Religion ​Lies ​About Morality.

“We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.” - Christopher Hitchens

“​With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.” - Steven Weinberg

The primary basis of morality, according to scriptural sources, is sketchy and inconsistent at best, routinely adapting and altering itself over time. An example of this might be mosaic law. Mosaic law, found in Old Testament books, such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy, sets out the law, along with other societal and spiritual regulations, as mandated by god upon mankind (specifically, the israelites). Exodus, for instance, gives some wonderful advice on proper etiquette regarding one’s slaves - particularly your young sex slaves; ​“These are the judicial decisions that you are to convey to them: If you buy a Hebrew slave, he will serve as a slave for six years, but in the seventh year, he will be set free without paying anything. If he came by himself, he will go out by himself. If he is the husband of a wife, then his wife must go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children will become her master’s, and he will go out by himself. But if the slave should insist and say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my sons; I do not want to be set free,’ his master must bring him before the true God. Then he will bring him up against the door or the doorpost, and his master will pierce his ear through with an awl, and he will be his slave for life.​ ​​If a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not go free the same way that a slave man does. If her master is not pleased with her and he does not designate her as a concubine but causes her to be purchased by someone else, he will not be entitled to sell her to foreigners, for he has betrayed her.” - ​Exodus 21:1-8​.

All very well, but according to ​Romans 10:4;​ ​Galatians 3:23–25;​ and ​Ephesians 2:15,​ When Jesus died on the cross, He put an end to the Old Testament law.

I can make three issues of this amusing claim without even pausing for thought;

1. According to ​Numbers 23:19-20, 1 Samuel, 15:29​, and ​James 1:17,​ God doesn’t change his mind.

2. With respect to slavery,​ 1 Peter 2:18-20 r​ eads “​Let servants be in subjection to their masters with all due fear, not only to the good and reasonable but also to those hard to please. For it is agreeable when someone endures hardship and suffers unjustly because of conscience toward God. For what merit is there if you are beaten for sinning and you endure it?”
   So the mosaic law says slavery is ok, then Jesus bans it, then the gospels allow it again? Along with cruelty and violence? But god is love? And we see no contradiction here? I’m stunned...

3. An acquaintance of mine, whom I know well and implicitly trust, is a former member of the insane cult known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. My friend as violently raped at knife point in a hotel room, after a man forced entry into the room, while my friend was visiting friends, who were also members of the cult.
   As is expected of members of this vile extortion racket, my friend went to the elders of the congregation for support. The elders, in their infinite wisdom, and as men whose hearts are so well attuned to Christian love and forgiveness - and who are permitted under the law to subject members to judiciary meetings, where the lone individual is subject to interrogation and intimidation by three grown men, and allowed no representation, was subjected to just such a tribunal, where my friend was inappropriately and cruelly grilled by non-professional civilians of a zealous and schadenfreude disposition, with respect to the specifics regarding positions, time, place, and whether or not helped was screamed for during the assault. My friend did not scream for help, due to fearing for physical safety (after all, it was at knife point). Subsequently, after being told not to inform the police, in order to avoid any rumors, gossip, or publicity, my friend was
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   disciplined, and order to pray for forgiveness after committing such a ‘sin’, on the basis of not screaming, as laid out by Deuteronomy 22:23-24,​ which reads; “If a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man happens to meet her in the city and lies down with her, you should bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them to death, the girl because she did not scream in the city and the man because he humiliated the wife of his fellow man. So you must remove what is evil from your midst.”

Commentary on this may in fact be found on the Watchtower’s rather dull public website, where one will find the following, disgusting and insensitive garbage;

“The Bible does not shy from recounting some cases of rape and attempted rape that occurred in the past. (Genesis 19:4-11; 34:1-7; 2 Samuel 13:1-14) But it also offers counsel on what one should do when threatened with rape. What the Law says on the matter is found at Deuteronomy 22:23-27. This covers two situations. In the first case, a man found a young woman in a city and lay down with her. Even so, the woman did not scream or cry for help. Consequently, it was determined that she was guilty “for the reason that she did not scream in the city.” If she had cried out, people nearby might have been able to come to her rescue. In the second instance, a man found a young woman in the countryside, where he ‘grabbed hold of her and lay down with her.” In defense, the woman “screamed, but there was no one to rescue her.’ Unlike the woman in the first instance, this woman clearly did not give in to the actions of the attacker. She actively resisted him, crying for help, but she was overpowered. Her screaming proved that she was an unwilling victim; she was not guilty of wrongdoing.
Although Christians today are not under the Mosaic Law, the principles mentioned therein provide them with guidance. The above account underscores the importance of resisting and screaming for help. Screaming when threatened with rape is still viewed as a practical course. One expert on crime prevention stated: ‘If a woman is attacked, her best weapon is still her lungs.’ A woman’s screaming may attract others, who can then assist her, or it may startle an attacker and make him leave. A young Christian woman who was attacked by a rapist stated: ‘I screamed with all my might, and he backed off. When he came toward me again, I screamed and ran. In the past I had often thought, ‘How can screaming help me when some big man grabs me with only one thing on his mind?’ But I’ve learned that it works!’”

