noemon wrote:That assumes that "lack of religion=evidence of truth" which I don't think is right.
No, I'm not assuming that at all. I'm saying that many of the morals from the Bible, Quran etc. are shit. Nothing to do with "evidence of truth". I'm saying that giving credence to the Iron Age morality is a hindrance to decent debate.
People of an enquiring mind will ask this question regardless of their background, people of a non-enquiring mind will simply digest what is being spoon-fed to them by TV and have this answer already drilled into their heads by sitcoms and cartoons. I highly doubt anyone can argue that modern TV offers better moral examples and answers than the Bible and as such a "headstart". The same calibre of people who will say the above if they are religious will also say "but Tony from Sitcom X did this...." if they are not.
Yeah, I'll argue that modern TV offers better moral examples than the Bible. There's no advocacy of genocide, equality of the sexes in general, no toleration of slavery ... the Bible is a record of just how crap the morals of that time were. In amongst it all, you get Jesus saying "love everyone", but notice how reluctant all Christians are to say "OK, there's a lot of dead wood in the Bible that needs to be cut out to leave a decent guide to behaviour".
And no one takes TV as seriously as religious followers are ordered to take their dogma. Yeah, people
can be very good people while believing it, but it causes problems. Look at the
number of Christians who voted for Trump versus the non-religious.