It's not an argument.Diogenes wrote:Let us just say for the sake of argument, that I am a hypocritical ass and move on to the next point.
Both wrong:Abuse of what?
in absence of a belief in spirituality
1) Abuse not of that or another arbitrary moral system, but most fundamental thing: causal understanding applied to material reality. E.g. knife in flesh. As someone else argued here a while back - non aggression as basis for civilization (IIRC he/she was arguing it towards/in defense of anarchism or libertarianism). By definition it is ab-use to human sense. No meaning to be read between the lines there, no extrapolation or anything but face value. Without that non-aggression pact of sorts, you're subsequently always compromising against society's self-destruction.
Further down the line you do get what I'm really arguing instead of this religious tangent: neither atheism nor theism is wrong in itself, as argued (the atheist side) by GIThruster: nazis are assholes just like whatever religious nutbags. Al Qaida. Whatever. Yes there's something fundamental askew with the Koran. But that's not what I'm arguing.
2) Secular life is not mutually exclusive to spirituality.
The subtlety that people miss and yet that is more natural than getting caught up in the cogs of the organized religion machine is to keep their spirituality - "religious" (for sake of brevity) or not - to themselves. Because it is irrational. And there's no defending the irrational. E.G. standing in middle of highway staring at the sky because you're having a divine revelation. More innocuous instances are still irrational - by same measure as Ayn Rand's evil is always evil, large or small. All the good of religion can be exploited in no lesser amounts (arguably more) if it is kept completely private. Imagine crusading over another subjective thing that's literally immaterial to tangible reality: music. It's absurd.
For instance, me; an average guy: I have some religious-like/spiritual ideas I pretty much take for sacred. Sacred till I find better ones. And I keep them to myself - It would be irresponsible to even acknowledge having them, iow: Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non probat. It's not hypocrisy, it's knowing there's no defending them. I do nothing I might have to explain, to justify, without an actual rational basis IOW I don't do anything motivated only by those effectively mystical ideas. It would be irresponsible. To others and to myself. Analogous to betting the farm on lottery. My farm or their farm. Or e.g. Nixon (or whoever's it was, I don't recall) basing some presidential choices on his wife's astrological readings.
The use of religion is as a personal lesson, not as a means of crowd control. It doesn't matter whether Jesus Christ was real. The lesson in the book, in the story is what matters. Taken for granted (taken literally) it is cargo cult science. It ultimately misleads Man in his voyage to the stars, IOW across nature and its "physical" laws. The bible plays no part in technology.
etc