Does Religion Make People Moral?

Quote: FrGamble

Please don't leave me alone here with Evenbob! I did respond to your thoughtful post and would love to hear more of your thoughts!

We all would, particularly such colorful imagery as "cutting water with knives". Masterful.

Quote: FrGamble

Because sin itself is a complex and nuanced word.

So in the case of people who are unable to afford medicine, what's the sin, who commits it, and how does your religion help in any way?

Quote: Evenbob

He had comments on so many other
things. Yet a true violation of human
rights, like slavery, he was totally silent
on. This obviously tells us Jesus was
cool with slavery and didn't consider
it evil at all.

With all due respect an atheist who thinks slavery and other atrocities is a good and moral thing has nothing to say about this issue or about what Jesus says or doesn't say.

Quote: Nareed

So in the case of people who are unable to afford medicine, what's the sin, who commits it, and how does your religion help in any way?

There is also such thing as systematic sin, which I think you alluded to earlier when mentioning such a situation of a person in need of unaffordable medicine is a failure of society. Religion helps us to see such systematic sin and the injustice in our world. It teaches us to care for the least among us. As Mother Teresa once said, "Society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable."

Of course my religion helps in another practical way by being the largest charitable organization on earth and directly distributing free health care and medicine to those in need.

Quote: FrGamble

With all due respect an atheist who thinks slavery and other atrocities is a good and moral thing .

I never said that. I said what slave owner
ever cried himself to sleep over the
immorality of owning slaves. None
that I ever heard of.

So I make good points on Jesus and morality,
and instead of responding, you demean
my character? That doesn't really answer
the concern I raised over the slavery issue
in the time the NT was written. It seems they
regarded it as just fine.

Quote: FrGamble

As Mother Teresa once said, "Society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable."

Is that when she was sleeping at a sponsors
mansion on 3000 thread count silk sheets,
or when she was staying on a sponsors yacht
for a few weeks. She spent so little time at
her clinics, it's doubtful she said it there.

So. Jesus did live. There are contemporaneous records of his existence. He was a Son of God, even if only in his and his followers of that time's minds, and he preached much that is wisdom and grace
2000 years later.

Even if you don't believe in his holiness, his miracles, or his paternity, he was worth reading as living an exemplary life, worth emulation. The Buddhists and Muslims will tell you as much, as well as many atheists.

Just as Disney always includes a death, Christ had to die. Not just to redeem all Christians, but for his teachings to remain pertinent and sustaining all this time later. That so many twist his words to suit their greed or impropriety is not his fault, it's ours.

Mother Teresa saw that purpose in its purest form, lived it, and amplified it. I hope she spent every night of her life on 3000 thread sheets; she earned every blissful moment of sleep. She was the Real Deal, and shame on you for besmirching her memory, EB. Neither you nor I have the will, the fortitude, or the grace to live among lepers and the desperate poor.

As to slave owners, that's a bit tougher, but I know Jefferson had sleepless nights over it because he wrote about it. I'm not enough of a TJ scholar to explain why he didn't free his, even in his will, but I think it had to do with that economy and legacy to his many children. His original Declaration draft, though, contained the end of slavery, including his own holdings. He was forced to rescind those paragraphs to satisfy the southern representatives. I genuinely doubt Jefferson was alone among slave owners in this.

I am all for arguing facts rather than faith, but I'd prefer some objectivity in some of these posts of yours.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Even if you don't believe in his holiness, his miracles, or his paternity, he was worth reading as living an exemplary life.

Or so the fables* in the NT tell us. Buddha
wasn't even a real person and he's certainly
worth reading about too. I really don't see
your point.

"Although it is widely believed that "the Buddha" was a real person who lived about 2600 years ago, it can be demonstrated that, as he is portrayed within orthodox Buddhism, Buddha is legendary and mythical."


*fables
1. archaic fictitious tales.

Quote: FrGamble

There is also such thing as systematic sin.

No there's not, you can't even prove
sin exists, let alone all the crap religions
make up about it. It's like you invented
a boogeyman and then invented all
kinds of details about something that
doesn't even exist.

Wait, that's EXACTLY what you did with sin..
lol

It's why I left Xtionity 45 years ago. Nobody
could explain sin to me in a way that was
understandable. In fact, when I brought
the subject up they looked at me like
I had a big wad of dog crap on my shoe.
Like my question about sin stank up the
whole room.

Sin does stink and I have no idea why you have deluded yourself into thinking it doesn't exist.

Systematic sin stinks to high heaven. It is the injustice we see in the world and you would have to be plain blind to not see that.