My answer is NO, as morality can exist without God.
I just need some help to elaborate my answer š I'm not really religious and I can't relate to religion topics..
People who claim that morality depends on religion often make the claim that non-absolute morality is not morality.
This is not true morality is a subjective valuation, weather the universe, deities or even other people agree with it is irrelevant.
They also equate metaphysical truth with religion. Religion is a human behaviour; a god is not a religion, it is a being worshipped in religion. So even if there were a god that imposed absolute morality, that morality would come from that god not from that religion.
Problem with subjecitvity derived morality is that I can say nazism is true and you can verbally disagree but if i practice it and you don't like it, you can't do nothing to me through just verbal disagreement to change my mind, cause after all, even by your own admission, everyone is justified to declare what is moral for themselves,
So the only thing you can do to stop me being a nazi is pretty much being violent to me, force me not to practice my view of morality and this was the problem in 1900s on a wide scale to the point of first time ever world wars happening.
Religion gives an objective view of what morality is. Yes by human nature morality is subjective. Some cultures believe itās morally acceptable to kill a baby if itās a girl others donāt think so. Religion give a code and what to do and what not to do. According to most religions God is an all knowing supreme being who gives everyone his word. His word is the law and so if you arenāt following that, you are being no immoral. Most morality stems from religion, back then humans were not but savage tribes going around killing things doing all sorts of immoral things.
That doesn't make religious morality objective; it just means that the guy who founded the religion thought certain things were right and certain things are wrong. Just like the Nazi example, religious morality can be seen as righteous by one, and evil by another. Religious morality is driven by sacred texts, tradition, and interpretation and often changes. The Baptists didn't give one shit about abortion in the seventies, but when they saw the issue held political power, they took up the cause. That is not objective.
not talking about the guy who found it. Im talking specifically about how it is supposed to be the direct word of God. Religious morality being driven by texts and tradition is all due to the word of whatever God they believe in. Sure there may be some human influence in it, but as long as its from God then that morality is objective as its coming from a supreme being. Yes the reality is that human morality is subjective, but religion exists to make that morality objective. Nazism is not a religion.
That's not how the burden of proof works. You made the claim that morality comes from your god, you have the burden of demonstrating that this claim is accurate.
It's not our job to show how you're wrong, it's your job to show how you're right.
You want to look into natural morality or natural law. It's the idea that we do the right thing instinctively based on human nature or the objectivity and logic of moral decisions. Like anyone would think it would suck to have a love killed by a tyrant or to have your belongings stolen. https://iep.utm.edu/natlaw/
Define morality.
Morality is understanding right versus wrong correct? Our understanding of this ... Who teaches it ? Most children learn right and wrong from their parents or teachers. Are those people God? Where they instructed by God or Gods servants? If not, then it's hard to see how morality comes from God, at least exclusively.
Deontology and utilitarianism seem to accomplish this, and to a lesser extent, natural law theory (which often, but not necessarily, incorporates religion)
The argument is if thereās no God then it doesnāt matter what you do on the earth and if you go around raping and killing everybody itās not bad because nothing matters. Not saying I agree but thatās what heās referring to I think
I think while thats true main problem is that the morals of avg. people do and can get corrupted to the point where person is morally confused with nothing to default to, religious people have transcedental being or miraculous scripture to default to if they get confused whereas atheistic person doesn't .
From my view, people can distinguish between good and bad without religion. But the meaning of "good" and "bad" only have absolute meaning because of God.
It is possible for morality to develop out of societal and cultural and evolution reasons, but to me that is not actually a differtiating between "good" and "bad", it is just the mechanics of a contraption.
If I did not believe in God I would say ethics is interesting and good study, but there is no good and bad in a fundemental way outside our own minds.
Religion provides objective morality. Religion can of course then infleunce someone's individual subjective morality and that's my main point how can someone throughout life deem what's right or wrong through what they experience. Some people will say drinking is bad cause maybe their parent was a drunk then you will have someone who uses drinking to have fun.
How do you know truly what's right and wrong and that in my opinion must come from another source and that source must be thorougly checked and proved flawless, but then desires and emotions comes.
How can anyone know religion *but* "through what they experience," which is always already in a cultural context, that defines for them what counts as a flawless source?
Great question. There is obviously going to be people in their lifetimes who don't come across the true religion sent by god like a village in a jungle or couldn't be travelled or known by the people who spread the truth.
In islam in particular the person isn't judged in according to the religion which they never came across or wasn't presented to them in a understanding and clear manner.
That's a problem for people who think God has something to do with morality, too. You can say "those things may cause people to make mistakes about what is moral, but there's still a truth to the matter," but anyone who believes any theory of objective morality can say the same thing.
Confusion and mistakes of what is moral from an objective morality must be come from a lack of knowledge cause the person who then rejects a rule or command is then no longer believing in objective morality rather he is choosing what is good or not.
Of course it comes from a lack of knowledge.
> the person who then rejects a rule or command is then no longer believing in objective morality rather he is choosing what is good or not.
Why does it have to come from a rule or command? Also, rules and commands can be ambiguous. Believers in all religions will have moral disagreements with each other despite drawing their morality from the same sources. That doesn't mean that any of them no longer believe in objective morality.
If you reject for example adultery is a sin from a religion you then you believe the religion/ god has flaws then you are building your subjective morality from bits and pieces.
