Are Christians better off with modern secular values and morals?

[Unknown Soldier]

I think that yes, modern-day secular values and morals have greatly benefitted Christians. Having moved away from so-called Biblical morality, we're all better off, and that includes Christians.

A good example of Christians better off now that we no longer rely on the Bible for morals are Christian kids. The Bible prescribes the barbaric practice of beating children and even killing them under some circumstances. Christian boys and girls are now protected from that kind of violence due to our replacing the Bible with reason.

Other groups benefitting from non-Biblical morality are gays, lesbians, and transsexuals. When men who proclaimed themselves to be God's prophets ruled, men caught in homosexual acts were to be executed. Today Christian gays need not live in fear of being murdered that way. All gays and lesbians including those who are Christians can now enjoy sex freely. We've even advanced to allowing same-sex marriage and are moving away from seeing transsexuals as freaks.

Women including Christian women are now benefitting from secular morality. According to the Bible, any woman caught in adultery and her lover were to be executed regardless of any mitigating circumstances. If a woman was raped, she could be executed for it! Jesus reputedly disallowed divorce under any circumstances except infidelity condemning many generations of women to being neglected and abused by their husbands. In all circumstances Christian "morality" meant second-class status for women forced to obey their husbands and to be his chattel. Thanks to our replacing injustices like that with more humane ways of seeing women, women including Christian women are now free to vote, divorce abusive husbands without shame and remarry, have greater control over how many children they must bear, and have many other rights and opportunities they were denied under Christian morality.

Other Christian groups benefitting from non-Biblical morality are small Christian sects that are seen as heretical by mainstream Christianity. Thanks to secularism, people including many Christians are now free to believe in whatever they want without fear of punishment. When Christianity ruled with its Biblically inspired morality, people who were seen as wrong in their Christian beliefs were often imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Secularism has done away with such barbarism in most developed nations, and millions of Christians are enjoying freedoms they never had before!

So we can see that yes, Christians for the most part are much better off now that we no longer impose Biblical morality on them. We're all better off thanks to secularism.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I think that yes, modern-day secular values and morals have greatly benefitted Christians. Having moved away from so-called Biblical morality, we're all better off, and that includes Christians.

A good example of Christians better off now that we no longer rely on the Bible for morals are Christian kids. The Bible prescribes the barbaric practice of beating children and even killing them under some circumstances. Christian boys and girls are now protected from that kind of violence due to our replacing the Bible with reason.

Other groups benefitting from non-Biblical morality are gays, lesbians, and transsexuals. When men who proclaimed themselves to be God's prophets ruled, men caught in homosexual acts were to be executed. Today Christian gays need not live in fear of being murdered that way. All gays and lesbians including those who are Christians can now enjoy sex freely. We've even advanced to allowing same-sex marriage and are moving away from seeing transsexuals as freaks.

Women including Christian women are now benefitting from secular morality. According to the Bible, any woman caught in adultery and her lover were to be executed regardless of any mitigating circumstances. If a woman was raped, she could be executed for it! Jesus reputedly disallowed divorce under any circumstances except infidelity condemning many generations of women to being neglected and abused by their husbands. In all circumstances Christian "morality" meant second-class status for women forced to obey their husbands and to be his chattel. Thanks to our replacing injustices like that with more humane ways of seeing women, women including Christian women are now free to vote, divorce abusive husbands without shame and remarry, have greater control over how many children they must bear, and have many other rights and opportunities they were denied under Christian morality.

Other Christian groups benefitting from non-Biblical morality are small Christian sects that are seen as heretical by mainstream Christianity. Thanks to secularism, people including many Christians are now free to believe in whatever they want without fear of punishment. When Christianity ruled with its Biblically inspired morality, people who were seen as wrong in their Christian beliefs were often imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Secularism has done away with such barbarism in most developed nations, and millions of Christians are enjoying freedoms they never had before!

So we can see that yes, Christians for the most part are much better off now that we no longer impose Biblical morality on them. We're all better off thanks to secularism.

OK. It looks like everybody knows that Christians are better off with secular morality.

 

[Politesse]

Yeah I like cherries, too.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I think that yes, modern-day secular values and morals have greatly benefitted Christians. Having moved away from so-called Biblical morality, we're all better off, and that includes Christians.

