A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness. People who find these lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it.
kurt vonnegut
like many of my generation, i didn't spend a lot of time in church growing up, but like most of my generation, i was raised and surrounded by adults who had. i didn't appreciate the significance of this fact until fairly recently.
there weren't a lot of rules and laws governing personal behavior back when i grew up, because there didn't need to be. today, we're filling the moral vacuum that is the downside of the sexual revolution with all kinds of stupid freedom-restricting curfews, zero-tolerance policies, hate-crimes statutes and anti-bullying laws, as if pursuing such a government-mandated strategy is a reasonable substitute for good parenting.
and, as someone who was raised in such a way as to not require such nanny-state oversight in order to make his way through life without hurting other people, and on behalf of all other such people, may i say i resent the living fuck out of it.
* * * * *
am i saying a secular upbringing can't produce ethical, empathetic, enlightened children? of course not--it's done all the time, but it's generally a result of those rare parents who have a game plan and work it hard--some basic philosophical underpinning that'll act as counterbalance to everything the kid picks up out in the world. otherwise, where's he gonna get his moral and ethical grounding? i'll tell you where: from TV, the internet, his school and his dumbass friends, that's where.
for myself, if the universe were to be so imprudent as to place an impressionable child in my care, you would soon see my agnostic ass seeking out, joining and regularly attending a goddam church.
4 comments:
With a due respect to Mr.Vonnegut, I think Science shoots down a few more -- in fact many more -- things in the bible; virgin birth, walking on water, feeding thousands from enough food to be held in just two hands, and bodies being taken up into the sky. There's lots more also.
I stand on the side of being an atheist and secular humanist who raised two adopted Korean orphan daughters as a single day father and saw them turn out to be literate, honest, civic-minded and generous human beings of whom any culture would be proud.
I do not personally believe that religion is needed to be a moral, principled person. In fact, given organized religion's track record, I think it isn't a help but a hindrance to that goal.
That was meant to be "Single GAY father" whose strong suit is definitely not typing!
Guttermorality is emphasizing morality now.
I have always thought it odd that you have this moralistic streak that borders on the puritanical...it just seems so out of place with, well, what you do much of the time.
It is also out of synch with your libertarianism.
But, then again, you lurch to the right on numerous topics including global warming, so perhaps you are at home with the morality police -- if only they do not get to know you too well.
A fifteen year old girl who is shallow and obsessed with her friend's approval and constant texting? Well, when I was 15, there was a lot of shallowness and a lot of girls who talked on the phone a lot. There was no texting yet. But it is not that far different. It is an impressionistic age.
But, if I may, your point is that people no longer have any moral grounding and religion serves this role rather well. At least, I think that is what you are saying.
Most religious denominations give you a built-in ready to wear moral code. That is true.
But that does not mean that it the only way to turn decent and well mannered children into decent and well mannered adults.
In any case, I don't see you ever going to church, so I guess you just like the idea of it in the abstract...or think it is good for people who need it and you don't need it -- but everyone else does.
At least we can rely on the corporate overlords to train our bloated mutant children.
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