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A secular moral system is better than a static religious one. Here we compare the two.
For those of us blessed with skepticism and incredulity at the unproven claims of religion it is obvious why basing morality on static texts are problematic. Here is an inventory of the flaws of such a system:
The texts are open to interpretation, as has happened throughout Christianity; for example where Ham was used to justify slavery in one century and declared an invalid interpretation in another.
The texts are ambiguous, so much so that different understandings cause entire schisms, leading to many branches of Christianity that challenge the Papacy, paying for penances, women's role in the Church, even the Trinity itself!
The texts cannot be changed and thus ancient errors in science and morality either have to be brushed over, ignored, de-emphasized or treated as analogy, or even, for Christians, the Old Testament no longer applies. because of a new Convenant with Jesus Whilst others disagree with all that and take the words literally.
Translation errors abound since the original texts were not written in modern English, or even English at all. Oddly correcting the errors isn't a priority since the "errors" have still been blessed by the Powers used to write and approve them; so even the errors are inerrant!
That static texts have to be contorted to match the religious zeitgeist or political winds of the controlling priesthood or cultural mores, proves that even the members of Christianity find it troublesome! Oddly, this is similar to how theists have challenged atheist moral systems
It's a system fraught with compounding errors over time as the different branches bifurcate far from the original, so much so that the range of treatment of homosexuality ranges from outright banning, to DADT, to full acceptance into the priesthood; each with justified with an emphasis on different parts of the texts. That's in one single religion!
The lack of a central authority to determine truth is as problematic as their concensus that somehow they're worshiping the same unproven god. Simultaneously it's an Ouroboros of Protestants rejecting their Catholic foundations whilst relying on its theological underpinnings; and the Greek Orthodoxy meanwhile, are probably shaking their heads wondering what's going on. Either way, it's a bit of a mess on top of all the messiness of the texts that everyone relies on and continuously changing.
A better system is one enshrined into a democratic system of secular law, much like most of the Western world:
Being democratic allows society to change, albeit slowly. As people learn about themselves, we can change our political representatives and ensure that as a whole we get to the right place. It's a frustrating process but generally allows everyone to participate in the running of their own society. Contrast with societies run by religion, which cannot change at all.
Secularism forces out the mysticism and obfuscations of religion and forces theists to explain things in terms acceptable to all. This avoids the problem of theistic frameworks that are stuck in the understandings from thousands of years ago where magical thinking and wishing for things to work out is the way to go.
Being based on law, rather than a free-for-all that the religious texts are, means that they have to be precisely written with little ambiguity; and if loopholes are found, they can be closed. The system is in place to argue the law, try it out, test it in the real world in other situations, before becoming law of the land. Or revoked, as knowledge is gained.
Thoughts?
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Contrary to the popular opinion, there is nothing special about morals that make approaching them logically unfeasible. When it comes to questions of physics, or chemistry, or history, we approach them scientifically, employing a rigorous logical methodology consisting of making falsifiable hypotheses and testing them both theoretically and experimentally. Questions of morals are no different, and there is absolutely no reason to assume that the assumption of existence of some "higher power" dictating them is required for them to be studied and practiced.
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You see the Bible was written by many people a long time ago over a long period of time and they knew what was going on and what was right and what was wrong after all that. So thats why the Bible stands the test of time. But when you get federal laws its all about whose money speaks louder than tthe others and when some body elses money speaks louder then they change the law to suit them. Those wise old guys 2000 thousand years ago would laugh at the law makers today and think what the. Those guys cant make there minds up and it looks like they have never learnt any thing except how to put more fethers in there nest.
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Psst........Hey! let me whisper this in writing for you..........so no one can hear it.................it's bear Arms, not beer arms, We probably should have a United States Constitutional right replacing all Nuclear missiles with lethal alcohol games of Quarters. we have a right Constitutional Amendment right to bear arms and a even bigger United States Constitutional right to perfect connections to establish justice which ensure the people as a common defense towards the general welfare.
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