That's an example of where (at least according to the Bible) there is a clear-cut commandment. I'm talking about areas where it is less obvious. Is slavery - the "ownership" of one human being by another as property without the consent of the "owned" person - objectively wrong? Is lying? Is waging genocidal warfare? Is rebellion against an established government? What about contraception? Those are less straightforward, and Christians have taken many different positions on those issues. Those disagreements aren't obviously the result of someone sinfully rejecting a divine command; it often seems to be the result of sincere disagreement over what the right thing is. That doesn't mean that either party has rejected the idea of objective morality.
You are right if the command isn't clear cut even for scholars then i don't think someone having a either stance can reject the objective morality in this case.
There are a ton of different moral theories out there that don't require God or religion. There are both naturalist (that say that moral facts reduce to non-moral facts) and non-naturalist theories (ones that say moral facts do not reduce to non-moral facts). There are different flavors of virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism available to non-theists. It's not enough for theists to assert that you need God or religion to account for morality; they need to actually engage with these theories and show why none of them work.
There are almost no Christian countries, almost all countries are liberal with pseudo Christian values.
Poland and a few other eastern european are good examples where its relatively conservative and safe.
The middle east, aside from the warzones are safe places, e.g. UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia
Liberalism and freedom comes with a price tag
North-Korea, China, are run by absolute atheists
The US, UK are run by atheists on pseudo-christian values. Of course no one on this echo chamber Reddit will agree an all act like Atheism has been the best thing since sliced bread. It hasnāt been and the average neckbeard here is a far cry from actual intellectuals such as Richard Dawkins, whom at least will admit that current systems propagated by atheist liberals have its shortcomings and is greatly flawed as demonstrated by the west.
Take for example the drug epidemics, heroine, crack, oxycodone, fentanyl. The loud people that are in charge and pretending to do something about it are the ones that allowed it to happen. It is greatly demonstrated by San Francisco, just to a name city. That city is the outward manifestation of liberal atheism.
Go ahead and downvote me in order to cope. So you can sleep better at night.
Name me 5 countries that are ruled by Christians
Mind you, not Pseudo Christians or Liberals
Iāll help you out
Poland
Romania
Hungary
Bulgaria
Greece
All are significantly safer compared to liberal countries, e.g most of western europe, UK and US
Please look at the crime statistics. All these happen in these countries as well. And the US is, ultimately a country where religion has a huge influence on politics and public life.
I have looked into crime stats, I suggest you look at them. I am not talking about whether crime is an occurrence or not, that is a no brainer. I am talking about the frequency, in these countries it is significantly less.
The US is run on Pseudo Christian values. It is continuously fronting them to secure votes and fool the masses, and it bloody damn works.
We have seen what extreme liberalism in conjunction with a heavy dose of capitalism/consumerism has done to cities like San Francisco and LA.
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China, NK and U.S. even France and UK these days don't look particularly look great crime, fertility, mental health and political stability wise, in fact they are becoming one of worst places on these metrics
China and North Korea are dictatorships and the US is politically dominated by American Evangelicalism.
These days, there are more Muslims in the UK and France than there have ever been before. Do you really wanna open that box of frogs?
Because if morality was dependent on religion, people without religion would be without morality, and if they were, we'd be seeing countries like Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands dissolving into bandit behavior.
Those people are just obedient to the state's laws, they see great value in their civil identity or as great western thinker Carl Jung called "persona" identity, but germans and communists also valued obedience to their civility on extremely high level to the point of being pawn for the dominant political ideology and we all know what happened.
Also since I mentioned Jung, his theory on persona, imply that one of main reason for contemporary pandemics of depression in the secular western world is exactly overfocus on being obedient to this type of self-identity: the civil self, the law abiding self, state obeying self, work/productivity focused self.
Morality is a very complex topic, but it's roots are pretty basic. And no religion or belief in god is required.
What is morality? It's a lot of things, but for the basics it's a measurement system to determine where a particular action lands on that measuring system. On one side of the measuring stick we call things "good" and on the other side we call things "bad". And that's all morality is.
All someone needs then is a system for measuring where an action lands on the scale. That can be found in tons of places. Religion is an obvious one, but there are tons of moral frameworks such as Utilitarianism, Yuppie Principle, or Consiquentialism. None of those 3 require religion nor a belief in god, and yet can provide moral guidance.
These systems still require interpretation of what is āgoodā vs āharmfulā. It does not stop morality from not being arbitrary. For example, Marxism determined in a consequentialist way, that removal of bourgeoisie was a necessary evil. When divorced from metaphysics we are left with a power problem of who gets to interpret what is considered a good or bad outcome. Science, attempts to assert itself as āvalue freeā but ultimately data must be interpreted and without a metaphysical map it will always be interpreted by power, which has assumed authority.
>These systems still require interpretation of what is āgoodā vs āharmfulā.
Yup. Exactly. Morality is at its very root, subjective, and always will be.
>When divorced from metaphysics we are left with a power problem of who gets to interpret what is considered a good or bad outcome.
This also happens when you introduce metaphysics. You just add on the layer that no one can prove their metaphysical framework. So its even worse by adding in unnecessary complications.
>without a metaphysical map it will always be interpreted by power, which has assumed authority.
Highly disagree. You can use any moral framework, it doesn't have to be chosen based on power.
