Does religion give us morality?
A typical theist argument is to assert that without God, we have no morals. Do you agree with this? Or do you believe that morals change within different contexts? I would probably argue the latter, but I know there are those who would disagree.
Yes
Side Score: 21
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No
Side Score: 52
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Personally my religion says "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" for me the answer is yes with that being said here is another point of view copied and pasted from a link-The articles is one of a series of Franklin's essays-(in other words I did not write this part the source gets credited in the link but I still think it is good)
For as long as I can remember...even, truth be told, back when I was a kid and still religious--I've always had a problem with the Ten Commandments. People hold them up like they are some sort of amazing moral code that would make the world a better place, if only folks would follow them. And some of them are not bad, really. But honestly? If you set out to make ten rules of conduct that'd make the world a better place, the Ten Commandments really aren't very good. They read like a hasty and poorly-thought-out first draft, scribbled on the back of a napkin at a greasy all-night diner rather than handed down from the divine lips of a burning bush and carved by an act of supernatural will onto tablets made of stone. So let's look at 'em, shall we? #1: I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. Okay, fine, we get it. The god of Abraham is a jealous god. In fact, the formal name of that god is not "Jehovah" or "Elohim" or "YHVH" but "Jealous," according to Exodus 34 ("Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: For thou shalt worship no other god: for The Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God"). Now, one might argue that this commandment, if it were followed, would make the world a better place, or at least one less fraught with religious warfare; if everyone is following the same god, there's no religious strife, right? Well, no. Protestants and Catholics, Catholics and Jews, Protestants and Jews, Protestants and Muslims, Muslims and Jews--they all find plenty of reason to beat one another up even though they nominally have the same god. And what's so great about a god who's insecure, anyway? I'd give this one a miss completely. #2: Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth. This is the one that everyone gets wrong. The Catholics, who have a rich and proud tradition of idolatry, ruled that this rule applies only to idols, but the language is pretty clear...no likeness of any thing. The original intent was to prohibit ALL representational art--an intent that portions of the Muslim community still follow today. No representations. Virtually the entire Western world totally ignores this. Lose it. Next: #3: Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Another one that nobody gets right. The ancient Israelites had a very deep set of beliefs about the power of a name (why do you think the Genesis story features Adam naming all the animals so prominently? It was a symbolic way of giving Adam power over them.) To "take the name" of someone is to call yourself that thing; if I take the name of my neighbor, it's identity fraud. Vanity is pride. If I take the name of the Lord in vain, it means to call myself god (or, presumably, an agent thereof) out of pride. It does not mean to say "goddamnit," goddamnit. But even if it did, seriously, there's a lot more evil done in the world than folks saying "goddamnit." Spending ten percent of the entire moral code on this seems quite a waste to me. Lose it. Next: #4: Remember to honor the Sabbath, and keep it holy. Except that the Sabbath is...err, Saturday. But what exactly does this mean? In Atlanta, it means you can't sell beer on Sunday until the afternoon, because Jesus don't drink beer 'til twelve o'clock, but that's about it. Now, I can get behind the notion of having a day that's reserved for not working, especially in a Bronze Age slave society--hell, everyone needs a day or two off. But again, reserving 10% of a universal moral code for this? #5: Honor thy father and mother that thy days be long in the land which the Lord gives thee. No. Seriously, no. Even as a 5-year-old, I thought this was a terrible rule. Now, as an adult, I think it's even worse. Honor and respect are always earned. They are never automatic. I've met waaaaaay the fuck too many parents who do not deserve honor--parents who abuse their kids, parents who neglect their kids, parents who rape and sexually violate their kids. This becomes ESPECIALLY odious when you consider that it's a one-way street; parents are nowhere commanded to treat their children with respect, and not, y'know, rape and abuse them. Any just system of morals has to apply both ways. It cannot place bounds on the behavior of one group toward another while also tacitly permitting the second group carte blanche with the way they treat the first. This rule is fucked-up and poorly conceived from the get-go. More on it in a bit. #6: Thou shalt not kill. I have no problem with this one. Nobody I know actually takes it as a given; everyone I've ever personally met, without exception, carves out exceptions and limitations. Like in self-defense, for instance, or defense of another. Or in war. Or if the other person is gay, or has brown skin. Or if the other person has been convicted of a capital crime, or has brown skin and lives in Texas, which is pretty much the same thing. Or when the spirit of the Lord fills him to plant pipe bombs in women's clinics, that the Lord may blow people into bloody scraps, in His Divine Mercy. I think the world might be a better place if people applied fewer exceptions to this rule, actually. #7: Thou shalt not commit adultery. I can get behind the notion that it is wrong to betray the trust of a person to whom you have pledged your love. Betraying the trust of another person sucks, and it's