A good example of Christians better off now that we no longer rely on the Bible for morals are Christian kids. The Bible prescribes the barbaric practice of beating children and even killing them under some circumstances. Christian boys and girls are now protected from that kind of violence due to our replacing the Bible with reason.

Other groups benefitting from non-Biblical morality are gays, lesbians, and transsexuals. When men who proclaimed themselves to be God's prophets ruled, men caught in homosexual acts were to be executed. Today Christian gays need not live in fear of being murdered that way. All gays and lesbians including those who are Christians can now enjoy sex freely. We've even advanced to allowing same-sex marriage and are moving away from seeing transsexuals as freaks.

Women including Christian women are now benefitting from secular morality. According to the Bible, any woman caught in adultery and her lover were to be executed regardless of any mitigating circumstances. If a woman was raped, she could be executed for it! Jesus reputedly disallowed divorce under any circumstances except infidelity condemning many generations of women to being neglected and abused by their husbands. In all circumstances Christian "morality" meant second-class status for women forced to obey their husbands and to be his chattel. Thanks to our replacing injustices like that with more humane ways of seeing women, women including Christian women are now free to vote, divorce abusive husbands without shame and remarry, have greater control over how many children they must bear, and have many other rights and opportunities they were denied under Christian morality.

Other Christian groups benefitting from non-Biblical morality are small Christian sects that are seen as heretical by mainstream Christianity. Thanks to secularism, people including many Christians are now free to believe in whatever they want without fear of punishment. When Christianity ruled with its Biblically inspired morality, people who were seen as wrong in their Christian beliefs were often imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Secularism has done away with such barbarism in most developed nations, and millions of Christians are enjoying freedoms they never had before!

So we can see that yes, Christians for the most part are much better off now that we no longer impose Biblical morality on them. We're all better off thanks to secularism.

OK. It looks like everybody knows that Christians are better off with secular morality.

Yep! Sadly, there are very few religious people on this forum anymore. I like debate and wish that there were more.

 

[Politesse]

I love religion, but there's not much promise of discussion here. Yes, if you define everything you like as "secular values" and everything you dislike as "Christian values", then European history probably looks rather one-sided with the Christians as the villains. But in real life, there isn't really a distinction between Christian and secular values the way that the OP suggests, they have always influenced one another and are not really distinguishable.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Yep! Sadly, there are very few religious people on this forum anymore. I like debate and wish that there were more.

Those are my feelings too. The benefits Christians enjoy from secular morality are rarely recognized by them, and it would be great to let more Christians know that they do benefit not only from secular morality but benefit from our leaving religious morality in the past. I'd love to see more Christians in this forum to debate such issues.

 

[Politesse]

Yep! Sadly, there are very few religious people on this forum anymore. I like debate and wish that there were more.

Those are my feelings too. The benefits Christians enjoy from secular morality are rarely recognized by them, and it would be great to let more Christians know that they do benefit not only from secular morality but benefit from our leaving religious morality in the past. I'd love to see more Christians in this forum to debate such issues.

Alright, defend your argument, then. What is a "secular value", what is a "Christian value", and how do you define which is which?

 

[braces_for_impact]

Sadly, for many Christians, they have the stick of hell and the carrot of heaven in front of them. By making their afterlife their top priority, it cheapens this one, the real one, they're actually living in. Many of you have probably noticed that more often than not, many Christians, especially the fundamentalist variety, are on the wrong side of virtually every moral issue. Even the simplest of moral questions aren't answerable, like allowing human beings to own each other as property. Why? Because their afterlife! People are getting hurt in the here and now? Don't worry, it will all be worth it in the end when you get to heaven! Are your policies and theology hurting people? It's worth it! ANYTHING is worth it, and can justified, because your entire afterlife is what is at stake.

These attitudes cheapen real values that propel humanity forward, like unconditional love, respect, kindness, and empathy. Christianity is a very destructive force in the world.

 

[Tigers!]

Yep! Sadly, there are very few religious people on this forum anymore. I like debate and wish that there were more.

Perhaps some thought as to why that might be be case could be useful?

 

[Politesse]

Sadly, for many Christians, they have the stick of hell and the carrot of heaven in front of them. By making their afterlife their top priority, it cheapens this one, the real one, they're actually living in. Many of you have probably noticed that more often than not, many Christians, especially the fundamentalist variety, are on the wrong side of virtually every moral issue. Even the simplest of moral questions aren't answerable, like allowing human beings to own each other as property. Why? Because their afterlife! People are getting hurt in the here and now? Don't worry, it will all be worth it in the end when you get to heaven! Are your policies and theology hurting people? It's worth it! ANYTHING is worth it, and can justified, because your entire afterlife is what is at stake.

