The idea is to be good, with or without god

With or without belief in a god. A nice opinion piece was found via Atheist Ethicist today. It’s by Greg M. Epstein, the Humanist Chaplain of Harvard University, about the need for everyone to aim for goodness, regardless of religious leanings. And I quote:

Let’s be perfectly clear: of course we can be good without God. Millions of Americans are.

But that’s not what my book is about. Because if you think we can’t be good without God, that’s not just your opinion. That’s not just some brainstorm that crossed your mind. It is prejudice. And it might even be discrimination. I mean, no one in his or her right mind would ever say, “Oh, you’re a Catholic. How nice–is it possible for you to be a decent human being, too?” We wouldn’t ask whether it’s possible to be a good person and Jewish, or Muslim, or Buddhist. We don’t ask whether you can be good and a Democrat, or a Republican (at least, usually we don’t). So since we know that there are now millions and millions of people living without belief in a god, it’s time to reject the question of whether we can be good without God.

The book he wrote is called Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe and is so recently published, not a soul on Amazon has reviewed it yet. Might be worth the bucks anyway.

A person starts to wonder how anyone can be good with a belief in god when stories like this crop up every day or two: an educator used the bible to entice girls into sleeping with him.

A 37-year-old teacher accused of creating a “secret society” to lure teenage girls into having sex with him was arrested Monday evening after a girl he allegedly wanted to recruit into the group complained to police, authorities said.

Robert Louis Rosseau taught Bible classes — among other subjects — to eighth-graders at Christian Academy of San Antonio.

Rosseau, who isn’t certified by the state to teach, remained in Bexar County Jail on Tuesday on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child. He was being held on $100,000 bail.

I bold that which is of interest. How come they put a guy in charge of classes when he wasn’t a teacher? Knowing how to read a bible is suddenly all the education you need to teach kids? I feel sorry for all the kids at this school if that’s the case.

According to the affidavit, he was reading bible verses to “legitimize” his interest in these girls sexually and this somehow encouraged them to strip their clothes off and join his weird little biblical sex club. It seems like the girls are all disagreeing over what actually went on there so the only person who’d have the “truth” (such as it is) would be Rosseau himself. Scummy bugger.

Is every religious person this deluded about good behaviour? No, thankfully. This guy would be a sexual deviant whether he read from the bible or from Hubbard’s Dianetics, or from a car manual printed in 1947. Sick is sick. Using the bible to lure young girls at his school is probably easier than trying to hit on random teen strangers in a park or mall.

We should be able to trust authority, but don’t be afraid to question it sometimes too, okay? Teachers, no matter how “official” should not be asking their students for sexual favours. Does that need to be printed in every text book? In every student bible? Maybe it ought to be.