Hitchens once wrote a line that has almost gained the status of philosophical epigram or even scientific dictum: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Although it echoes Wittgenstein's famous injunction regarding the ineffable - "Whereof we cannot speak, therefore we must be silent"

What a strange comparison .....

- Hitchens's version is less a "no entry" sign than a civic reminder to place rubbish in the bin.

Indeed.

But Andrwe Anthony's second remark is actually an understatement, as Wittgenstein is saying that everything really interesting is part of the "ineffable" whereas Hitchens says that the ineffable is of no interest whatsoever.

Quote:
it's religion, he contests, that is "cosmically hopeless, as is all the related masochism that goes with it - you've got to spend your entire life making up for the vermin you are. What is that if not degrading?
- - - - - - - - - - -
This is religion seen through a specifically Christian lens - the notion of humans as irredeemably fallen.

Judaism starts with the notion of humans as the image of the divine, the only creatures able to bridge material and spiritual/moral worlds through their freely-willed choice of justice and kindness.

Which is neither masochistic nor degrading...

> Which is neither masochistic nor degrading...

Of course it is. You imagine yourself prima facie to be a knockoff of a grander being, "the image of the divine".

Judaism...Which is neither masochistic nor degrading...

Unless you're a woman.

http://www.womensenews.org/story/religion/101108/daughter-topples-orthodox-law-disinheriting-her

(WOMENSENEWS)--Anyone who believes religious traditions only oppress women in faraway places should hear my story.

I've just won an eight-year legal battle in Brooklyn, N.Y., to keep the house my parents left me. My brother--the first-born son of an Orthodox rabbi--claimed the religious right to evict me.

Last month Brooklyn Surrogate's Court Judge Diana A. Johnson not only ruled the house was legally mine, but awarded me over a half a million dollars in damages from my brother for having padlocked me, just days after my father's death, out of the family home my parents had deeded to me. For over seven years, while I racked up crushing legal fees, my brother barricaded my childhood home.

My case is not exceptional. Many Orthodox Jewish women have called me since the news of my victory was reported in the New York Post and reprinted in the Brooklyn Eagle and on various blogs. Many said they wish they had fought back as I did. These calls made me livid at those handful of U.S. rabbis and others who share my faith who routinely turn their backs on women.

Ancient Jewish law says the first-born son--the b'khor, in Hebrew--inherits a double share of his parents' inheritance; daughters get nothing.

Lovely.

Favorite passage, maybe because I've seen people die of it:

The banality of cancer seems to irk him almost as much as its lethality. Lacking any dialectical substance, it affords few opportunities to escape platitude or avoid cliche. It's a big subject, but it's essentially small talk, and Hitchens's style requires the elevated registers of the epic and the ironic. Anything less is like asking a high-wire artist to perform his act at ground level.

I'm at the point that I say fuck religion. I try to think that most religions are benign. But Amy proves to me time and again -- we need to ban religion.

But at the same time it is what keeps non-thinking people in-line.

I believe that most people are biologically and evolutionarily programed to be "religious" i.e. engage in magical thinking, feeling things with their emotions rather than scientifically and mathematically analyzing the data. In some respects we need to do this in order to keep ourselves sane. The herd mentality and the tendency to believe what others we have to associated with (usually family members)believe has been reinforced genetically for tens of thousands of years. It is a very important survival characteristic. Religion and religious thinking will ALWAYS be with us. Our job as fellow citizens of the 90 percent of the population, who engage in magical thinking is to channel religious behavior into benign activities that won't end up becoming a danger to the rights and lives of the rest of us. You can't reason a person out of a position that they did not reach through reason, but you can punish and suppress activities and beliefs that are not conducive to maintaining a civilized society.

heh, I couldn't pass this buy without thinking of Douglas, who has already taken this step:

"Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all." ~ Douglas Adams

While I understand those who have had actual harm done to them in the name of religion disliking it what I don't understand is the undercurrent of contempt for those who choose to worship God. I see no reason to be dismissive of another human being's mental capacity simply because they have made different choices than you have, barring,of course, any actual harm brought by those choices. Disagreement is neccesary but contempt is contemptible.

