Morality with a higher power is inherently subjective, and therefore, untestable. I get that you do not understand what faith means.
If your religion is true, then it is not subjective.
In any case, it's not like we can definitively prove either a positive or a negative here. The question is always going to be for all intents and purposes moot.
You have to understand that we are ultimately limited to one of two possible premises here. A given religion can only either be true or untrue. It cannot be both.
If the religion in question is true, then its morality is objectively true. If it is false, then its morality is subjective, and it essentially becomes nothing more than one ultimately meaningless philosophy among many other secular and religious alternatives.
However, regardless of which premise you choose to start from, my answer to the OP's question will remain the same. Personal moral convictions (which is exactly what religions become once their respective deities have been removed from the equation) should always come before blind obedience to one's nation or its laws.
And yet you go about claiming religion is the best way to do it. Except that you admit that all morality ultimately boils down to personal perception and belief. Thanks for shooting your own argument in the head.
Again, this is all heavily dependent upon which premise one starts from.
Frankly, regardless of the premise chosen, the fact of the matter would seem to remain that Religion
does, in fact, have a far better track record than any purely secular alternative attempted so far.
Nice fallacy there. It's either 100% or nothing eh? Except that isn't how it actually works. We can test and we can look at history for what works and what does not. When you basis your laws on a thousands year old hearsay, you can do neither.
And what, pray tell, do you think traditional religious morality constitues in a purely secular world other than the end product of thousands of years of human social trial and error?
Tradition tends to be tradition for a reason, after all.
Actually it is. I'm pointing out that relying on religion makes it much worse than relying on secular.
Except that it doesn't, and historically hasn't. :roll:
Then you have rejected your own points. Thanks again for shooting your argument in the head.
How exactly?
Communist Poland and Republican Spain.
Did you really expect me not to notice your dishonesty there? You added in cultural trappings. We were purely discussing religion here. How about you stop being dishonest?
The two are so fundamentally ingrained at this point as to be effectively inseparable.
Raising a child completely without religion would require that one deny them exposure to cultural and philosophical ideas which find their roots in religious world views (i.e. ideas like good, evil, the dichotomy which exists between them, or the belief in any kind of afterlife or supernatural entity), and all materials which build off of or tie into those concepts.
This would basically require that you completely shut them off from the last several thousand years of human literature, history, philosophy, and cultural memes.
Thus, we agree that you are calling for Sharia, at least for Muslims. Thus, Muslims in America, by your arguments should push for Sharia as religious law should trump secular. I win. Again. As usual.
Whether or not Islam even necessarily calls for Sharia Law is a matter of debate.
However, working off of the premise that Islam actually did call for it, I would say that any muslim who failed to press for such a state of affairs would not be living in accordance with their stated set of beliefs.
This wouldn't, of course, make such a move technically correct per se, but it would be logically consistent.
