Religion and morality

Ophelia Benson has some thoughts:

Liberal believers can ignore the nasty parts of the bible and keep only the good bits - but if they do that, they are doing it for reasons that are independent of the bible and of religion. They are using secular moral judgment to do that - but giving religion the credit.

That's the sneaky part, and it's why liberal religion is not such a beneficent arrangement as people think. It gives religion more credit for human morality, and it gives human judgment less credit. This means it encourages people to think that morality depends on religion when it really doesn't, and it encourages them to distrust human moral judgment. That just sets them up to be subject to the authority of clerics, which at best stunts their own ability to think about morality and at worst turns them into arbitrary bullies and meddlers.

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