Some examples of contemptuous comments just for clarity:

JimP ....we need to ban religion. But at the same time it is what keeps non-thinking people in-line

Isabel1130 ....Our job as fellow citizens of the 90 percent of the population, who engage in magical thinking is to channel religious behavior into benign activities that won't end up becoming a danger to the rights and lives of the rest of us. You can't reason a person out of a position that they did not reach through reason,...

I do want to say that I agree with Isabel's premise that we cannot allow people to use religion to perpetrate activities not allowed in a civilized society. That point could have been put across, however, without implying that people who choose to be religious are hopelessly engaged in "magical thinking" and a "herd mentality," strongly implying a lack of thought on their parts.

That point could have been put across, however, without implying that people who choose to be religious are hopelessly engaged in "magical thinking"

Yet, it IS magical thinking. No moral judgment implied here. Religious people aren't bad people for being religious, but they do not come to their conclusion through reason. They come to it via some feeling they have about the way the universe works.

What Monica said.

Either you believe in supernatural forces or you don't.

my brother for having padlocked me, just days after my father's death, out of the family home my parents had deeded to me.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sounds like there were worse problems in this family than religion.... Further:

Ancient Jewish law says the first-born son--the b'khor, in Hebrew--inherits a double share of his parents' inheritance; daughters get nothing.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Nope.
This Biblical law was updated by the sages centuries ago... and any written will supersedes this rule. Her brother's thuggery has nothing to do with Judaism.

The Bible records women owning property, and has laws that allow them to retain it during marriage.

Among the finds at the famous Masada excavation was a woman's satchel - containing the deeds to her properties. This from a time when Roman and Persian empires treated women as chattel.

Nice try, though - try shrieking louder next time to drown out the truth: the Torah stakes out a progressive trajectory leading to equality for women, and the sages have followed that trajectory. Jewish women in every era have been better off than their gentile counterparts.

MonicaP sounds so cool:
Religious people... do not come to their conclusion through reason. They come to it via some feeling they have about the way the universe works.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Most morality - and a lot of the values that make us human - cannot be justified rationally.

I come to my religious face through my EXPERIENCE of "how the universe works" - my human experience. Which leads me to value intimacy and compassion over exploitation, justice over unlimited power, giving over taking.

None of which can be rationally proven - only intuited.

... the real kicker is that many of the folks ragging down religion betray just how inadequate their reasoning powers are whenever we discuss scientific proofs or statistics on this blog... the "rational" pose is just that - a pose taken up because it's popular.

For most of these people, faith in science and self-proclaimed experts is just that - faith. And it's accepted much more blindly, with a lot more certainty and a lot less probing, than most traditional religious belief.

Most morality - and a lot of the values that make us human - cannot be justified rationally.

Of course they can. Just because you can't...

Amy can relate the experiences she had growing up as a Jewish child around Christian children. I have my own bad experiences after letting people know I was an Athiest. Neither would compare to what an infidel would experiance in a prodominately Muslim area. The whole faith thing - believing in something that there is no evidence for, colors the religious persons thinking. Calling belief in science faith is wrong, because even if someone isn't an expect in the subject, the evidence for the theories is there for people to examine.

expert, not expect. Duh.

> None of which can be rationally
> proven - only intuited.

Your intuition will just never mean that much to me... Especially in a matter for which there's so much logic to be applied... As well as my own intuition, which outperforms yours in any case.

See how that works?