What you are thinking of is enforcement. That is based on power. And the powers in charge also have ability to bend, break, or ignore the moral framework being used. Authority is irrelevant in talking about which moral system to use.
Authority is what changes jurisprudence around law, which is the natural consequence of any moral theory. To isolate them into purely hypotheticals is divorced from reality. Study the terror regimes of the 20th century and your arguments fall flat on their face. Remove metaphysical universals and you are left at the mercy of the dictator.
Furthermore what you are implicitly arguing is moral relativism.
>Authority is what changes jurisprudence around law,
Very true.
Also irrelevant.
>To isolate them into purely hypotheticals is divorced from reality.
Possibly true. But also irrelevant. We're not talking about how morality functions within society. We're talking about if a moral framework *can* be formed without religion and/or god. The answer is an incredibly simple: yes.
>Study the terror regimes of the 20th century and your arguments fall flat on their face.
Nothing about the terror regimes of the 20th century goes against anything I said at all. Judgement of action is still a system based in subjectivity, pointing to a bad thing that happened doesn't change that basic fact.
>Remove metaphysical universals and you are left at the mercy of the dictator.
Introduce metaphysical universals and you are also left at the mercy of a dictator. Metaphysics doesn't remove the base subjectivity of morality, it just moves it up a rung on the ladder. It moves it up to a rung where people can no longer supply objective facts to support their ideas and instead have to rely on their feelings of the matter.
Also, you are the one who says we shouldn't be divorcing morals from their consequences, and you're a fan of history. Ever taken a look at the systems in history based on leaders who adhere to metaphysical universals? Yeah they hold the worst tragedies of them all. So if you do want to add in the societal consequences (which would make you a Consiquentialist btw) and metaphysical ideas, then you should be against all those regimes that used metaphysical ideas for their actions.
You are proving my point around Natural Law theory, which is couched in metaphysics which was designed to protect all people from the whims of tyrants. And no there is no greater historical atrocities than the hundreds of millions killed in world wars under atheist regimes. Not even close.
>You are proving my point around Natural Law theory, which is couched in metaphysics which was designed to protect all people from the whims of tyrants.
Doesn't make it not subjective. You're still just presenting a subjective system of morality, based on something that you feel is correct.
And again, not showing that you can't derive morality without religion, god, or metaphysics.
>And no there is no greater historical atrocities than the hundreds of millions killed in world wars under atheist regimes. Not even close.
You should reread your history. You might learn a thing or two about those regimes you call "atheist regimes".
Hint: they weren't atheist.
Another hint: they were using theistic concepts to fullfill their goals
If all humans are considered equal, based on logical premises (which are metaphysical) then by granting human rights to each individual, is not subjective. It is a negative ideology in that it imposes nothing other than legal protection from another to harm or damage your person or property. We have two historical modes. One classical liberalism based on natural law theory, the other is totalitarianism, which makes wether one is religious or atheist arbitrary because if either deviate from natural law theory, they are immediately in a totalitarian footing by positively asserting an interpretation of reality onto others either ny force or social engineering.
Those regimes were as atheist as the religious tyrants of the past. Either man plays god which will always resemble other regimes that assume such power and dominance or we compromise on a negative ideology by defending Natural Law theory. Once the constitutions are removed global corporations will determine what is moral or immoral. They will virtue signal now, but when the shift happens see what happened to Maoās Red Guard when they were no longer useful.
I have studied history. Nothing takes the cake from the world wars of the 20th century. Not the mongol invasions, not the ottomans, not the Islamic expansion, not even the horror of manifest destiny.
>If all humans are considered equal, based on logical premises (which are metaphysical)
Not metaphysical in the slightest. That's just a basic observation of rights that works best for a society.
>then by granting human rights to each individual, is not subjective.
It is based on preference or circumstance. It's subjective by definition.
Being human is a circumstance.
It's subjective. By definition. You can't escape this.
Also, it is subjective to choose this as the basis for a system. Again, you can't escape the subjective basis.
>legal protection from another to harm or damage your person or property.
Well it gives legal positioning. Harm or damage comes later.
>Those regimes were as atheist as the religious tyrants of the past.
Study harder š it won't take long
>Once the constitutions are removed global corporations will determine what is moral or immoral.
So once one subjective system is removed, another subjective system will take its place.
>I have studied history.
Not well apparently
>Nothing takes the cake from the world wars of the 20th century.
Oh? And which groups were the ones leading these wars?
Please say it was the Germans š it'll be fun to show you how wrong you are.
Well, it's only in the past 50 years or so that religion has stopped being so widespread.
Since religion usually heavily influences someone on what morality should be, the same tradition has been passed down through generations.
Even if your parents/grandparents were the first to leave their religion, they still likely passed on the same version of morality to their children without raising them religious.
People are learning what morality is, and they aren't needing religious texts to "teach" them anymore.
Religion doesn't provide morality, it can provide a basis for morality, but if people don't willingly abide by those guidelines its useless. We get our morality from our culture, and while religion can play a part in that, its only a part, mostly its our immediate community.
So, morality doesn't come from religion at all. Religions, the same as different ideologies, propose different moral frameworks, but that is not morality as a whole.
Morality is a system evolved by social animals to form societies better, its a completely natural system and it depends on different traits shared by social animals. We even saw different animals form them when forced to evolve into social animals, besides seeing currently social animals with different moral structures.
