The world would be a more loving and less violent and less oppressive place if people focused on being empathic and compassionate in our day to day dealings and also focused on more organized forms of kindness, instead of focusing on religious dogma.
Keep the religious texts for what’s good in them, and dispense with the mystical dogma that’s bogged down in contradictory and extraordinary claims that can’t be proved. Draw wisdom from the Bible and other sacred texts without closing our minds by thinking that we’re reading the infallible and immutable word of God.
What’s common among all religions and among nonreligious ethics is the importance of empathy and compassion. So let’s draw from the sacred texts but do so without close-minded certainty. Then we can combine those writings with non-religious philosophy to form a code of ethics that is applicable to all cultures.
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Let’s form an ethical framework that is in harmony with science, instead of continuing to imagine some sort of separation between scientific understanding, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, our collective appreciation for what is sacred.
That way we can take our sense of what is sacred and apply it rationally to the urgent issues faced by the many forms of life on Earth. Our current approach to the existing major world religions comes up short in terms of a viable response to the ecological challenges we face.
Dealing with political conflicts among humans is part of ecology. Many of those conflicts around the world, currently and throughout history, stem from or have been made worse by people’s religious beliefs. Thru religion, people become so certain about being right that resolving conflicts becomes more difficult. The problem stems from the emphasis on belief (instead of the pursuit of the truth) that tends to exist within religions.
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