VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Steve|DATE|1373019101|CONTENT|Everything he said about democracy is correct, and he learned it all from the post-Enlightenment Western secular tradition. His religion, and the others for that matter, contributed precisely nothing to these ideas. As Peter pointed out, until he represents an organisation in which women and homosexual people are treated in exactly the same way as straight men, he hardly has grounds to preach. And &quot;exactly the same&quot; means just that, not some rehashed form of the equal-in-a-different-way philosophy that we hear on TFTD from time to time.

The leap forward in moral thinking that sprang from the Enlightenment (earlier thinkers also, but mainly from the Enlightenment) outstripped anything in history. We moved from morals being simple adherence to a set of rules to being a much more complex consideration for every single person as an individual. Religion is still fighting this process. How many Christians do we have to put up with saying that they must object to homosexuality because that&#039;s what the rules say?

Much (all? ) of the moral debate within religions centres on people knowing what is right because they are immersed in a secular moral society, but being told otherwise by their rules. Mona Siddiqui has been struggling a lot with this recently. It seems Sacks is no more immune.|IP-ADDRESS|10.0.119.108, 217.36.222.79, 10.37.36.203|MODERATIONFLAG|