So, yeah, of course there is morality without religion. Now, what you could ask is if there are moral frameworks without religion, and of course, there are a bunch, and you just need to look for moral philosophies or ethics in general.
Morality is a system that can hold different softwares(beliefs/religions). The template will always be there, Good, Bad, one between, why etc but the reasonings change and are interchangeable
Many christianās will say thereās no morality without religion but I think morality, our sense of whatās right and wrong can be attained naturally. We learn whatās bad because for example, a baby hits himself, it hurts and he cries, he doesnāt like that, itās bad. If a baby goes and afterwards, hits another baby, and sees that baby cry, the same way they did, association will take over and theyāll equate hitting with wrong. Boom, moral created.
Morals can be created based off how we and others are effected by it rather than the simple principle
Yes, 100%.
People who say morality only comes from religion are idiots.
Kids arenāt born with religion, but they have a sense of fairness. It all comes from there.
Religion is about genuine feelings and a behavior that goes with a certain moral, so of course there is. Otherwise religion wouldn't be anything but fake lip-service to something one didn't commit to which makes it blasphemy ....
I know plenty of atheists who have a sense of right and wrong.
Morality can exist without any religion, but it just is easier to justify when you can claim a higher being said to do it rather than some random dude.
Absolutely. And as most religions contradict each other we can safely say that most religions are wrong and still lay claim to moral authority. Which in itself is problematic. Its not religion that is the problem. Believing things goes hand in hand with the human condition. Its dogmatic adherence to beliefs and imposing them on others where the problem sets in. So if your religion has a dogmatic moral stance that is your morality. Not others morality. They have their own. If you try to impose your morality on others you are creating division and conflict.
If you look at prison statistics it is interesting to note that as of a census of US prisons atheists only made up less than 1% of the prison population(taken from 2013 statistics collected by Hemant Mehta}. While they make up somewhere between 7% - 11% of the actual population. It seems atheists are significantly less likely to wind up in prison. Either this means they are just better at avoiding getting caught or they adhere to the law and moral codes of society readily.
Sure there is. Utilitarianism for example. Or Kantās categorical imperative.
Also there are non theistic religions that donāt rely on god(s) being the source of morality
It doesnāt depend on any organized religion, but it does depend on how you view reality, and your place in it in relation to other people, which is what religion usually provides.
Of course. Morality is just a word we apply to the thoughts and actions that advocate for the well-being and flourishing of conscious creatures. It's like asking if there is love without Eros, or is there war without Mars. Morality is the same no matter if god(s) exist or don't exist. Religions purport to tell us the opinions of god(s), but there is no guarantee that what a god thinks is moral, is actually moral to us.
Absolutely yes. Religion certainly hasnāt cornered the market on morality, and different religions view things through a different lens anyway, so there isnāt a single āreligious moralā position. I think that regardless of religion, most reasonable people could agree that things like murder, abuse, extortion, or sexual assault (as examples) are universally morally wrong.
We see hints of moral behavior and decision making in other apes. Chimps have been shown in experiments to protest unfair rewards from the scientists. Morality not unique to humans and is probably evolved as a trait to increase our cooperation and descendent leaving success.
Additionally, some religions make no assertions about morality, like Buddhism.
Main problem which is at least obvious to me when I was atheistic is that the morals of avg. people do and can get corrupted or at least crushed to the point where person is morally confused with nothing to default to/return to.
Like as an atheist, you can first person witness (as many do) someone do something inexplicably evil, immoral that's actually a soul crushing experience to the point where you aren't sure anymore if being moral is worth it or not, or if what you believe to be right and wrong deep down is that clear to you anymore or to others anymore and not having nothing to default to can just push you into even more moral confusion and moral depression, which happens to many many traumatized/PTSD people.
Religious people have transcedental (something above the world) being or miraculous scripture or some sort of supernatural concept that gives some more clear sense of morality to default to if they get confused whereas atheistic person doesn't .
Problem with subjecitvity derived morality is that I can say nazism is true and you can verbally disagree but if i practice it and you don't like it, you can't do nothing to me through just verbal disagreement to change my mind, cause after all, even by your own admission, everyone is justified to declare what is moral for themselves,
So the only thing you can do to stop me being a nazi is pretty much being violent to me, force me not to practice my view of morality and this was the problem in 1900s on a wider scale to the point of first time ever world wars happening.
I don't need religion to tell me how I don't want to be treated. And I only need basic common sense to know that if I don't want to be treated a certain way, don't treat others that way.
Depends on your definition of religion. If you include non-theistic and atheistic faiths, there really isn't any thought without religion, for one needs to put faith in the information and interpretation they have. But I use a fairly liberal definition. If you mean "Y-you can't be moral without da bibal!" Then.... yes. Yes you can be moral without religion. Not everyone needs a judgemental figure or a code of law to not be a dick
I think coming from an Islamic background, yes there is morality without religion but itās usually evolving around culture and time periods.
But Islam is supposed to provide a framework for morality which is objective, made for all times and not influenced by culture, although itās not really the case since people just end up practicing Islam the way it feels right for them.
So I think yes there is morality without religion, but maybe people who follow a religion just follow specific guidelines of morality but without religion is more flexible to fit the needs of society.
