Does teaching of evolution cause social decay?

Isn't there already?If you get people to stop thinking that they alone of all people have The Truth Straight from God, wouldn't they be more inclined to live and let live?I mean, if you're forced to conclude that the morals you hold aren't divine dictates but simply your best guess about how folks should live, aren't you a little more inclined to accept that another person's different-but-workable opinion is just as valid? The same way any of us makee judgements about things that aren't in the Bible - we look at the outcome. If doing that thing leads to bad outcomes for people, then we're in pretty good standing to tell them that what they're doing is a bad idea. There's plenty of reason. All moral codes are subject to evaluation based on outcome. The fact that, when humans live with those things, society survives and everyone is happier.Do you want a world where people can take what they like and kill who they want? I sure don't. Nobody does. And that fact is sufficient justification for laws that maker stealing and murder wrong.

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"What gets me is all the mean things people say about Secular Humanism without even taking the time to read some of our basic scriptures, such as the Bill of Rights or Omni magazine." - Barbara Ehrenreich

Purely objective reasons. In my country, people live long lives and generally report being content with their lives.In their country, life is short and dangerous, people are starving, and nobody's happy.You don't need universal absolutes to prefer the first way to the second. If folks want to live and be happy, why do we need greater justification than that for the social constructions it takes?

If his actions bring harm to people, then we make them criminal. If they don't, they shouldn't be against the law.People don't want to be harmed. That's why people agree to have laws. If it causes demonstratable harm to other people, then we're justified in using the laws of our society - of which he chose to remain a part - to prevent or correct his actions.You keep ignoring the harm aspect of my argument, why is that? You keep focusing on persons who hold ridiculous or selfish views, and ignore the basic, simple truth - folks make laws because folks want to be protected from those who harm them. This isn't rocket science, Almeyda. You don't believe laws are good because God told you they are. You believe laws are good because they protect you from people who want to kill you and take your stuff. Why do you think that's a position that an atheist can't hold, as well?

Consistency is good, but it must take a backseat to practicality. For instance: Because enforcing bans on abortion harms more women than it saves babies. Did I say it was? I just said people don't like to suffer. I don't like it. You don't like it. Nobody does.Why should we make people suffer if they don't want to? Doesn't it serve us all better if we come to an agreement and find ways to prevent us from making each other suffer?You don't want to suffer, right? Neither do I. So why do we need any more justification for avoiding suffering than that? You're making this too complicated. It's not wrong. It's just that people don't want to suffer. So we make laws that prevent suffering by promising suffering for lawbreakers.It works, mostly. Since no one wants to suffer, they have a pretty good reason not to make other people suffer. Because your neighboors and I all got together and agreed that we didn't want you to rape our daughters, and so if you did, we'd kill you.As it turns out, if there's no cosmic law preventing you from raping, there's no cosmic law that says we have to let you do it. Well, since society as a whole is going to kick your ass if you bring harm to people, and presumably you don't want your ass kicked, why don't you just play along? It makes everybody happier, including you.It's really very simple. Societies enforce laws because they want to, and there's no cosmic law that says they can't. Just because you think you can do what you want and harm to others be dammed, doesn't mean I have to let you.

No, of course it doesn't. There's no dogma, no following.Anyway a fundamentalist Christian is absolutely nobody to be talking about forcing people to follow dogma. It's not about punishment. It's about protection. It's about getting people to minimize the harm they do to other people. For the vast, vast majority of people, telling them as children not to hurt other people is enough. But there's always a few people who need correction. Since suffering is something nobody wants, we apply a little of it to them in order to convince them to reduce the suffering they inflict on others.Suffering isn't "opinion." It's something nobody wants. There's not. There's just people, and they get to decide how they want to live. Societies that decide to live by rules succeed, persist, and are strong. Societies that don't either destroy themselves or are abandoned, because they have no way to minimize the infliction of harm. Only insomuch as everyone in the world is a human. That's like saying everyone is forced to follow the religion of "air-breathing." Once again you've made the definition of "religion" so broad, it has no meaning.The only things that you're forced to follow are the laws of physics. Nothing compels you to follow the laws we make to keep people from harm. But by the same token nothing stops us from trying to prevent you from harming people.

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"What gets me is all the mean things people say about Secular Humanism without even taking the time to read some of our basic scriptures, such as the Bill of Rights or Omni magazine." - Barbara Ehrenreich