The above video was recently e-mailed out to the students of Troy University by their chancellor with the following message:
Dear Trojans:
As we approach a New Year I am reminded of the blessings we enjoy within a democracy which is the envy of the world.
For your pleasure — and as a reminder — I am sharing with you a 90 second video which speaks to America’s greatness and its vulnerability.
May your New Year be blessed!
Jack Hawkins
Chancellor
As you can imagine that did not go over too well with those students who were NOT religious and now the American Atheists have written the chancellor a letter demanding an apology.
Personally I am once again amazed that religious people are still so completely convinced that without religion this country would spin completely out of control, as if it alone is behind the success of America.
Religious morality is not the creation of God. Instead both it and God are the creation of man.
And so are laws that govern this country.
They exist to help those who cannot find it within themselves to do the right thing without fear of punishment or incarceration. For those of us with an innate sense of morality we do not really need to live under the threat of eternal damnation, or imprisonment, in order to treat others with respect.
We do it because it is how we ourselves also wish to be treated.
As a wise man once said:
I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.
Ain't that the truth?
So yes this country, its democracy, and its people would do just fine if there were no more religion.
It is the churches which cannot exist without faith, not America.
Wow. And this guy is a very well respected HBS professor. So sad that he views the world this way.
ReplyDeleteI've been an antheist for 4+ decades and I've never done anything worse than park too long at a meter. I'm not worried about spending time in heaven or hell. When it's over, it's over. Period.
Yup!
DeleteClay Christensen is a Mormon. It's his job to spread the word of his 'religion'. So what if he's a famous Harvard Business School professor. He's a Mormon first and foremost (and friends with Mittens!).
ReplyDeleteThank you. I had a feeling and I knew there was a catch to his message (which I didn't watch). As he wouldn't be pushing as an example Buddhism or all other religions. Just some aspect of his Christianity.
DeleteSuch a very stupid man. He refuses to acknowledge that my morality comes from within me and not from an imaginary god that teaches intolerance and hatred to those who follow him. I am quite capable, as are my children, of figuring out behaviors that benefit society and ourselves.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, Troy is a public university, so this video is a clear violation of the establishment clause as it was funded with public dollars since he is speaking as president of that university. This would not be a problem were it a private university.
ReplyDeleteAnd BTW, Gryphen, I'd disagree with your "innate sense of morality," a la moral sentiments theory of Adam Smith.Morality comes from an education that sharpens the logic sense and a recognition and sensitivity to cognitive dissonance, aka rationality.
ReplyDeleteAs you disagree with Gryphen, so I disagree with you. An "education" is not necessary to morality any more than a religion. I don't say it doesn't HELP, just that it isn't necessary as you imply.
DeleteI agree with 6:02. Personally, I think you're confusing "morality" with "empathy". Anyone can have an innate sense of empathy, and this can actually function quite well as a stand-in for morality in a lot of cases, but isn't exactly the same thing.
DeleteMorality requires a conscious sense of right and wrong with reasoned associated values as to what the consequences may be of doing wrong, consequences both direct to yourself in the moment and also indirect to society ongoing.
Morality covers more oblique and complicated concepts than simple empathy can deal with. Empathy is simply reactive to situations as they occur, where morality can be active and predictive, heading off socio-environmental triggers to wrong behavior and providing intellectual fortitude to individuals allowing them to evade temptation.
@ Boscoe
DeleteSorry, but I believe you are failing to grasp what I said. Please define "Education" as 6:02 intended it to be understood. I see his "education" as something of a higher level, thus the "....education that sharpens the logic sense and a recognition and sensitivity to cognitive dissonance...."
And then there is the very question of what is moral. Every society has different morals. The differences may be slight or they may be huge. In some societies, it was moral to eat one's conquered enemies. In others it was moral to murder the defeated enemies as sacrifices. In still others, it was moral to enslave. Those were mostly religious societies, too! Is that moral? Really?
So, 2 things are needed for this discussion. A definition of education (which I DON'T believe is necessary) and of morality, which can vary so broadly.
However one looks at the question, though, many of us find the idea that religion is necessary to morality is ludicrous. And to claim religion is necessary for a democracy to function is insulting and dangerous.
Christensen was a Mormon missionary in Korea from 1971-1973 during the Vietnam war, no mention of military service in his wiki page.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to understand the background of a person that is interested in selling me a product. When someone is trying to sell me their "god", I'm always interested in what their god's opinion is on the role of women in society. Churches that exclude women from positions of power are very hypocritical about morality.
