Why Religious Morality Fails

And why secular morality is superior in every way

First, let’s Briefly Define the Terms

Religious Morality: in this context, “religious morality” refers to Divine Command Theory: the belief that an action is moral or immoral because god said so. NOTE: Not all Christians, theists, or religious people use this form of morality!

Secular Morality (General): morality without religion or DTC, but instead based on subjective values in relation to objective facts and reasons.

Secular Morality (Specific): I get my morality from my moral reasoning: a combination of my ability to understand the consequences of my actions and how said actions affect the well-being of others; and my empathy to care. Good is whatever promotes well-being and/or reduces suffering. Evil is whatever reduces well-being and/or promotes suffering. Promoting good and reducing evil is my goal, and I could not care less what a god thinks. And in my judgments, I use objective facts such as historical facts and QLIs.

Morality: The subjective judgment by one person regarding the actions of another entity or agent.

Subjective: stance-dependent, dependent on one’s opinions, values, or views.

Objective: stance-independent, not dependent on one’s opinions, values, or views.

How Religious Morality is Entirely Subjective

Some apologists try to assert that our morality is subjective, as if that’s a problem that they don’t have. But I repeat: “The theist is still reporting their opinion on a certain action. Whether or not one should care what God thinks is a subjective value. Some people have, others such as myself do not. And at best, one can only honestly say that they have their subjective interpretation of what god is and what is will is.

As my friend G. Husky pointed out, unless the apologist can summon their god and have god tell us with his own mouth what his will is; it’s dishonest for the apologist to say that they have the correct version of god, the correct interpretation of scripture, and the correct interpretation of God’s will.

And even if the apologist were somehow able to get past those hurdles, their morality would still be subjective. Subjective means stance-dependent; objective means stance-independent. Divine Command Theory is still based on God’s supposed stance. Therefore, it’s still subjective.”

Religious Morality isn’t even Morality

Morality uses moral judgement, a combination of reason and empathy. DTC/religious morality is just following orders. And I think we learned a long time ago why “just following orders” not a good idea. Whereas, secular morality is using moral reasoning on some level, varying depending on the one who uses it.

Religious Morality is the Lowest form of Moral Development

The lowest form of moral development is doing things because the other guy has a bigger stick, because he will give a person a cookie later if they obey, or will punish them if they don’t. Higher forms of moral development involves a person thinking for themselves, developing their faculties of reason and empathy, developing their moral reasoning, and actually thinking about whether or not something is actually right or wrong and why; instead of just believing whatever some pastor or apologist says. Whereas, secular systems of morality tend to be on the higher end of the scale.

Subjective/Objective is Irrelevant

I could grant, for the sake of argument, the claim that religious morality is enterally objective and that secular morality is entirely subjective; and secular morality would still be superior to religious morality. Religious morality brought us the crusades; the inquisitions; punishing people for believing that the Earth orbits the Sun; drowning, burning, and hanging “witches”; killing homosexuals; supporting Hitler; the Holocaust; the genocide of indigenous people and the theft of their land; queer youth suicide rates being above 20% (or any percent for that matter); queer youth accounting for half of all homeless youth; covering up child abuse; the attack on our Capitol, and so much more.

Whereas, secular humanism, a view that I lean towards, demands: equality; treating others with dignity no matter their race, religion, or sexual orientation, etc; science and education; democracy; accountability; etc. And secular humanists find genocide and slavery to be atrocities of grotesque immorality; whereas advocates of religious morality constantly make excuses for such atrocities in real life and in the bible… speaking of which:

Yes, the Bible Condones Genocide and Slavery

As G. Husky pointed out, Exodus 21, Leviticus 25, Numbers 31, and Peter 2:18 among others all form a set of standard operating procedures for slave owners to follow in terms of how to get slaves, how to beat them, how to pass them on to their children, etc. The chapters and verses pretty much speak for themselves.

“But it says “Servants”!” That’s a nice politically correct label, but I’m talking about the package. And the contents of that package says things like how you can beat a slave as long as they don’t die quickly, how you shall buy your slaves from the heathen around you, etc.

“But God was just regulating it, because it was socially acceptable” Yeah well I find that slavery is immoral and evil, no matter the time period. Funny how this god can have bible verses putting queers like me to death but cannot be bothered to make a commandment such as “Thou shall not own other people as property”. I mean, what kind of a weak, useless, waste of a god is this? Why worship him at all?