"Calling belief in science faith is wrong, because even if someone isn't an expect in the subject, the evidence for the theories is there for people to examine."
Yes, but few people have the mathematical, statistical and scientific background to examine the data that the scientists sometime cherry pick to make their political case. (Oh no, a scientist who has an emotional, financial and political agenda? Say it ain't so Joe.:-) This is why I am a anthropogenic global warming skeptic. The climate "scientists" have relied on computer modeling that has so far been unable to predict future climate. They have also failed to adequately and scientifically explain why solar activity and sunspots, ocean currents etc. have "less" effect on climate than greenhouse gases. In short, even if we take it as a given, that the earth is warming, and has been for the last 30 years or so, their explanation for why it is warming and also the assumption that this warming is unprecedented, and will continue, is unsupported. When climate scientists stomp their feet and say "it is so, because I say it is so" is it any wonder that most people can't distinguish science from religion?

So Ben David, let me see if I have this right.

You belong to an offshoot of a Juedaism. One created when 'scholars' updated the literal word of god as handed down to a prophet capable of killing or healing people, creating water out of stone and parting the red sea with a wave of his walking stick?

I cant say which beleif is dumber. That laws spoken from the mouth of an PERFECT, ALL POWERFUL, ALL KNOWING, IMMORTAL being to one of his most powerful mystic meat puppets of all time, laws that were written down almost immediatly - or that god was such a fuck up that thousands of years later a handful of imperfect sinful MORTALS had to edit his rules of behavior.

Seriously, which of those two scenarios(both complete fiction btw) is more beleivabl?e

So how much research do athiests do before they decide not to belive in anything? If you just think that's intuitively obvious, maybe you weren't thinking much about it either.

I'm not trying to belittle people who don't believe as much as say that there is frequently a lack of thought on both sides.

I get irritated at people who seem to think that evolution includes animals figuring out what makes sense and deliberately evolving that way. They're out there, really. OK, maybe they don't say it that clearly, but it's close.

This dude I've been hanging out with said to me recently, "So you actually believe humans come from apes?"

He could be fun sometimes, too.

So how much research do athiests do before they decide not to belive in anything?

That's the thing about atheism: Atheists don't have to research something to decide whether to believe in it. Believers have to prove that it exists. It's not my job to prove a negative. Show me scientific evidence that God exists and I will believe.

...coming from Dutch Christian reformed. Everyone took it too seriously, lot's of suicides...people you can't live up to the expectations. I'm talking parents as well as children.

I'm really glad my folks came around when all four of us children revolted. We're grown now but we know they will never try to enforce religion on their grandkids.

Live and learn, and I'm glad they did.

They also, now, appreciate science.

They may believe in their God, but they don't force it on us. They believe in both. That's what can happen when they believe in their children too. They listen.

I wasn't arguing whether or not what was said was accurate. I was addressing the condescending tone of the comments. Whether you think faith in God or science or your neighbor's chihuahua is where it's at; it is unhelpful, unkind, and unwise to be contemptuous. Contempt does more damage to any argument than almost anything else.

Back in the 60's my great grandma died because her husband did not want a male doctor to see her unveiled.

To all you seriously religious people out there, my great grandfather was the religious leader of our community. By the time I came along nobody remembered what fucking religion we were in the first place so everyone just turned to Evangelical Christianity.

Quote:
There have always been kind and ethical nonbelievers. But how many of them reason their way to kindness and ethics, and how many simply reflect the moral expectations of the society in which they were raised?

In our culture, even the most passionate atheist cannot help having been influenced by the Judeo-Christian worldview that shaped Western civilization... But a society bereft of that religious heritage is a society not even Speckhardt would want to live in.

For in a world without God, there is no obvious difference between good and evil. There is no way to prove that even murder is wrong if there is no Creator who decrees "Thou shalt not murder." It certainly cannot be proved wrong by reason alone.

One might reason instead -- as Lenin and Stalin and Mao reasoned -- that there is nothing wrong with murdering human beings by the millions if doing so advances the Marxist cause. Or one might reason from observing nature that the way of the world is for the strong to devour the weak -- and that natural selection favors the survival of the fittest by any means necessary, including the killing of the less fit.