These attitudes cheapen real values that propel humanity forward, like unconditional love, respect, kindness, and empathy. Christianity is a very destructive force in the world.

I oppose slavery.

 

[Tigers!]

Sadly, for many Christians, they have the stick of hell and the carrot of heaven in front of them. By making their afterlife their top priority, it cheapens this one, the real one, they're actually living in. Many of you have probably noticed that more often than not, many Christians, especially the fundamentalist variety, are on the wrong side of virtually every moral issue. Even the simplest of moral questions aren't answerable, like allowing human beings to own each other as property. Why? Because their afterlife! People are getting hurt in the here and now? Don't worry, it will all be worth it in the end when you get to heaven! Are your policies and theology hurting people? It's worth it! ANYTHING is worth it, and can justified, because your entire afterlife is what is at stake.

These attitudes cheapen real values that propel humanity forward, like unconditional love, respect, kindness, and empathy. Christianity is a very destructive force in the world.

Why do you think that having an afterlife cheapens this one? I certainly do not believe that for an instant.
Many of you have probably noticed that more often than not, many Christians, especially the fundamentalist variety, are on the wrong side of virtually every moral issue.
Do like the gratuitous assumption by your good self that Christians are on the wrong side. I assume by that you mean you are in disagreement with them. Such disagreement does not automatically assume either side is right or wrong,

 

[southernhybrid]

Yep! Sadly, there are very few religious people on this forum anymore. I like debate and wish that there were more.

Perhaps some thought as to why that might be be case could be useful?

In the early days of IIDB, we had lots of Christians and even a few people from other religions come here to debate. I think when other forms of social media started becoming popular, we lost a lot of people, including a lot of Christians. We also stopped getting many new members. The debates weren't much different back then compared to now. The place was just a lot more active. One of my favorite former posters was a liberal Baptist pastor from Atlanta. He met with a group of us once in Atlanta and we all had a lot of fun together. He also started his own discussion board. I was one of two atheist members and the more liberal Christians frequently defended me when I was attacked by the evangelicals. Sadly, that place didn't last very long. All of this was before the larger social media sites were around. Sorry to go off topic, but I wanted to give my opinion as to why we no longer have that many Christian members. We simply have fewer active members now, regardless if they are religious believers or not.

 

[Politesse]

Yep! Sadly, there are very few religious people on this forum anymore. I like debate and wish that there were more.

Those are my feelings too. The benefits Christians enjoy from secular morality are rarely recognized by them, and it would be great to let more Christians know that they do benefit not only from secular morality but benefit from our leaving religious morality in the past. I'd love to see more Christians in this forum to debate such issues.

Have you given up on the debate already? You have yet to clarify your argument. I've made a claim: that there is no meaningful distinction between "Christian" and "Secular" morality. If you disagree, you should be able to define your proposed categories, and justify how each of the cases you outline constitutes a secular value correcting a Christian one in a straightforward fashion. So far, your offered argument is not very convincing.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Sadly, for many Christians, they have the stick of hell and the carrot of heaven in front of them. By making their afterlife their top priority, it cheapens this one, the real one, they're actually living in. Many of you have probably noticed that more often than not, many Christians, especially the fundamentalist variety, are on the wrong side of virtually every moral issue. Even the simplest of moral questions aren't answerable, like allowing human beings to own each other as property. Why? Because their afterlife! People are getting hurt in the here and now? Don't worry, it will all be worth it in the end when you get to heaven! Are your policies and theology hurting people? It's worth it! ANYTHING is worth it, and can justified, because your entire afterlife is what is at stake.

These attitudes cheapen real values that propel humanity forward, like unconditional love, respect, kindness, and empathy. Christianity is a very destructive force in the world.

I can't disagree with any of that! As you say, when people have utopia as their prime motivator, then they have less motivation to make people a priority. If we don't bother appealing to the supernatural, then we can focus on people as our top priority. I think that's why secular morality often works so much better than religious morality.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I love religion, but there's not much promise of discussion here. Yes, if you define everything you like as "secular values" and everything you dislike as "Christian values", then European history probably looks rather one-sided with the Christians as the villains. But in real life, there isn't really a distinction between Christian and secular values the way that the OP suggests, they have always influenced one another and are not really distinguishable.

