[GeminiBrian]

[QUOTE]

Quote by: shawmutt While the universe, per se, is amoral, the human species is not.

That's just my point - our species can be said to be moral (broadly speaking), but that doesn't justify us in projecting our moral constructs onto the cosmos, as religion tries to do with such unconvincing results.

Remember, this intellectual laziness is a double edged sword. To simply throw up our hands and say everything's relative is, to this humble poster, just as bad as saying "God did it".

Intellectual laziness is nothing but the bluntest of swords, if it can be called a sword in any sense. A sword is a tool for cutting, and in this case, there is no evidence of any cutting being done - no pairing away of accumulated nonsense and tired old ideas. The theist mindset can be compared to a garden chocked with weeds and brambles, blocking out all the light needed for new growth, so a little judicious pruning can have a very beneficial effect... trouble is, people mistake the claustrophobia caused by accumulated religious clutter as somehow comforting, choosing not to appreciate the benefits of fresh air, even fearing it.

We need absolute truths to survive and thrive as a species. The golden rule, in its many forms, is one of the reasons we have been so successful.

Let's not get side-tracked in a debate about absolute truth - whether such a thing exists, and would we have the capacity to handle it if it did... almost certainly we wouldn't.

For instance, one human murdering another is wrong, period. Some get hung up on the relativity on the matter, but there is no relativity. Sometimes we as a species need to do the wrong thing, that doesn't make it the right thing.

Would you have shot Hitler in the head before the war he started if given the chance? If you had pulled that trigger, you might have prevented untold human suffering on a scale never seen before. Then again, your conscience might tell you that shooting is wrong - period. Either way, you might find it difficult to live with your choice. --- My point being, that life sometimes presents us with impossible dilemmas, where notions of right and wrong are put to a cruel test... So no easy answers, perhaps - and certainly no absolutes.

Many holy books serve many purposes...Nowadays, we really don't need the old books, but they give the majority of the world the comfort of stability in this ever-changing world.

Like I keep saying, stability is an illusion we spend our whole lives chasing after - always in vain. Our only choice is to factor instability into our thinking if we are to avoid traumatic disappointment - and religious books work in the reverse direction by giving people a false sense of security. How many devout people lose their faith after the death of a treasured child, for instance?

Faith can undoubtedly be a crutch to many, but my OP suggests that many people, even at the peril of becoming atheist, eventually have to admit to themselves that a crutch is only a crutch so long as you are able to believe in it... Some of us reach a tipping point where we find it impossible to keep resisting disbelief, and no amount of wishful thinking is going to alter the basic amoral fabric of the universe we inhabit... but it's an indescribably liberating step forward, nevertheless.