wrong. But adultery, whether narrowly or widely defined, isn't always a betrayal of trust. There can be and are people who genuinely don't mind if their lovers have other lovers. I'm one of them. Any reasonable universal code of morality has to recognize that not everyone is the same, seems to me. More on this one in a bit, too. #8: Thou shalt not steal. A good start. I'd like to see language that makes it plain this applies not only to direct theft, like at the point of a gun, but also to any deliberate attempt to defraud, either a person or a group of people, through direct or indirect means (I'm looking at you here, Enron). This can and should explicitly be extended to contract fraud, price-fixing, securities fraud, pension-skimming, Ponzi schemes, bribery, counterfeiting, forgery, license fraud, kickbacks, insurance fraud, investment fraud, and so on, which are all theft in my book, and deserve to be explicitly identified as such. #9: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not bear false witness period. Police officer who lied under oath at my girlfriend's traffic court hearing, I'm especially looking at you. It's interesting to me that Biblical morality does not prohibit lying; only bearing false witness, a very narrow and specific type of lying. While I am reluctant to go so far as to outlaw every form of falsehood, I think this rule could be expanded a bit. And finally: #10: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house or fields, nor his male or female slaves, nor his ox or ass, or anything that belongs to him. You know, the notion of thought crime has always smelled a little rancid to me. I can see not stealing one's neighbor's goods, but not wanting them? That's reaching. First, because we don't really have a good grasp on controlling what we want; I desire an iPhone 4, but I hardly think that makes me a menace to society. Second, because detachment from desire as a general principle leads, I think, to stagnation; sometimes it's desire that gives us the impetus to accomplish something. Ixnay. Side: Yes
I shan't say whether or not religious thinking has developed morality, for I am not so aged as to recall any sort of pre-religion, nor am I so arrogant as to think that I can deduce the historical unrecord (to use a strikingly Newspeak word). However, I do believe that religion maintains morality throughout time. It is in the moral thinking of many Christians and Muslims, for instance, that homosexuality is wrong: just one of many morals which have been maintained by religion. Religion gives a certain morality to its followers (and, depending on how widespread the religion is, often also to non-adherents), but it is its own breed of morality, ancient and well maintained by continued religious traditions. Side: Yes
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You say all of this like it's a good thing! You use the word morality as if it is completely subjective. To say "homosexuality is wrong: just one of many morals which have been maintained by religion." is a misuse of the word. It is an assertion made by religions yes, but it that does not make it moral, and the idea that we should be tolerant of it is a different argument completely. Side: No
You say all of this like it's a good thing! I had thought I had said it in a neutral fashion. You use the word morality as if it is completely subjective. That is because I believe that morality is completely subjective. is a misuse of the word. Which word is it that you are accusing me of misusing? Morality? but it that does not make it moral It is a moral assertion. the idea that we should be tolerant of it is a different argument completely. I stated not whether I support the "moral" that homosexuality is wrong, simply that it has been preserved by religion. Side: Yes
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The general realization of evil in relation to our history was not without religion being present, so it is generally impossible to absolutely prove whether or not we would have gained morality without it, since it was present within history and we cannot change history. Generally, though, within our current prosperity, having faith in a religion is not required for us to tell right from wrong. In fact, social sciences let us know right from wrong even better then a person with a religious faith. Based upon such observations, it would seem that religion, at least today, is not required for us to have morality. Side: No
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Putting your son on a pile of sticks so you can burn him after stabbing him to death because God told you to. Killing people for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. Killing women for losing their virginity. Killing women for being raped. Forcing rape victims to marry their rapist. Sending your daughter out of your house to be gang-raped by an angry mob to protect your male dinner guest. Killing children for insulting an adult. God's laws for keeping slaves and when it's acceptable to kill them. This is the morality given to us by religion. I could go on but why bother. It's obvious that morality exists in spite of religion, not because of it. Side: No
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If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife. Deuteronomy 22:23-24 Side: No
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The Bible does not say that women should be killed for being raped! If that were true, I would not be a Christian! Honestly, what are you trying to imply by making such a statement? Are you assuming that Christians somehow are morally superior? Or that the Bible is the bedrock of all morality? Side: No
