Why religion matters

Because we can't trust morality to scientists and doctors. Once we begin to see ourselves as mere organisms, our own convenience becomes the measure of all things.

The insistence on applying their own views of morality, while denying and belittling those of people of faith, is what is costing liberals their political support. Their arguments against defending ourselves from terrorism and freeing oppressed peoples like the Iraqis, have no basis other than their own authority. Once you decide that God doesn't exist or that he is more of a force, like nature, gravity or evolution, than a personal being who knows us, loves us and gives commandments to guide us--once you relegate him to mythical status or deny that he is a moral being, you have nothing on which to base your ideas of the meaning of truth or justice or right and wrong. What was once considered at best a psychological disorder, is now a Constitutional right. How can we be sure anymore that our sense of evil won't be seen as provincial silliness in another generation?

Homosexuality is not different in kind from pedophilia or the sexual desires of Ted Bundy. They are all "sexual preferences." Those who engage in them claim that they were "born that way" and that they cannot justly be expected to control those impulses (although Bundy attributed his degeneration to abuse he received as a child and to his use of ever more degrading pornography). Right now the distinction is made that whatever occurs between consenting adults should be tolerated, but even now, NAMBA is arguing that boys under the age of 18 can be consenting adults, and that Paul Shanley who abused boys as a Catholic Priest, was really saving them from far worse fates. The arguments are the same. There are all kinds of "love that dare not speak its name," behaviors that can be justified with the same sophistries. The rights of boys to be the objects of lust for men are said to be denied. The boys are the new victims of our Victorian prejudices. All it takes is time, spokesmen and compliant media.

It is true that much evil has been done in the name of religion, but that occurs when people have ceased to listen to prophets and inspired teachers and argued that God no longer speaks.