No, reason alone is not enough to keep human beings humane. Only if there is a God who forbids murder is murder definitively evil. Otherwise its wrongfulness is no more than a matter of opinion. Mao and Seneca approved of murder; we disapprove. Who are we to say they were wrong?
- - - - - - - - -
That's Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/11/14/created_by_god_to_be_good/

I prefer living a life in which one has no regrets. CHristianity boils down to the golden rule. Are you saying following that would give you regrets, Amy?

For in a world without God, there is no obvious difference between good and evil.

Bullshit. Normal people have a perceptible idea of right and wrong. Hence, almost every childrens' movie ever made. They get it, they long for it. Most children get extremely upset or physically pained by the wrongdoings of others. People are born with an of innate quality for justice.

I believe that's why we use a selection of peers on jury duty.

Ben David, your logic is circular: God exists because we have concepts like "murder is wrong," and "murder is wrong" because God exists.

That reason we prohibit murder seems pretty simple and logical: Murder is not conducive to healthy communities. It destabilizes things when people can kill each other without penalty. Plus, one of our primary motivations is survival, and murder is distinctly anti-survival.

Evidence of this being about helping people survive exists in the fact that people don't agree that ALL murder is wrong. Many of us are OK with killing criminals, or even innocent people who happen to be on the other side of the planet and are of no consequence to us. We can convince ourselves that murder is good sometimes if it's for the greater good.

All of the reactions and interactions humans have developed over the course of hundreds of thousands of years have developed because they have helped us survive. Helping a neighbor on hard times is a good idea because we could fall on hard times, too, and need help. I don't need to invent a magical figure to make all this work.

I'm still waiting for Ben Davids explination on why he belives falible mortals were required to edit the word of a perfect infallible god.

And the reason most atheists are athiests os because unlike the 'faithful' they took the time to study their faith and ask the questions that invaribably come up

A few last words before hanging at the Nuremberg Trials:

"I call upon the Almighty Lord to have mercy on the German people" - Wilhelm Keitel

"May God protect Germany" - Joachim von Ribbentrop

"I die innocent. My sentence is unjust. God protect Germany. God protect my family" - Fritz Sauckel

"I ask God to accept me with mercy" - Hans Frank

Sounds like these guys didn't get the memo about God, good, and evil.

For in a world without God, there is no obvious difference between good and evil. There is no way to prove that even murder is wrong if there is no Creator who decrees "Thou shalt not murder." It certainly cannot be proved wrong by reason alone.

One might reason instead -- as Lenin and Stalin and Mao reasoned -- that there is nothing wrong with murdering human beings by the millions if doing so advances the Marxist cause. Or one might reason from observing nature that the way of the world is for the strong to devour the weak -- and that natural selection favors the survival of the fittest by any means necessary, including the killing of the less fit.

Have you ever heard of the Euthyphro Dilemma?

Beyond that, there is a glaring problem with "One might reason instead" and every word following it: history.

Granting Communist reasoning, you may not ignore the fact that reasoning was ultimately an epic failure.

Individual freedom, rule of law, property rights, punishing theft, rape, and murder, etc happen to work better than anything else yet tried.

So how does a utilitarian argument not qualify as justification through reason?

What always amazes me about the people who claim their is no morailty without god is their huge gaping blind spot about things like slavery, rape, statuory rape, murder, genocide and torture all of which god, not only condoned but actively encouraged.

If there is no morality without god, then why does our current moral state find so many of god's moral positions repugnant and immoral?

Recycling tired old atheist arguments (and I'll ignore the childish "see a Nazi said 'God'" and "religious people are bad" attacks, just as I don't judge atheism by the lapses of individual atheists).

- right, that leave us with:
We have evolved human morality -- cheater detection, reciprocal altruism, empathy, etc.

Which are survival skill, not morality.

The ability to detect a cheater is not the same as a moral conviction that cheating is wrong.

Or that altruism and empathy are other than survival/manipulation strategies.

No "human morality" or values here - nothing a mouse couldn't learn in a maze.

Further:
Natural selection is not about "survival of the fittest" but those with the best adaptations for their environment.

