re: "The Southern Baptist Moral Meltdown" (The New York Times, May 27, 2022)
Is it quite true to speak of "all those true teachings and good beliefs"?
Perhaps the problem with religious teaching about morality is that by rejecting reason and rejecting human fallibility in favour of claimed infallible perfection from time immemorial, religious ideals about morality set up exactly the deceit of putting empty, superficial appearance over questionable reality, which is exactly what Catholic priests and bishops and the leaders of every other Christian and like sect have traditionally done to keep up the divine image at any cost.
The Bible's Exodus 20:3 sets the standard: whatever the gods command is deemed right, however morally rotten that might be, and the prime commandment allegedly handed down to Moses is explicitly written down as absolute intolerance allied with the ban on all other graven images save that of the law giver himself as he dictates absent discussion what must be believed with no possibility of improvement, of healthy questioning, or of progress. And that graven image must be obediently worshipped, with no regard to human decency.
It is those intrinsically flawed moral foundations of such ideologies of faith that found the traditional abuses by religions founded on absurd, unquestioned claims of "all those true teachings and good beliefs."
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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.
It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/opinion/the-southern-baptist-sexual-abuse.html#commentsContainer&permid=118518397:118518397
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