Letters to the Editor
alarajrogers
Published Letters: 440 Editor's Choice: 86
-
I have never understood how religion can possibly be the source of morality.
[Read the article: Dissecting God]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lastly, Dennett's response on the morality question is quite week. To say, "Well, religious morality changes!" doesn't answer the question of how we can base our worldview solely on what is scientific, if morality itself cannot be proven or established scientifically. Guess that's a question he didn't feel like addressing "rationally".
See, I can't figure out how religion gets its sense of what's moral, either.
Either good is objectively good, and God wants it because there is an objective "good" that does not require God's existence to define it, or good is subjective to God, and God's opinion defines what is "good." Well, if there is an objective good outside God, and God is good because He fits that definition, then you didn't need God to define good. And if God does define good, and good is only good because it is what God desires, then why should we necessarily agree with God? I mean, God might be totally selfish. God might want us to worship Him because He gets off on it, and likes the thrill of pushing around the little creatures He created. So why do we turn to God to define good? If God defines good, how do we know God is good? How do we know *good* is good, if we can only point to "what God wants" and say that's what good is rather than actually coming up with a definition of it?
So religion has to simultaneously say "God exists, created us, and is worthy of worship, and we should consider His opinions to be the final arbiter of what 'goodness' is, regardless of what our personal sense of 'goodness' might be", in order to derive morality from God. But look at the Ten Commandments. "Don't worship any other gods" is ranked equally with "don't kill anyone." (Actually, it's ranked above.) Is this really how most people would think of the relative good or evil of these acts? Are we actually going to take seriously the "goodness" of a God who thought it was okay for his Chosen People to murder entire towns of people, except the virgin girls, who they raped and kidnapped to be their wives? (It's in the Bible.) Most of us would say that murdering an entire town and raping the young women is objectively *evil*, but in the holy texts of Christianity and Judaism, God is okay with that. So do we look to that vision of God to tell us what "goodness" is?
I believe that most religious people have a sense of what is objectively good, and shape their vision of God around this sense of goodness. This is why most Jews and Christians don't think it's a good idea to murder and rape, although the Bible condones it in certain circumstances. Religious people who let some holy book or a prophet or a preacher tell them exactly how to define "good", with no sense of their own as to what goodness might be, are the source of all the evil that religion does; the people who define religion in terms of their morality, rather than the other way around, are the ones who do great things for humanity in the name of religion. So already morality doesn't necessarily depend on religion, and if we want to get along with other people who have different holy books, we *need* to have an objectively defined morality that isn't based on "God says it."
-
This is based on a belief that isn't true.
[Read the article: Rated G for guys]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I mean the fact that Hollywood has all the characters be guys. It's based on the idea that girls will watch boys, but boys will not watch girls.
Boys will not watch girls *act girly*. Stuff about makeup and being into boys and pretty clothes turns boys off (turns me off, too.) But boys will happily watch girls kick butt. It's not about the gender, really, it's about the gender-stereotyped behavior; boys consider stereotypical girly behavior to be inferior, but they don't actually consider *girls* inferior. They just like girls to act like boys. (And, frankly, I agree with them; stereotypically girly behavior does not make for good entertainment.) More precisely, they like girls to act like action heroes -- they want to watch girls who are tough, who can kick butt, who use intelligence and skill to defeat challenges... and why don't we all want to watch that?
My son declared that Starbuck was the best character on new Battlestar Galactica after watching her pilot the Cylon ship back home to rescue herself, because "she's the best pilot." He watches Kim Possible with his sister. He used to watch Powerpuff Girls when they were both younger. He has no problem with watching a girl hero. But he won't watch some of the more egregiously girly stuff my daughter is into; among other things he doesn't really like shows that have *no* boys (and it does seem like many shows aimed at girls ghettoize in the other direction, removing all boys or making the few boys into kind of useless eye candy, like Winx Club or Bratz). Meanwhile, as a young woman I refused to watch Red Dwarf because there were absolutely no female characters at all. (Later they got one, but at the time, there were none.)
In other words, Hollywood, in order to maximize your audience, you should create shows with a relatively even sex balance, in which both male and female characters are shown as strong, tough and intelligent (having some idiots along for comic relief is okay, but having them all be one sex or the other is problematic.) Boys will most certainly watch girls if the girls are acting in the way boys expect heroes to act. They won't watch girls if the girls are acting in the way Hollywood execs apparently think is appropriate for girls, but hell, I won't watch that either, and I wouldn't have when I was 8.