Quote:That's fair enough. However, I think it says more about the mindset of those people (i.e., that they personally would see nothing wrong with rape, etc. if it weren't for their faith) than it does about anything else. Frankly, I'm past the point where I'm willing to debate/argue/talk with such people.
That's true, but mindsets can be altered by religion.
There was a study I saw a while back involving two groups of kids raised in Judaism. The control group was asked to read some morally controversial passages from, I believe, the Book of Joshua. The experimental group was asked to read the same passages, but with "God" changed to "General Lin", "Jericho" changed to "An ancient Chinese kingdom 5,000 years ago", etc. The results were that the vast majority of the control group had no moral issues whatsoever with their passage, but the experimental group did, even though the content didn't change. (<insert criticism of the Bible here, even though that's not the point>)
Quote:...but to what end? To reveal hypocrisy? Hypocrisy is everywhere. I'm not trying to be glib, just wondering what you're aiming for.
Just general religious discussion. I thought it was an interesting article, although I'm a bit biased as "it is possible to be good without God" is a point I've stressfully tried to argue in the past.