Collin Boots

Religion has claimed a monopoly on morality for so long that we infidels are forced to explain ad nauseam why we think murder is morally reprehensible. I am tired of conceding the moral high ground to religion by default. Today, I want to reverse that situation and show why secular moral systems are superior to their non-secular counterparts.

I find it particularly perplexing that even millennials who grew up surrounded by social media still adhere to this classic prohibition. We willingly abandon our privacy when it comes to relationships, hardships, hookup and every inane inner thought we think should grace our Facebook and Twitter feeds, yet we still show a reluctance to discuss salaries. Why have we collectively determined that this one element of our lives deserves unique protection from prying eyes?

“Big-pharma” and “conventional medicine” became bogeymen that use their overwhelming political power to suppress the “natural healing” wonders of Supplementary, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (SCAMs).

I personally don’t care for natural disaster films, but to me Noah represents a desirable future direction for Hollywood. Why not put Samson and David in the same category as Thor, Hercules and other characters of old mythologies?

A 2011 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that subjects were more likely to distrust an atheist than they were to trust a rapist.

If that counts, then what about when my class of 100-plus students had a lecture canceled outright for Yom Kippur because roughly 15 students in the class were Jewish? By my estimates, I paid roughly $250 for that hour of education, and it was not provided so that a religion I don’t follow could be accommodated.

If the ARCH building was flying the Rising Sun Flag by itself, I would probably advocate taking it down. Flying flags have always been a symbol of the present: who owns this ship, this fort, this hill, this public building. But when it’s a part of the walls, it’s a part of history. It becomes a symbol of the past and the meanings it had to the designer who put it there.

Clearly we have decided as a society that, in principle, the Government has a compelling interest in disallowing certain religious observances when they counteract the public good.

Religious freedom means you get to believe whatever you want. Religious freedom means you are free to practice your religion to the extent that it does not harm others.

Drones cannot be morally culpable for their actions. Using language attributing the actions of the operator to the machine needlessly distracts from the legitimate moral and legal concerns surrounding drone strikes.