On Morality

I ranacross this post by Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist and thought it was worth commenting on. For some reason, I can't copy and paste a quote, so I suggest you follow the link and read the post, or at least the first part of it, before reading my comments.

I've thought about the issue of morality a lot recently, and come to the conclusion hat our core moral value is a product of our existence as social primates: we take care of each other, because that benefits out group, and what beneits our group benefits the individuals in the group.

This core moral imperative is one that's shared by all religions, at least, all that I've run across. It's when you have priesthoods trying to control behaviors that it starts to get murky. (Think Leviticus, which in my opinion has nothing to do with any sort of real morality -- it's a tool for controlling the community.)

So the enext time yoou hear some preacher fulminating on the imoorality of such ahd such (send money), ask them if they are devoting resources to feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, comforting the afflicated.