There are a few points to bring up here. First of all which religion are we talking about? There are many religions whose moral mandates differ from each other. It cannot be the case that each of them is equally the foundation of Morality, unless we assume that morality is dictated totally by human belief. Could there be a more objective source of morality? Despite the differences in morality from culture to culture, the similarities are far more interesting. Virtually every culture that has ever existed has had punishments for things like murder and theft. These are called "Cultural Universals". Cultures that arose isolated and separate from each other seem to believe a lot of the same things. The differences for the most part were social mores enshrined in religious law. We are all regardless of race, religion, or nationality ingrained with largely the same sense of morality. Why is that? To answer that question we must understand why morality is important. Early humans, before we learned to cultivate the land, we had to hunt and this required us to work together. A group of humans that could not cooperate would not survive. If we look at the morals that we all know: don't steal, don't lie, don't murder. These all are actions which inhibit cooperation and contribute to disorder and chaos. A society that allows murder, is a society that won't last for very long. Morals come not from religion, but from our need to cooperate and to survive. Humans had morals long before they understood the reasons that they felt a sense of right and wrong. God was merely a face to put on those morals so that they could make sense of these feelings. Side: No
Religion only reflects the morality of a given people at any given time. This is evident. You can see it simply by looking at how the moral standards of any religion has changed over time. If religion did not bend to human conception of it, it would not change, Christians would still stone rape victims and murder children for talking back. They do not, nor does any religion hold to all original standards, therefore it is humans who blame religion for their own morality when it occurs and not religion determining morality. A better question might be whether or not religion can be used to improve morality? There is an argument to be made for religion here I think, I mean a logically valid argument. X% of people act in Y immoral way. Of the number X say 50% would cease committing Y should they believe their mortal soul depends on it. Okay, that's an argument and very valid. I don't think human nature works in such a way on a large scale though. I find it more the case X% would commit Y, should X% be over 50% Y becomes "moral" and religion is redesigned to adhere to this new morality. Individually one would simply justify the action they would take anyway. By the same token a charitable individual, if there were not a religion to thank their charity for, would find another divine reason to be charitable. The end result would in most instances be the same with or without religion, it is social norms and the extent to which one can feel empathy which determines morality in an individual and religion acts as nothing more than a convenient scapegoat or brand name of this inner-morality. Where religion fails humanity is when individuals and groups dismiss the need to ponder morality of any situation, instead relying on what a book or religious leader says they should feel is moral. Now you are no longer determining your own morality based on society and empathy, but on what someone tells you, which can be good or evil, but leaves far too much room for corruption. In essence: Morality is a natural human condition for most individuals (based on pack instinct and that we are social creatures with a capacity for empathy). Religion can only do two things: 1. Take credit for what is already there. 2. Corrupt this natural tendency. Therefore we are more moral overall without religion. Side: No
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If you mean does our sense of morality comes from the Religious holy books then clearly no, that is patently absurd, as pointed out by AuntieChrist below. It's not even worth going into the immorality of such books. And just because we atheists don't answer to a God doesn't mean we don't answer to anyone so morality is irrelevant. We answer to the 6-7 billion other people on the planet, who we really can see harmed by immoral actions. The whole premise of morality only mattering so we can do right by God; the religious idea of vicarious redemption and that our actions don't matter if we then turn around and accept God is in itself completely immoral. I would assume you are looking at it from a more deistic point of view, i.e. if our morals don't come from a god ( regardless of the characteristics of that god ), then where do they come from? My point would be that this implies an intrinsic sense of right and wrong shared and understood by everyone, which is nonsensical because that is clearly not the case. Many people who commit crimes like rape and murder cannot see that what they are doing is wrong. They understand that the rest of society may view it that way, but they themselves don't see it as immoral. Humans are a social species. We stay in groups to survive. To say we cannot then come to the conclusion that killing each other is bad, without the help of a higher power, is ridiculous. Morality also is quite evidently as evolved as anything else. Morality changes as society changes and improves its perception of the consequences of our actions. It comes from a rational consideration of those consequences and a realisation of the harm we could cause others. Not a magic man in the sky who tells us how we should behave. Side: No
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people cherry pick the bible - this demonstrates moral ability that exists independent of the bible. we codified our ethical understanding into our religions when we formed them. This is why if you take most of the ideas they are generally predicated in terms of the historical context. On average, most non-religious people tend to be more morally aware and tempered in their behaviors than religious people are. Side: No
No! I don't think so. There are many even minded people in this world who believe in God and follow their religion. So basically the thing that matters are the thoughts of people. Side: No
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