The difference being... what exactly?
The scientific community moved to the "best adapted" language to cover response to environmental pressures as well as direct competition - but the stronger animal still prevails in competitive situations.

Jacoby's original point still stands: the natural world is without compassion or other things we (western) humans "know" to be "good".

Crid gets sentimental:
Bullshit. Normal people have a perceptible idea of right and wrong. Hence, almost every childrens' movie ever made. They get it, they long for it. Most children get extremely upset or physically pained by the wrongdoings of others.

The movies - and children - reflect the (western, judeo-christian) culture in which they are both made.

Five minutes with a group of kids under 2 years old is enough to demonstrate that we have no innate empathy or moral sensitivity. It takes time - and nurture - before kids even recognize other babies as actors, rather than scenery. It then takes more nurture to get them to empathize or share with others.

None of this is innate. There is no "natural" moral law that cuts across cultures.

For corroboration google "Soviet orphanage" or "Genital mutilation" or "child gangs". Children adopt the (sometimes harrowing) situation ethics they are exposed to.

MonicaP at least engages the core argument:
That reason we prohibit murder seems pretty simple and logical: Murder is not conducive to healthy communities. It destabilizes things when people can kill each other without penalty. Plus, one of our primary motivations is survival, and murder is distinctly anti-survival.

But as another commenter on Jacoby's article reminds us:

In a tribal honor-shame culture, you're not a man until you've killed another man, and although the honorable thing to do is to kill him in a fair fight, there are some tribes where, short of killing another man from the neighboring (and therefore rival/enemy) tribe, killing one of their women is required. Spartans had a whole season where they killed helots (the serfs, former free Greeks of the Pelopponesian peninsula) wherever they met them.

In other words, the logic of the zero-sum universe - I win because you lose - operates in a radically different way from that of the positive-sum, and the evidence of nature supports the former much more than the latter.

... and it was Judeo-Christian morality that moved the West from zero-sum paganism to positive-sum monotheism. Monotheism - by positing a connection between people that nature in no way evidences - motivates the "greater good" calculation that you, as a Western, employ in your reasoning.

Your "secular" moral deduction flows from an axiomatic Judeo-Christian belief. It doesn't look "religious" to you because it's widely adopted in Western culture.

But it's not universal, or supported by the physical evidence of varied individuals and indifferent nature.

As he puts it:

Humanists are, in fact, free riders. They come along after centuries of hard work in prime divider societies where the zero-sum dominating imperative ruled social and political relations. In those long and painful years, some people, driven to by a sense of divine authority, systematically, and at great personal cost (sometimes one's very life) pursued the generous impulses of positive-sum interactions. Now that we're raised in a civil society, where we're trained from childhood to cooperate, to eschew violence, to seek the positive-sum interaction, such behavior comes much more easily.

Link:
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/11/on-athiest-morality/index.shtml#more

Recycling tired old atheist arguments (and I'll ignore the childish "see a Nazi said 'God'" and "religious people are bad" attacks, just as I don't judge atheism by the lapses of individual atheists).

- right, that leave us with:
We have evolved human morality -- cheater detection, reciprocal altruism, empathy, etc.

Which are survival skill, not morality.

The ability to detect a cheater is not the same as a moral conviction that cheating is wrong.

Or that altruism and empathy are other than survival/manipulation strategies.

No "human morality" or values here - nothing a mouse couldn't learn in a maze.

Further:
Natural selection is not about "survival of the fittest" but those with the best adaptations for their environment.

The difference being... what exactly?
The scientific community moved to the "best adapted" language to cover response to environmental pressures as well as direct competition - but the stronger animal still prevails in competitive situations.

Jacoby's original point still stands: the natural world is without compassion or other things we (western) humans "know" to be "good".

Crid gets sentimental:
Bullshit. Normal people have a perceptible idea of right and wrong. Hence, almost every childrens' movie ever made. They get it, they long for it. Most children get extremely upset or physically pained by the wrongdoings of others.

