Heh, I recall the last religious debate here. I think it started in the "I love science" thread. This thread is much more directly to the point. The Political Views thread was constrained to the election, so i bet this thread will be locked up after the holidays are over.
Anyway, I love these threads. You never really know other people's views until they can say them anonymously over the internet, most people aren't as confrontational in real life. I hope it doesn't get locked too soon.
With that being said, I'll jump in on the religious morals point. The human conscience has been with us longer than any scripture. Whether our morals are based on religion or not doesn't make them any "better". If you aren't killing people just because you believe you'll be punished in an afterlife, then that's not really a conscience. I don't need to know I'll be punished if I'm bad in order to be a decent person.
Human morals are universal. From culture to culture, and religion to religion, the basic morals are still there. Sure, there are "Artificial morals and rules" created by certain religions, like fishychic said, premarital sex is one. These rules are completely arbitrary unless attached to some religious meaning, so they aren't the universal ones I'm talking about. Not killing or stealing are two basic human morals, and I think they're "based", like everything else of ours, through an evolutionary purpose. You may say some religions or cultures stealing and murder are more common, but:
Quote:
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You may know a few "Christians" who do bad things but that doesn't mean that all Christians are like them.
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applies to every religion.
Oh yeah, one other thing. The kid on youtube is just using kent hovind's arguments, word for word actually in a lot of cases. Just goes to show his argument, and everyone else's about religion is going in one giant circle. It will repeat itself, I've seen a million of these threads on other forums, they always come down to the same points. So by saying this kid's video is "proof" of anything other than his devotion to that religion is a bit out of touch.