Narcissism

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 403.

Moral deficiency

Eschatologically Irresponsible

A tendancy to focus on the end of the world, the spirit, or the next life, has in some cases the consequence of neglecting this world, and an indifference to injustice, environmental destruction, and other remediable ills.

Dogmatic religions are typically morally deficient, elevating to moral status lots of ancient and ill-informed rules that may have been designed for reasons of hygiene, politics, or other reasons in a different era. People who break these rules are often condemned and victimised even though they have done no harm to anyone.

Religious institutions typically claim special knowledge of absolute morality, and invoke this to hinder debates on many issues such as stem cell research and voluntary euthanasia. By taking a deontological view of morality, they refuse to consider the consequences of their hard line positions and thereby cause more suffering than necessary.

Many recognised evils, such as domestic violence, sexism and slavery have enjoyed much support from religious leaders in the past, on the grounds that they were supported by doctrine.

Every religion considers its teachings or relevations to be that which is the closest to the universal truths and that of other religions to be further away (than itself) from the truths, and often in direct contradiction to them.

Liberal traditions tend to regard all faiths as valuable, and even valid in some undefined sense, but maintaining the superiority of their own. Fundamentalist traditions tend to identify other faiths with whatever manifestation of evil is characteristic of their own.