Not only does this disastrous and wicked, and staggeringly stupid policy constitute an act and a display of absolute immorality on its own terms, but in any ordinary world, it would also constitute a violation of the human rights of those subject to it.
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." Rape violates this law because usually when a person gets raped they aren't very happy about it. It also violates it because it violates an individual’s security.
Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Rape violates this law because rape is cruel to the victims and degrading to the victims once its over.
Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights states that, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." Rape violates this law because rape is an attack on somebody else. it is also violating someone else's privacy.
Article 29.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights states that, " in the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements or morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society." Rape last but not least violates this law because rape violates people’s freedoms.
Unfortunately for the aforementioned victims, we as a society, in our infinite stupidity and myopia, along with our equally stupid propensity for the belief that beliefs ought to be respected and preserved by default, have elected to allow the freedom to practice religion - even if that practice entails the denial of the rights of others - higher standing and value than other, comparatively minor freedoms, like the freedom to self determination and physical safety. Perhaps someone ought to remind the Watchtower of this, given that the primary cause for their recent financial troubles (most Witnesses have noticed how budgets for everything from Kingdom Hall maintenance to leaflet distribution has drastically decreased in recent years) is down to both their being caught out on illegal sub-letting of properties, and the ​massive,​ massive sums of money the organisation has had to pay out in punitive damages in sex-abuse lawsuits they’ve lost, after elders have desperately attempted to cover up abuse by the elders of their congregations.

However, not only does this show us just how inhuman and lacking in compassion and empathy the religious mind invariably is towards those who violate it’s bronze age, clueless doctrines, but it demonstrates a disastrous degree of ignorance and incompetence insofar as behaviour and psychology goes - especially damaging when the law permits judiciary decisions to be passed by religious fanatics without a fair trial, without adequate representation, without any regard for evidence, and all done outside of the​ real​ judiciary system.

In the midst of sexual assault, the brain’s fear circuitry dominates. The prefrontal cortex can be severely impaired, and all that’s left may be reflexes and habits. For example,​ freezing​ is a brain-based response to detecting danger, especially a predator’s attack. Think deer in the headlights. Freezing occurs when the amygdala – a crucial structure in the brain’s fear circuitry – detects an attack and signals the brainstem to inhibit movement. It happens in a flash, automatically and beyond conscious control.
It’s a brain response that rapidly shifts the organism into a state of vigilance for incoming attacks and avenues of escape. Eyes widen, pupils dilate, our hearing becomes more acute, adrenaline rushes through our body. The body is thus primed flight or fight instinct. But in reality, neither fight nor flight necessarily follows. Simultaneously with the freeze response, the fear circuitry unleashes a surge of “stress chemicals” into the prefrontal cortex, the brain region that allows us to think ​rationally​ – to recall the bedroom door is open, or that people are in the dorm room next door, for example, and to ​make use​ of that information. But the surge of chemicals rapidly impairs the prefrontal cortex. That’s because, despite our dominant role on the planet now, we evolved as ​prey​, and when a lion or tiger is upon us, stopping to think is fatal. It’s in fact the very same reason we see shapes in the clouds, or notice that we always seem to look at our watch at 11:20 every morning. Because we evolved as prey, only becoming the predator, or otherwise apex species on the planet within the last few hundred thousand years, our brains are still attuned to the need to spot potential threats in our environment, irrespective of whether they are really there. Sort of like erring on the side of caution.
This is also why the Royal Marines, and other military forces that undergo combat training, are required to undergo intensive and very repetitive programmes. Fear as drastic impacts on our prefrontal cortex, and thus our ability to reason under such stressful circumstances. After all, a soldier in a combat situation must be able to assess his or her situation quickly, and respond just as quickly while on the battlefield. As such, they must rely on what is termed ​effective habit learning.​ Think of it as reprogramming the fight or flight instinct. Which is precisely why military combat training is rigorous and repetitive - these habits must be instilled over time by repeating acts and thoughts over and over. Hence specific training exercises.
Most of us mere mortals, however, have no such experience or training, and as such we invariably lack such habits to fall back on in such a situation. Most people in such a situation will try to resist physically, but that too often depends both on one’s confidence in one’s own physical ability, and one’s prior experience. It’s quite likely that most of us would rely on words, saying no, or ​asking​ someone to stop. Perhaps predictable phrases like ‘But what if your partner finds out?’ or ‘I’ll call the police’. These are often all we can think of in that moment, and we have a way of convincing ourselves that it will be enough. Until we realise it’s too late, and we freeze up, or do what our attacker wants to get it over with so we can run or simply break down. Innumerable​ victims of rape and sexual assault describe those exact instinctive reactions. All of the time, police officers, university staff, even friends and family will ask ‘why didn’t you run?’ or ‘why didn’t you call for help? And that’s easy for us to say, when we presume they had a fully functional prefrontal cortex at the time, and that extends to the many victims as they look back on what happened; such passive responses can be deeply distressing, often prompting feelings of responsibility. Did I really do enough to resist? Did part of me want it? Such questions can seem perfectly natural from a certain perspective. After all, such responses seem exactly the opposite of how they should be. But the brain simply doesn’t work like that. And our minds are shackled to the decisions made by our brains.

Suffice it to say, psychology and neuroscience tell us that a victim of rape is ​never​ at fault, no matter how much they did or did not physically or verbally resist. Consent is consent. And sex without consent is rape.
Yet in spite of this, organisations such as the Watchtower, the Catholic Church, and the Church Of Jesus Christ And Latter Day ...