The movies - and children - reflect the (western, judeo-christian) culture in which they are both made.

Five minutes with a group of kids under 2 years old is enough to demonstrate that we have no innate empathy or moral sensitivity. It takes time - and nurture - before kids even recognize other babies as actors, rather than scenery. It then takes more nurture to get them to empathize or share with others.

None of this is innate. There is no "natural" moral law that cuts across cultures.

For corroboration google "Soviet orphanage" or "Genital mutilation" or "child gangs". Children adopt the (sometimes harrowing) situation ethics they are exposed to.

MonicaP at least engages the core argument:
That reason we prohibit murder seems pretty simple and logical: Murder is not conducive to healthy communities. It destabilizes things when people can kill each other without penalty. Plus, one of our primary motivations is survival, and murder is distinctly anti-survival.

But as another commenter on Jacoby's article reminds us:

In a tribal honor-shame culture, you're not a man until you've killed another man, and although the honorable thing to do is to kill him in a fair fight, there are some tribes where, short of killing another man from the neighboring (and therefore rival/enemy) tribe, killing one of their women is required. Spartans had a whole season where they killed helots (the serfs, former free Greeks of the Pelopponesian peninsula) wherever they met them.

In other words, the logic of the zero-sum universe - I win because you lose - operates in a radically different way from that of the positive-sum, and the evidence of nature supports the former much more than the latter.

... and it was Judeo-Christian morality that moved the West from zero-sum paganism to positive-sum monotheism. Monotheism - by positing a connection between people that nature in no way evidences - motivates the "greater good" calculation that you, as a Western, employ in your reasoning.

Your "secular" moral deduction flows from an axiomatic Judeo-Christian belief. It doesn't look "religious" to you because it's widely adopted in Western culture.

But it's not universal, or supported by the physical evidence of varied individuals and indifferent nature.

As he puts it:

Humanists are, in fact, free riders. They come along after centuries of hard work in prime divider societies where the zero-sum dominating imperative ruled social and political relations. In those long and painful years, some people, driven to by a sense of divine authority, systematically, and at great personal cost (sometimes one's very life) pursued the generous impulses of positive-sum interactions. Now that we're raised in a civil society, where we're trained from childhood to cooperate, to eschew violence, to seek the positive-sum interaction, such behavior comes much more easily.

Link:
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/11/on-athiest-morality/index.shtml#more

So in other words Ben David, murder, rape, genocide, slavery, and torture are all good and moral because god says so?

So in other words Ben David, murder, rape, genocide, slavery, and torture are all good and moral because god says so?

You forgot circumcision, lujeleh - haven't had one of those save-the-weenie threads for a while... run along now, we adults are having a discussion...

Not one word you've written here addresses lujlp's core argument. Per Abe Lincoln, if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. How did he come to this conclusion when none of the foundational texts of the major religions unequivocally condemn & forbid all slavery?

I didn't drag Nazis into this to tar religious folk, just to remind them that belief in God by itself did not stop the Holocaust & cannot stop evil.

That solomonia commenter really needs to learn some basic biology. The natural world is in fact built up on a foundation of positive-sum interactions. Bees that pollinate flowers are rewarded with a meal of delicious nutritious nectar, while the plants that are rooted to the ground in one spot get their genetic material spread far & wide. Without this mutually beneficial relationship between pollinating insects & pollinated plants, none of the animals that depend on those plants (human beings included) would be here.

The foundation of every coral reef is an intimate symbiotic relationship in which coral polyps provide shelter & nutrients to tiny algae, while the algae provide energy & take care of CO2 & other waste products. Disrupt this relationship, and a reef bursting with life rapidly turns into a bleached, lifeless desert.