You can't tell the difference between what the Bible says about morality and what nonreligious morality is?

 

[Politesse]

I love religion, but there's not much promise of discussion here. Yes, if you define everything you like as "secular values" and everything you dislike as "Christian values", then European history probably looks rather one-sided with the Christians as the villains. But in real life, there isn't really a distinction between Christian and secular values the way that the OP suggests, they have always influenced one another and are not really distinguishable.

You can't tell the difference between what the Bible says about morality and what nonreligious morality is?

Your post seems to indicate that if you like an idea, you consider it "secular", and if you dislike it, you consider it "Christian". Cherry-picking, in short. If you have a different criterion, perhaps you could explain it better so we can evaluate it. From a historical perspective, secularism is in and of itself an idea of Christian origin, which takes its name and its first four centuries of use from Christian theology. Secular ideas and practices have always been used and embraced primarily by Christians, which you seem to realize since you say that Christians are embracing "secular" values. But if that's the case, what makes them "secular", and what makes them distinguishable as having "originated" in secularism as opposed to Christianity, rather than simply originating in the perspectives of Christian secularists (like myself)?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Your post seems to indicate that if you like an idea, you consider it "secular", and if you dislike it, you consider it "Christian". Cherry-picking, in short. If you have a different criterion, perhaps you could explain it better so we can evaluate it. From a historical perspective, secularism is in and of itself an idea of Christian origin, which takes its name and its first four centuries of use from Christian theology. Secular ideas and practices have always been used and embraced primarily by Christians, which you seem to realize since you say that Christians are embracing "secular" values. But if that's the case, what makes them "secular", and what makes them distinguishable as having "originated" in secularism as opposed to Christianity, rather than simply originating in the perspectives of Christian secularists (like myself)?

Religious morals are derived from some religious book like the Bible or the Koran and are supposed to be based on the will of some God or a human prophet who is believed to have received revelations from a supernatural source. Secular morality is admittedly based in human reason and sentiment and nothing more.

 

[Politesse]

Your post seems to indicate that if you like an idea, you consider it "secular", and if you dislike it, you consider it "Christian". Cherry-picking, in short. If you have a different criterion, perhaps you could explain it better so we can evaluate it. From a historical perspective, secularism is in and of itself an idea of Christian origin, which takes its name and its first four centuries of use from Christian theology. Secular ideas and practices have always been used and embraced primarily by Christians, which you seem to realize since you say that Christians are embracing "secular" values. But if that's the case, what makes them "secular", and what makes them distinguishable as having "originated" in secularism as opposed to Christianity, rather than simply originating in the perspectives of Christian secularists (like myself)?

Religious morals are derived from some religious book like the Bible or the Koran and are supposed to be based on the will of some God or a human prophet who is believed to have received revelations from a supernatural source. Secular morality is admittedly based in human reason and sentiment and nothing more.

Who says? Not all religions even have sacred texts, and not all Christians and Muslims would either agree with your overall sentiment regarding the Bible and Qur'an nor agree that you are interpreting it accurately if you are only capable of finding evil morals in it.

 

[Rhea]

Yep! Sadly, there are very few religious people on this forum anymore. I like debate and wish that there were more.

Perhaps some thought as to why that might be be case could be useful?

In my opinion, a lot of that had to do with the name change. When we were the “Internet Infidels” we were found by a lot of people who were looking for atheists to debate. When we became FreeRatio and then TalkFreethought, we no longer had a word title that people debating religion looked for. And we no longer had a word title that new and vigorously debating atheists looked for. We ended up with a forum that was a place for secular people to hang out, that had much less turnover. When people left, the numbers got smaller and they were not replaced as much.

If my thesis has merit, we may see more new people checking us out now that we are Internet Infidels again.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Who says?

That's a very odd response to your asking me how I define religious versus secular morality. Who else do you think says something that you ask them?

Not all religions even have sacred texts, and not all Christians and Muslims would either agree with your overall sentiment regarding the Bible and Qur'an nor agree that you are interpreting it accurately if you are only capable of finding evil morals in it.

None of that is relevant to the issue I raised. I think you're just being difficult.