because that’s just not the way a Christian is supposed to live.”