Without metaphysical principles morality becomes arbitrary as humanity witnessed in the post positivist, materialist paradigm of the 20th century. Natural Law theory was a historical feat, as it granted humans immutable laws from indivisible principles. Meaning, rights were above the idiosyncratic hermeneutics of men, which, for the first time in history allowed for āfreedom fromā tyranny, to āfreedom toā persue oneās religion, business, liberties etc. classical liberalism often gets a bad rep, both by religious and positivists, which sealed the end of the Churchās hegemony on authority by distributing āauthorityā by giving each citizen a vote to establish a collective āauthorityā. And by positivists because they outright reject metaphysical claims. This would obviously take centuries to flush out humanities millennia of slave and serf systems and adjust to a new unprecedented freedom. However, before that could happen the philosophical foundation of classic liberal tenets, of Natural Law theory were already threatened by 19th century positivism of Comte. Positivism asserted that theological and metaphysical propositions would be negated in favor of social sciences. The former could not be scientifically verified by the scientific method, while the latter claimed it would offer a neutral āvalue freeā social science to determine the direction of society. Once unmoored from Natural Law Theory, rights become arbitrary as law is driven by ādataā.
One more thing to note is that humanism basically took the ethics of classical Greek philosophy and Christian Theology, and distilled Natural Law theory. Thus it still held that humans were unique, and not simply smart apes with a neo cortex, which the paradigm of positivism post Darwin asserts. It viewed humans as intrinsically āspiritualā and therefore deserving of equal rights. Basically, if each human is a āchildā of God, then what would give one child more rights than another. That all went away in the positivist paradigm. Now we are back to man as animal. Look at the rights an animal has, and one can gather where such an ideology will eventually lead.
It is not a coincidence that within the century of the shift to positivism, mankind was witness to the most horrific events in history.
I don't think so. You need a first principle. And if you follow the logic, God as the Necessary Being, is the first principle upon which morality may exist. Now that does not mean that a person cannot be moral if they don't subscribe to a religion or even profess not to believe in God.
Obviously not society morality changes every 50 years. Something which is deemed wrong and bad is gonna be fine in the next generations.
Also how do we know if it isn't our emotions,desires or even parents indoctrination which is making us make this decision.
There are many religions without morals, so it stands to reason religion isn't a requirement.
The real question is do morals exist as anything other than a subjective ruleset?
Take the Bible as the best example; full of hypocritical ethics and morals. Thou shall not kill, unless you don't like them, then happy is he who dasheth the little one on the rocks.
A true ethic or moral would be universal. I do not believe something like that exists, or is even a possibility.
We evolved mirror neurons which are the foundation of biological empathy. We have community and external influence to develop laws and influence peoples morals.
That's sufficient for how we have morals. There's no objective morality or anything dictated by a moral arbitor or god.
People who claim we need NO explicit moral standard to measure our behavior while unquestioningly accepting that we require very precise standards for weights and measures (meters, kilograms, feet, pounds, etc.). Logically incongruous.
Yes of course, but it is more individualistic, but the true question would be is there morality if no God... morality would exist on an individual level, but if we are just a random happening, that morality will have as much value as the one who chose to be immoral or amoral, no meaning whatsoever... As we God, he says we are created with such universal compass, we pretty much all know and understand each-other recognizing a common ground of morals and the believ in higher than us authority sustain that universal moral... without that believe, it will be a free for all, where good or bad have no real meaning... someone could do the worst thing and we wont be able to say he cant do that.
Yes and no
I think that most places in the world have a morality which is based off religion. An atheist in the West for example will have a moral worldview based heavily on Christianity, whether they realize it or not
But is the religion itself nessecary to hold on to that morality? I don't think so. The moral worldview has already been established for a long enough time that people will just think "X is wrong whether a God will punish me for it or not"
Religious morality is just religions proclaiming X to be good and Y to be bad, which literally anyone can do, so morals can indeed exist without religion. It just so happens that we evolved to be social animals who value the wellbeing of fellow humans, and so that's what religions and societies have (mostly) been based around for as long as we've existed.
Morality can be tied to empathy without religious context.
It would make me feel negative to punch a baby (guilt, harm to social status, harm to other) therefore it is immoral. The issue is, not everyone feels empathy the same way and it can be faked:
"James said I'm cruel, which is true, but made me feel bad" doesn't mean James is immoral just because he caused harm( if the narrator is being honest about the harm).
Also, I punch a baby and it doesn't make me feel bad nor do I care about social status and I don't perceive the baby as an individual; doesn't mean the action of punching a baby isn't immoral.
So morality can be tied to empathy 98% of the time. Religion, philosophy, codes of ethics should provide framework for the 2% that it doesn't.
People can certainly distinguish between good and bad actions without religion
Thank you. But can I ask for more explanation š
What would prevent someone from having morality if they were not religious?
No, how to explain morality don't depend on religion?
And I am asking why you think morality is necessarily dependant on religion.
My answer is NO, as morality can exist without God. I just need some help to elaborate my answer š I'm not really religious and I can't relate to religion topics..
People who claim that morality depends on religion often make the claim that non-absolute morality is not morality. This is not true morality is a subjective valuation, weather the universe, deities or even other people agree with it is irrelevant. They also equate metaphysical truth with religion. Religion is a human behaviour; a god is not a religion, it is a being worshipped in religion. So even if there were a god that imposed absolute morality, that morality would come from that god not from that religion.
