Nuts. What is is about 'love your neighbor as you love yourself' do you even remotely believe justifies any of those things?
It doesn't, and yet I've heard major Christian leaders defend those things using the bible. In our history, every single one of those injustices has been defended by using one or more quotes in the bible. The golden rule, the basis of Secular morality, is downplayed by most Christians in those cases. There's a contradiction there, and that causes the problems we see with Christian morality today; Christian based discrimination of Homosexuals is condoned by passages of the bible, but ultimately undone by the golden rule; which one do we hear about? If Christian Righteousness was really based on the golden rule, it'd be compatible with Secular Righteousness, but that's not what most Christian Fundamentalists have in mind.
"It is certainly arguable that “progressive” liberal fundamentalism substantially undermines the basic effectiveness of the government and other societal elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of liberalism, attempts to build a utopian liberal society in America have only led to heightened outbreaks of AIDS, VD, porno-related crime, social divisions, divorce, abortion, drug addictions, deficit spending, the welfare state, a crushing tax burden, the breakdown of the family unit, moral depravity, and numerous other such scourges which have resulted in enormous societal suffering and discontent. As a result, secular liberal fundamentalism is strongly associated with left-wing fanaticism, reverse-racism, anti-intellectualism, elitism, nihilism, godlessness, and societal violence." – Author Unknown
Author Unknown is a moron. Let's address that quote piece by piece.
Utopian =/= Liberal and never did. I am not a liberal, Libertarianism is nearly the exact opposite of liberalism. Most secularist movements are for a reduction of existing laws and reducing the power of government, everything the Liberals hate.
Is AIDS/VD caused by Liberals, Secularists, or any other Progressive movements? Uh, no. The biggest outbreaks of AIDS correlate with the largest densities of Religiosity. Most secularists are promoting the use of condoms where religious movements promote abstinence; According to every study I could get my hands on, Abstinence only education yields higher teen pregnancies, higher teen std rates, and are an all around failure.
Effective Sex Education
Porno-related crime? :lol: What in the hell is a Porno-related crime? If you mean crime being induced by the maddening effects of pornography, you're right up there with reefer madness. All countries that had banned pornography and then legalized it later found that crime was worse during the dry years, especially sex offenses. I seriously laughed at my screen when I read that line.
Social divisions are not any sort of problem that is solved by any form of "righteousness", since there's no problem with social divides. We are a diverse people, and that's a good thing.
Divorce rates of Atheists/Secularists are half that of Christians.
Atheism & Divorce: Divorce Rates for Atheists are Among the Lowest in America - Why Do Conservative Christian Defenders of Marriage Get Divorced Most?
Abortion is tolerated but not condoned by secularists. I promote bans on all abortions that aren't due to Rape, Incest, or if the Child will endanger the life of the Mother. That doesn't make me pro-life, but I seriously don't condone the practice. I tolerate it under very specific conditions, and "inconvenience" or "choice" isn't one of them. I'm not Pro-life or Pro-choice.
Drug Addiction I'll give you, there is a mild increase in drug use and addiction among Secularists. But, we all know that Authoritarian laws against drug use are even worse than the drugs themselves; to use this as a "victory" for Religious Righteousness stops the second the Religious Right endorses the War on Drugs. That's the instant where the Religious Right promote more harm than Secularists.
Deficit Spending? Every president we've ever had was a Christian and there's only one Atheist in Congress. How can you possibly blame Atheists/Secularists for anything the Government does? I don't like paying taxes or living under an oppressive government; I support the deregulation of nearly every facet of every industry. I want smaller government, as do most secularists. "Author Unknown" doesn't know what "Liberal" even means.
Breakdown of the family unit goes right along with Divorce rates, Atheists have better family cohesion than Religious families. If you mean that we also love our neighbors and accept their families as valid, even when it goes against some Religious Fundamentalist's Bigoted world view, then yes we are destroying the family unit. How dare we be tolerant of others. Oh yeah,
the golden rule. Again, the Religious Righteousness you speak of would be all fine and dandy if it actually entailed following the golden rule, but that's almost never the case.
Moral depravity and Societal Violence? Firstly, if you just define everyone that doesn't agree with you as immoral, then what's the point of even debating morality. It's simply close mindedness, and ultimately a contradiction of the golden rule. If we're talking about quantifiable and measured immorality/violence, such as federal crimes, Atheists beat Religion every time. From the Federal Bureau of Prisons (
What Percentage of Prisoners are Atheists? It’s a Lot Smaller Than We Ever Imagined ), 0.07% of Federal inmates self identified as "Atheist", vs ~6% of the general population; 1/85th the population we would expect from statistics alone, and completely against any claim that Secularism breeds immoral or violent tendencies.
Reverse-Racism is a non-sensical statement. Either you're racist or you're not, there's no such thing as Reverse-Racism. If you mean tolerance and loving our neighbors, then Secularists are your guys.
How do you put anti-intellectualism and elitism in the same sentence? They literally mean opposite things. Again "Author Unknown" is a moron.
Nihilism? The most selfish people I've ever met were Christians. As an atheist, I've had several debates on this forum trying to prove the value of humility and selflessness; you can look up my profile if you want. Although I've met some bad Atheists before, the vocal majority emphasizes the golden rule and selfless lifestyles.
Godlessness. Yup, that's sort of the point of Secularism.
