Where's your moral compass?

The journalism students at Berkeley have come up with a nifty new online device to find out the 'official position' of major religions on issues of 'morality', (a shorthand for 'sexuality' it seems).

Spin the wheel to find out what each of nine religions thinks about extra-marital sex, abortion, divorce, homosexuality, women priests.    

Hat tip Get Religion - where Mollie makes salient points about what's missing from the wheel.

The project inevitably has a Second Life presence where the students discuss issues of faith.

Comments

[Cranmer]

This is all very amusing, but why do the Catholics get the cross?

Since when has this universal Christian symbol been the sole prerogative of the Roman Catholic Church?

Good grief. It makes one wonder what the Reformation was for...

[Still on the fence]

His Grace is a perennial voice of wisdom and truth.

[Robin Bather]

I wonder why any religion should feel it has the authority to stick its collective nose into non religious areas such as sex, dietary habits etc.
Let them stay with fluffy talks about their imaginary friends in the sky and stay out of our bedrooms, kitchens etc.

[JH]

!!! Have these Jewish Reform and Unitarian folks ever even glanced at a bible?

[Sam]

Robin: What right do you have to delcare who should and who shouldnt express an opinion on a topic?

[ROLAND Bankole MARKE]

Moral compass is used haphazzardly as a political slogan rather than as a serious dogma that should be the pivot of society, especially in the US today. Everything is relative these days.

[MB]

Interesting to see that the religion I was born into - Catholicism - is the most strict and condemnatory of all. The other religions "discourage" abortion, divorce and contraception but Catholicism condemns them outright (as well as many other things)and generally takes the hardest stance on all issues, allowing for no exceptional cases. Quite a harsh religion - it's no wonder I'm a lapsed Catholic as I don't think there is a human alive who could match up to the exacting standards of the celibate bishops of the Catholic Church.

[richard]

Sam,
I dont think Robin was denying your right to express your view merely questioning the strength of the evidence on which you base it. However the answer to your question could well be when your opinions lead to the discrimiation against a certian section of society, or in the most extreme cases and countries murder.

[Kersey the Great]

Well Roland, as we recently discovered, most of those bishops were not celibant as they claimed. i.e. molesting little boys.
my perception of religion is that it was created to control the masses and prevent the peasants from revolting by giving them hope from their hopless exsistence in something better than their earthly lives. however i do feel religion offers some good moral values, even if i do not believe.

[Julianne Wiley]

Kersey, most bishops are celibate, as are most priests. It is not true that "most" (or even "many") Bishops molest or molested little boys. You should not lie.

[Kevin Dunn]

I am not a Catholic, but I think a possible reason Catholicism is allegedly the "most strict and condemnatory of all" towards sin is that it actually believes in God, and in good and evil.

[Lexi]

Dyslexic LDS = LSD

[Chris Gillibrand]

What a happy day! Cranmer, or at least his modern incarnation, is wondering what was the point of the Reformation. There have always, in fact, been two Cranmers. There was the Cranmer that took the oath of loyalty to the Pope in public in 1533, but there was another Cranmer who took an oath prior to this that he did not mean the second oath.

Without mental reservation, I can say my moral compass is pointed firmly in the direction of Rome, wherever I find myself in the world, in whatever circumstances.

[Japhet]

Why is atheism not included in the compass...oh i know now because such belief has no teaching

[Dane]

this is NOT a good sample of religions. 6 of the 9 are just different flavors of the same. America is wayy too biased towards christianity.

[Colin]

With reference to Catholicism, MB says,

"Quite a harsh religion - it's no wonder I'm a lapsed Catholic as I don't think there is a human alive who could match up to the exacting standards of the celibate bishops of the Catholic Church."

Well MB isn't that why the Church has the sacrament of reconciliation? Far from being a 'harsh religion' the Catholic Church is the most merciful of religions, willing to minister God's infinite mercy to anyone repentant of their sins. Of course most people these days seem to be so self-righteous they don't think they are sinners and so don't need this sacrament of mercy.

[Tomas]

To address the comment made by Japhet, i think the suggestion that Atheism provides no teaching is a strange one. An Atheist is anyone who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being, the suggestion in most religions is that they hold the 'truth' making belief in one and exclusion of all others. An Atheist is a person free from such confindment, able to reflect on the positive eliments in each.

Do you really need to be told not to kill/rape/steal an ox, and only act so because of the threat of eturnal fire? I think most Atheist's would suggest the reason they do not do such things is because they respect life, not because of theats and a fear of death.

[Tomas]

A brief 2nd point, atheism is not a belief system as suggested by Japhet, it is the denial of the existance of a supreme being/s. The silliness of suggesting 'no teaching' speaks for it's self, but to clarify for the slower members of class, do you have to be taught that killing etc.. is wrong or do you think you can work it out all on your own? i think most atheist's would suggest there is more value in working things out than blindly accepting what you are told.

[Tom Edgar]

I am an octogenarian lifelong Atheist.
I do not smoke, drink alcohol, nor do I take illicit drugs. I was married to a Quaker for forty six years, my sole sexual partner.

I am no "Holier than thou" High Priest of the "Skeptics" The Australian organisation of which I am a member.

I know that "Skeptics" contain as many members who have not led the same lifestyle as I and this would equate with those adherents of varying Religions. A difference would be that Atheist/Skeptics do not preach that their members should conduct themselves in a way contrary to their own actions.

Moral measurements are farcical.Aberrant behaviour would have differing levels and interpretation in all cultures and religions would also have varying levels of what is acceptable.

There is only one law, not unique to Christianity. Do not do to another that which you or another would find objectionable. But, and I digress. Some would find objectionable that I, and others, would even think. "Religious beliefs are the ravings of the primitive superstitious.

Tom Edgar. Queensland Australia

[santiago matamoros]

Well, Tom Edgar, I don't agree that religious beliefs are the ravings of the primitive superstitious.

The fact is, religion is the acceptance of a keen but humble mind that outside the human powers and human wisdom there is a power that caused the human body to be organized the way it is. Man did not invent his own body, but a superior scientific mind has done it for man.

Study the human eye that rotates wherever the human will wants it to look, without the encumbrance of clicking or rolling a mouse to the direction where you would want the cursor to point. It is simply amazing how atheists deny that there is a power superior to human wisdom. No matter how fast the technology evolves, no human genius has made a gadget as good as the human eye. And religion is simply accepting the fact that we did not invent ourselves... we did not cause ourselves and our world to be. Thus we bow to the Creator.

[Dan Rogers]

Robin: To answer your question, "why any religion should feel it has the authority to stick its collective nose into non religious areas such as sex", I would counter that sex is an extremely religious issue. In fact, Pope John Paul II spent his whole pontificate writing more about the human person vis-a-vis their sexuality than any other pope. He went so far as to say that if one does not understand the true nature of one's sexuality, he or she will never understand God. JPII spent the first five years of his pontificate explaining all of this in what is now known as the "theology of the body." His insights encourage a true reverence for the gift of our sexuality while challenging us to live it in a way worthy of our great dignity as human persons. It's facinating stuff, and well worth looking into, because it will definitely answer your question as to "why any religion should feel it has the authority to stick its nose into a non religious area like sex."