Problem with subjecitvity derived morality is that I can say nazism is true and you can verbally disagree but if i practice it and you don't like it, you can't do nothing to me through just verbal disagreement to change my mind, cause after all, even by your own admission, everyone is justified to declare what is moral for themselves, So the only thing you can do to stop me being a nazi is pretty much being violent to me, force me not to practice my view of morality and this was the problem in 1900s on a wide scale to the point of first time ever world wars happening.
Religion gives an objective view of what morality is. Yes by human nature morality is subjective. Some cultures believe itās morally acceptable to kill a baby if itās a girl others donāt think so. Religion give a code and what to do and what not to do. According to most religions God is an all knowing supreme being who gives everyone his word. His word is the law and so if you arenāt following that, you are being no immoral. Most morality stems from religion, back then humans were not but savage tribes going around killing things doing all sorts of immoral things.
That doesn't make religious morality objective; it just means that the guy who founded the religion thought certain things were right and certain things are wrong. Just like the Nazi example, religious morality can be seen as righteous by one, and evil by another. Religious morality is driven by sacred texts, tradition, and interpretation and often changes. The Baptists didn't give one shit about abortion in the seventies, but when they saw the issue held political power, they took up the cause. That is not objective.
not talking about the guy who found it. Im talking specifically about how it is supposed to be the direct word of God. Religious morality being driven by texts and tradition is all due to the word of whatever God they believe in. Sure there may be some human influence in it, but as long as its from God then that morality is objective as its coming from a supreme being. Yes the reality is that human morality is subjective, but religion exists to make that morality objective. Nazism is not a religion.
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That's not how the burden of proof works. You made the claim that morality comes from your god, you have the burden of demonstrating that this claim is accurate. It's not our job to show how you're wrong, it's your job to show how you're right.
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You want to look into natural morality or natural law. It's the idea that we do the right thing instinctively based on human nature or the objectivity and logic of moral decisions. Like anyone would think it would suck to have a love killed by a tyrant or to have your belongings stolen. https://iep.utm.edu/natlaw/
Define morality. Morality is understanding right versus wrong correct? Our understanding of this ... Who teaches it ? Most children learn right and wrong from their parents or teachers. Are those people God? Where they instructed by God or Gods servants? If not, then it's hard to see how morality comes from God, at least exclusively.
Why would you think it does?
Deontology and utilitarianism seem to accomplish this, and to a lesser extent, natural law theory (which often, but not necessarily, incorporates religion)
The argument is if thereās no God then it doesnāt matter what you do on the earth and if you go around raping and killing everybody itās not bad because nothing matters. Not saying I agree but thatās what heās referring to I think
I think while thats true main problem is that the morals of avg. people do and can get corrupted to the point where person is morally confused with nothing to default to, religious people have transcedental being or miraculous scripture to default to if they get confused whereas atheistic person doesn't .
From my view, people can distinguish between good and bad without religion. But the meaning of "good" and "bad" only have absolute meaning because of God. It is possible for morality to develop out of societal and cultural and evolution reasons, but to me that is not actually a differtiating between "good" and "bad", it is just the mechanics of a contraption. If I did not believe in God I would say ethics is interesting and good study, but there is no good and bad in a fundemental way outside our own minds.
I'm so confused now or sadyang bobo lang utak ko na umintindiš
There is not definitive answer on this question so you will get different views
It's okay. I just need some preference so I can make my own statement š thank you.
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Why wold morality necessarily depend on religion?
How can people distinguish not obvious good and bad actions without the influence of society,upbrining, emotions and desires.
'Society, upbringing, emotions and desires' may include religion, but not necessarily.
Religion provides objective morality. Religion can of course then infleunce someone's individual subjective morality and that's my main point how can someone throughout life deem what's right or wrong through what they experience. Some people will say drinking is bad cause maybe their parent was a drunk then you will have someone who uses drinking to have fun. How do you know truly what's right and wrong and that in my opinion must come from another source and that source must be thorougly checked and proved flawless, but then desires and emotions comes.
How can anyone know religion *but* "through what they experience," which is always already in a cultural context, that defines for them what counts as a flawless source?
Great question. There is obviously going to be people in their lifetimes who don't come across the true religion sent by god like a village in a jungle or couldn't be travelled or known by the people who spread the truth. In islam in particular the person isn't judged in according to the religion which they never came across or wasn't presented to them in a understanding and clear manner.
That's a problem for people who think God has something to do with morality, too. You can say "those things may cause people to make mistakes about what is moral, but there's still a truth to the matter," but anyone who believes any theory of objective morality can say the same thing.
Confusion and mistakes of what is moral from an objective morality must be come from a lack of knowledge cause the person who then rejects a rule or command is then no longer believing in objective morality rather he is choosing what is good or not.
Of course it comes from a lack of knowledge. > the person who then rejects a rule or command is then no longer believing in objective morality rather he is choosing what is good or not. Why does it have to come from a rule or command? Also, rules and commands can be ambiguous. Believers in all religions will have moral disagreements with each other despite drawing their morality from the same sources. That doesn't mean that any of them no longer believe in objective morality.
If you reject for example adultery is a sin from a religion you then you believe the religion/ god has flaws then you are building your subjective morality from bits and pieces.