And at every coral reef, divers can come across a parade of sharks, barracudas, morays and other big ferocious predators hovering gently while tiny fish & shrimp nibble all over their bodies & even swim fearlessly into their open mouths. The big fish get cleaned & picked free of parasites from head to tail and enjoy a stimulating massage, while the cleaners get a buffet meal and protection from predators, without having to worry about being on the menu themselves. Take away the client fish, and the cleaners starve or get eaten. Take away the cleaners, and the client fish become infested with parasites & abandon the reef.

Positive-sum interactions are everywhere in the natural world. Without them, the entire planet would be a barren desert. Animals & plants & fungi & bacteria don't need belief in God to form mutually beneficial relationships. It's monumental ignorance to think otherwise.

"Monotheism - by positing a connection between people that nature in no way evidences - motivates the "greater good" calculation that you, as a Westerner, employ in your reasoning"

You've get to be kidding. First of all, nature is an endless web of connections, as I've emphasized. Secondly, Islam is monotheist. Jihad, suicide bombings, honor killings, stonings, burkas - all for the greater good of Islam...and the rest of us are supposed to think all this is good because Muslims believe in one God? By all means, let's appreciate "love thy neighbor as thyself" and all the good aspects of Judeo-Christian civilization. But don't give me any crap about the magic of monotheism.

That would be covered under torture ben, stil waiting on the explination behind your beleif that mortals were required to edit a perfect infallible gods edicts by the way.
Also I notince you didnt say "no" to the quetion above

That would be covered under torture ben, stil waiting on the explination behind your beleif that mortals were required to edit a perfect infallible gods edicts by the way.
Also I notince you didnt say "no" to the quetion above

Martin has a swing at it:
Not one word you've written here addresses lujlp's core argument. Per Abe Lincoln, if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. How did he come to this conclusion when none of the foundational texts of the major religions unequivocally condemn & forbid all slavery?

But slavery ID comdemned by both Judaism and Christianity - the Jewish bible immediately begins the work of legally limiting slavery and concubinage, and Rabbinical Judaism extended that. Torah verses like "do not return a fugitive slave to their master" were the de facto law of ancient Israel, and were a sticking point between Judea and its neighbors (and the Roman empire).

And although liberals love to think they invented universal suffrage, in fact the abolition movement of Lincoln's day was driven by "fundamentalist" Christians.

Nice try, though.

I've already countered your "positive outcome coral reef" claim above - mutually beneficial transactions are not the same as a morality of compassion. It's all still at the very low (at least morally) level of "what's in it for me/let's make a deal".

You're moving the goalposts. I know very well that the Old Testament legally limited slavery & concubinage, and that Rabbinical Judaism built upon & extended these limitations. Nonetheless, the abolition of slavery in Judeo-Christian civilization took thousands & thousands of years, and was not accomplished until the end of the 19th century. Why did God not utterly forbid this utter evil from the very beginning? When it came to building & worshipping false idols, God was not content with condemnations & limitations. He utterly forbade this to his people, under all circumstances. "Thou shalt not enslave another". There. Simple. Why isn't that phrase found in the Book of Genesis?

You're still ignoring the 1000-pound camel in the room: Islam is a monotheistic religion, yet slavery is still widely practiced in the Muslim world now, in the 21st century, with full Koranic backing. If you're going to proclaim the goodness of monotheism, you can't pretend the evils of Islam don't exist.

"I've already countered your positive outcome coral reef claim" No you haven't. The notion that the biological world is a zero sum universe is as profoundly ignorant as the idea that the Earth is the center of the universe. If someone is that ignorant about the way nature works, their claims for wisdom on moral issues need to be regarded with a great deal of suspicion. More importantly, the living things that engage in these mutually beneficial interactions often have brains so small you'd need a microscope to see them. Some have no brains at all! It's perfectly rational to conclude that human beings, endowed by nature with vastly superior brains & capacities, will find ways of engaging positively with one another in much deeper, more sophisticated ways than the simple creatures at the bottom of the food chain.

Still waiting on a rational explination as to why fallible, nondivinley inspired, moral men were required to CORRECT a perfect, infallibe immortal creator of every facet of existance Ben.

Thought so