Neither this Christensen guy or the Chancellor would last a minute in debate with me. They cower in their cocoon of male dominance, happy in an infantile state of feeling superior. Life is just grand when your "god" somehow promotes you to dominion over half the human race.
From wiki:
Christensen lives in Belmont, Massachusetts with his wife, Christine. They have five children: Matthew, Ann, Michael, Spencer and Kate. Christensen is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).[6] From 1971 to 1973 he served as a missionary in the Republic of Korea...
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DAY
ReplyDeletehttps://au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/seize-the-day-upcoming-religious-freedom-event-provides-an-opportunity-for
Jan 2, 2015 by Rob Boston in Wall of Separation
Two weeks from today, the nation will celebrate Religious Freedom Day.
Don’t feel bad if you were not aware of that. Most people aren’t. Religious Freedom Day, which is celebrated every Jan. 16, tends to be somewhat obscure. My desk calendar, which includes Groundhog Day, Armed Forces Day and Benito Juarez’s Birthday, does not list Religious Freedom Day.
That’s a shame. The holiday commemorates the Virginia General Assembly’s passage of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statu[t]e for Religious Freedom on Jan. 16, 1786. This pioneering legislation, regarded as a precursor to the Constitution’s First Amendment, ended the state-established church in Virginia and went on to guarantee religious liberty for all.
The statute reads in part, “Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
Read the whole article. Talk it up!
Thomas Jefferson continues to be my favorite Founding Father. If only he'd been as enlightened on matters of slavery as he was on everything else...
DeleteHow strong a person is that? That they have to have the threat of something bad happening to them to not do something "wrong".
ReplyDeleteOf course these types continue to say you can't be moral or right without God, because that is THEIR reality. They live frightened little lives trying to control everything around them, even their own impulses because they are terrified of having to make an independent choice that they then have to own. Instead its all God's will, choice, destined, ordained....BS!
Thanks for linking to the Penn Jillette interview. He's an astounding person.
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable. This joker teaches at Harvard? What kind of logic says "if you take away religion you can't hire enough police"? Gag.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I get the feeling this joker thinks 100% of Americans attending mosque every week isn't the religion he has in mind?
Let's ask the first critical question: who paid for this piece of obvious propaganda? After you answer that, it is plain that a state university has no right to promote it.
ReplyDeleteO.K., this might be a good time to call in "Betty Bowers" for a rebuttal? LOL
ReplyDelete"America's 5 Favorite Ways to Ignore Jesus"
(Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaqdFnjKClE
What amazes me about "smart" people like he's supposed to be, they're not too big on wisdom. Are we to believe/take his word that all the prisons are full of Atheists? No. We're to believe by his words he's not wise enough when Atheists are a small, but growing group.
ReplyDeleteI kind of forgive him, though. It's human nature to take the lazy route and "believe" that, since Atheists don't believe in God, they must be worshipers of the anti-christ because their warped logic tells them so.
I got an apoplectic phone call from my son's girlfriend's parents over "What are we supposed to wish you during the holidays?" I said "Good Luck, Good Health, happiness or even Merry Christmas" When they found out we had a tree, she damn near had a heart attack. We bought them a nice nativity set, a box of chocolate, and a card that said "Happy Holidays".
She couldn't drop it. "You have to believe in something - we are good people, how about joining us for Midnight Mass?" I kindly refused. "Oh, and that was our gift to you" Zeus help them when/if their daughter and my son get engaged.
Have you ever noticed that a lot of people will change churches at different points in their lives, due to the fact that they start disliking the moral message that is coming from the pulpit in their particular congregation? For instance, when I was a kid, a lot of people from the local liberal ELCA Synod Lutheran Church started coming to our more conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. Some of them even started going to the even more conservative Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Church. The reason? Because the ELCA church pastor started preaching that women were equal to men. It happened again several years later when the pastor announced that God loved everyone, even homosexuals. Now, if morality comes from the church, then the congregation would have just sat there happily absorbing the fact that God also loves women and gays. But a lot of them weren't happy and they left. It's because they already had an ingrained morality (which we all have) and they didn't like what their church was preaching, so they found new churches whose moral teachings meshed more with their own. Saying that people without religion cannot be moral is the stupidest thing that I've ever heard.
ReplyDelete