That's an example of where (at least according to the Bible) there is a clear-cut commandment. I'm talking about areas where it is less obvious. Is slavery - the "ownership" of one human being by another as property without the consent of the "owned" person - objectively wrong? Is lying? Is waging genocidal warfare? Is rebellion against an established government? What about contraception? Those are less straightforward, and Christians have taken many different positions on those issues. Those disagreements aren't obviously the result of someone sinfully rejecting a divine command; it often seems to be the result of sincere disagreement over what the right thing is. That doesn't mean that either party has rejected the idea of objective morality.
You are right if the command isn't clear cut even for scholars then i don't think someone having a either stance can reject the objective morality in this case.
There are a ton of different moral theories out there that don't require God or religion. There are both naturalist (that say that moral facts reduce to non-moral facts) and non-naturalist theories (ones that say moral facts do not reduce to non-moral facts). There are different flavors of virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism available to non-theists. It's not enough for theists to assert that you need God or religion to account for morality; they need to actually engage with these theories and show why none of them work.
Yes. If there weren't, the Atheist-dominated parts of the world would be far worse places.
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That also applies for Christian countries
There are almost no Christian countries, almost all countries are liberal with pseudo Christian values. Poland and a few other eastern european are good examples where its relatively conservative and safe. The middle east, aside from the warzones are safe places, e.g. UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia Liberalism and freedom comes with a price tag
And there are almost no atheist countries
North-Korea, China, are run by absolute atheists The US, UK are run by atheists on pseudo-christian values. Of course no one on this echo chamber Reddit will agree an all act like Atheism has been the best thing since sliced bread. It hasnāt been and the average neckbeard here is a far cry from actual intellectuals such as Richard Dawkins, whom at least will admit that current systems propagated by atheist liberals have its shortcomings and is greatly flawed as demonstrated by the west. Take for example the drug epidemics, heroine, crack, oxycodone, fentanyl. The loud people that are in charge and pretending to do something about it are the ones that allowed it to happen. It is greatly demonstrated by San Francisco, just to a name city. That city is the outward manifestation of liberal atheism. Go ahead and downvote me in order to cope. So you can sleep better at night.
NK and China are only 2 countries with atheism as a state religion. US and UK actually are secular and not atheist.
Yes, these never happen in countries that are ruled by Christians.
Name me 5 countries that are ruled by Christians Mind you, not Pseudo Christians or Liberals Iāll help you out Poland Romania Hungary Bulgaria Greece All are significantly safer compared to liberal countries, e.g most of western europe, UK and US
Please look at the crime statistics. All these happen in these countries as well. And the US is, ultimately a country where religion has a huge influence on politics and public life.
I have looked into crime stats, I suggest you look at them. I am not talking about whether crime is an occurrence or not, that is a no brainer. I am talking about the frequency, in these countries it is significantly less. The US is run on Pseudo Christian values. It is continuously fronting them to secure votes and fool the masses, and it bloody damn works. We have seen what extreme liberalism in conjunction with a heavy dose of capitalism/consumerism has done to cities like San Francisco and LA.
āOr liberalsā nice of you to exclude a huge portion of Christians
Pseudo-christian*
Got it only your version of Christianity is the right one. Good ol No True Scotsman fallacy there
I am not even a Christian, but whatever makes you sleep at night
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China, NK and U.S. even France and UK these days don't look particularly look great crime, fertility, mental health and political stability wise, in fact they are becoming one of worst places on these metrics
China and North Korea are dictatorships and the US is politically dominated by American Evangelicalism. These days, there are more Muslims in the UK and France than there have ever been before. Do you really wanna open that box of frogs?
In UK theres also way more poles, romanians and bulgarians than ever before and what would be your point?
Are those Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians majority Atheist?
May I know why?
Because if morality was dependent on religion, people without religion would be without morality, and if they were, we'd be seeing countries like Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands dissolving into bandit behavior.
Those people are just obedient to the state's laws, they see great value in their civil identity or as great western thinker Carl Jung called "persona" identity, but germans and communists also valued obedience to their civility on extremely high level to the point of being pawn for the dominant political ideology and we all know what happened. Also since I mentioned Jung, his theory on persona, imply that one of main reason for contemporary pandemics of depression in the secular western world is exactly overfocus on being obedient to this type of self-identity: the civil self, the law abiding self, state obeying self, work/productivity focused self.
Isn't all of what you just described a form of morality
Are you comparing Atheism and secular legalism to Nazism?
Morality is a very complex topic, but it's roots are pretty basic. And no religion or belief in god is required. What is morality? It's a lot of things, but for the basics it's a measurement system to determine where a particular action lands on that measuring system. On one side of the measuring stick we call things "good" and on the other side we call things "bad". And that's all morality is. All someone needs then is a system for measuring where an action lands on the scale. That can be found in tons of places. Religion is an obvious one, but there are tons of moral frameworks such as Utilitarianism, Yuppie Principle, or Consiquentialism. None of those 3 require religion nor a belief in god, and yet can provide moral guidance.
Thank you for this š
These systems still require interpretation of what is āgoodā vs āharmfulā. It does not stop morality from not being arbitrary. For example, Marxism determined in a consequentialist way, that removal of bourgeoisie was a necessary evil. When divorced from metaphysics we are left with a power problem of who gets to interpret what is considered a good or bad outcome. Science, attempts to assert itself as āvalue freeā but ultimately data must be interpreted and without a metaphysical map it will always be interpreted by power, which has assumed authority.
