Criticism of Singer
Singer's positions have been criticised by groups concerned with what they see as his attack upon human dignity, such as advocates for disabled people and right-to-life supporters. Singer has replied that many people judge him based on secondhand summaries and short quotations taken out of context, not his books or articles.
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In 1989, when Peter Singer attempted to speak during a lecture at Saarbrücken, he was interrupted by a group of protesters including advocates for the disabled. He offered the protesters the opportunity to explain why he should not be allowed to speak. The protesters indicated that they believed he was opposed to all rights for the disabled. They were unaware that, although Singer believes that some lives are so blighted from the beginning that their parents may decide their lives are not worth living, in other cases, once the decision is made to keep them alive, everything that can be done to improve the quality of their life should, to Singer's mind, be done. The ensuing discussion revealed that there were many misconceptions about his positions, but the revelation did not end the controversy. One of the protesters expressed that entering serious discussions was a tactical error
(My italics)
It is best that all religions accept that some laws are no longer valid in the modern world (stoning adulterers and blasphemers, opposition to condoms, conversion by the sword, genocide of other peoples, and slavery). That is not to say that most religious people are not good people and religions have some excellent values that promote human kindness. But we have moved beyond a time when rights of man are set out purely by God. The European Convention on Human Rights, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and UN Rights of the Child give us a post-religious universalism that prevents the decent to nihilism postulated by Nietzsche.
In the modern world, when we need to accept that not everybody is the same religion as us but that they are equal as human beings, it is no longer relevant to base our morals entirely on a single religion developed hundreds of years ago. But nor should we abandon all the collected wisdom of thousands of years of human philisophical development.
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