“But that’s old testament” So what? You don’t get Jesus without original sin, and as Matt Dillahunty pointed out: you don’t get a new testament without an old one. Funny how apologists will discard the OT when it’s not convenient, but use it when they need original sin or to bash gays. Oh, and as for the claim that “that’s old testament”, Peter 2:18 has something to say about that.

“It was voluntary slavery to pay off debt”: news flash: owing others as property is immoral no matter how they became property. And “voluntary slavery” isn’t. For once a person is a slave, they no longer have legal autonomy, which is immoral. Oh, and they are used as property, which is also immoral. And I happened to have paid off thousands of dollars of debt, and not once did I have to be a slave to do it.

“It wasn’t chattel slavery!” That’s debatable and irrelevant. They were owned as property which is immoral.

Want to know another way that we can tell that secular morality is better than religious morality: as someone who uses secular morality, I don’t have to constantly pull excuses for slavery and genocide out my ***; whereas the DTC apologist has to do so without end.

But God can do what he Wants

More evidence supporting my notion that god is imaginary: in the context of DTC and conservativism: a being that people make in the image of their own ego to justify their own narcissism. They say that god can do what he wants so that they can do whatever they want without consequences. I think we learned from WWII that might doesn’t make right, except for in the mind of a fascist; which is why this idea of “God can do what he wants” is a Freudian slip by those who utter it.

But you’re a Communist!

That’s funny, because my business models say otherwise. I don’t believe in Stalinism or Maoism, and I certainty don’t respect that cancerous pile of waste that rules over and oppresses the North Korean people. And there is no evidence that either one of those tumors were secular humanists. Furthermore, atheism is a single position on a single topic: disbelief in gods. Atheism has no tenants or doctrines, so quit the strawman. Whereas the Bible has verses clearly advocating for sexism, racism, genocide, slavery, killing queers and non-believers, supporting theocratic fascism, etc.

Heaven and Hell

“But it’s not about this life, it’s about the afterlife!” And where is the demonstrable evidence of this “afterlife”? One of the major problems with Pascal’s Wager is that heaven and hell are subjective. Let me be blunt with as to why so many of us secularists leave religion and never come back: Conservative religions are abusive and manipulative, and we don’t like being lied to. I was lied to when my church said that “gays have an agenda” when it was in fact my religion that had the agenda.

And when we point out how Conservative religions use, lie to, and abuse people; the apologists never take responsibility. They try to blame their abuse on us, saying that “you just want to sin” and “god doesn’t push people away, people push god away”.

And it pains me to say this but I will speak plainly and give the bitter, honest, straight up truth: We are leaving religion because these bigoted preachers and apologists are unpleasant to be around. And if we don’t want to be around theses pastors and apologists every Sunday, why the hell would we want to be with them for eternity? If they enjoy torturing queer youth into suicide in this life, why would they all of a sudden stop in the next life? If they constantly become the worst versions of a human being whenever someone like Trump or Johnson get into a position of power, how will they all of a sudden stop in the next world? If they are constantly being jerks to us in this life, why would they suddenly treat us better in the next life? If they have all of the power in the world and use said power to make this world into a S***hole, why would I want to spend eternity in an even greater S***hole?

You see, these bigoted pastors and apologists have been so obsessed over an afterlife for which there is no demonstrable evidence; that they have thrown away this life and this world. That they forgot to treat the people in this life, in the here and now, with dignity, kindness, and respect. They forgot to be responsible with this world. They have treated us like garbage for so long that their offer of a heaven is dead on arrival.

Whereas secular morality values people here and now, recognizes that we should take care of the one world that we have, that we should value this one and only life that we have, and secular morality treats people with equal dignity and respect.

Conclusion

Religious morality is an epic failure of monumental proportions. It is easily one of the most toxic and destructive attitudes ever created by humans, causing more deaths than any nuclear weapon. It’s entirely subjective on every level, but that’s not what matters. Religious morality has consistently been responsible for some of the greatest atrocities man has ever seen. The main reason why I don’t believe in the devil is not because of empirical or scientific reasons. It’s because the devil is not needed: humans, under the influence of conservative religion, are capable of the most grotesque and heinous atrocities that one could imagine and then some. With queerphobic conservative apologists and preachers, you don’t need a devil.