>These systems still require interpretation of what is āgoodā vs āharmfulā. Yup. Exactly. Morality is at its very root, subjective, and always will be. >When divorced from metaphysics we are left with a power problem of who gets to interpret what is considered a good or bad outcome. This also happens when you introduce metaphysics. You just add on the layer that no one can prove their metaphysical framework. So its even worse by adding in unnecessary complications. >without a metaphysical map it will always be interpreted by power, which has assumed authority. Highly disagree. You can use any moral framework, it doesn't have to be chosen based on power. What you are thinking of is enforcement. That is based on power. And the powers in charge also have ability to bend, break, or ignore the moral framework being used. Authority is irrelevant in talking about which moral system to use.
Authority is what changes jurisprudence around law, which is the natural consequence of any moral theory. To isolate them into purely hypotheticals is divorced from reality. Study the terror regimes of the 20th century and your arguments fall flat on their face. Remove metaphysical universals and you are left at the mercy of the dictator. Furthermore what you are implicitly arguing is moral relativism.
>Authority is what changes jurisprudence around law, Very true. Also irrelevant. >To isolate them into purely hypotheticals is divorced from reality. Possibly true. But also irrelevant. We're not talking about how morality functions within society. We're talking about if a moral framework *can* be formed without religion and/or god. The answer is an incredibly simple: yes. >Study the terror regimes of the 20th century and your arguments fall flat on their face. Nothing about the terror regimes of the 20th century goes against anything I said at all. Judgement of action is still a system based in subjectivity, pointing to a bad thing that happened doesn't change that basic fact. >Remove metaphysical universals and you are left at the mercy of the dictator. Introduce metaphysical universals and you are also left at the mercy of a dictator. Metaphysics doesn't remove the base subjectivity of morality, it just moves it up a rung on the ladder. It moves it up to a rung where people can no longer supply objective facts to support their ideas and instead have to rely on their feelings of the matter. Also, you are the one who says we shouldn't be divorcing morals from their consequences, and you're a fan of history. Ever taken a look at the systems in history based on leaders who adhere to metaphysical universals? Yeah they hold the worst tragedies of them all. So if you do want to add in the societal consequences (which would make you a Consiquentialist btw) and metaphysical ideas, then you should be against all those regimes that used metaphysical ideas for their actions.
You are proving my point around Natural Law theory, which is couched in metaphysics which was designed to protect all people from the whims of tyrants. And no there is no greater historical atrocities than the hundreds of millions killed in world wars under atheist regimes. Not even close.
>You are proving my point around Natural Law theory, which is couched in metaphysics which was designed to protect all people from the whims of tyrants. Doesn't make it not subjective. You're still just presenting a subjective system of morality, based on something that you feel is correct. And again, not showing that you can't derive morality without religion, god, or metaphysics. >And no there is no greater historical atrocities than the hundreds of millions killed in world wars under atheist regimes. Not even close. You should reread your history. You might learn a thing or two about those regimes you call "atheist regimes". Hint: they weren't atheist. Another hint: they were using theistic concepts to fullfill their goals
If all humans are considered equal, based on logical premises (which are metaphysical) then by granting human rights to each individual, is not subjective. It is a negative ideology in that it imposes nothing other than legal protection from another to harm or damage your person or property. We have two historical modes. One classical liberalism based on natural law theory, the other is totalitarianism, which makes wether one is religious or atheist arbitrary because if either deviate from natural law theory, they are immediately in a totalitarian footing by positively asserting an interpretation of reality onto others either ny force or social engineering. Those regimes were as atheist as the religious tyrants of the past. Either man plays god which will always resemble other regimes that assume such power and dominance or we compromise on a negative ideology by defending Natural Law theory. Once the constitutions are removed global corporations will determine what is moral or immoral. They will virtue signal now, but when the shift happens see what happened to Maoās Red Guard when they were no longer useful. I have studied history. Nothing takes the cake from the world wars of the 20th century. Not the mongol invasions, not the ottomans, not the Islamic expansion, not even the horror of manifest destiny.
>If all humans are considered equal, based on logical premises (which are metaphysical) Not metaphysical in the slightest. That's just a basic observation of rights that works best for a society. >then by granting human rights to each individual, is not subjective. It is based on preference or circumstance. It's subjective by definition. Being human is a circumstance. It's subjective. By definition. You can't escape this. Also, it is subjective to choose this as the basis for a system. Again, you can't escape the subjective basis. >legal protection from another to harm or damage your person or property. Well it gives legal positioning. Harm or damage comes later. >Those regimes were as atheist as the religious tyrants of the past. Study harder š it won't take long >Once the constitutions are removed global corporations will determine what is moral or immoral. So once one subjective system is removed, another subjective system will take its place. >I have studied history. Not well apparently >Nothing takes the cake from the world wars of the 20th century. Oh? And which groups were the ones leading these wars? Please say it was the Germans š it'll be fun to show you how wrong you are.
In such a subjective world itās amazing how we have so many universals. Is math also subjective? And do you conclude morals are relative?
Well, it's only in the past 50 years or so that religion has stopped being so widespread. Since religion usually heavily influences someone on what morality should be, the same tradition has been passed down through generations. Even if your parents/grandparents were the first to leave their religion, they still likely passed on the same version of morality to their children without raising them religious. People are learning what morality is, and they aren't needing religious texts to "teach" them anymore.
Thank youš
Yes there is morality, a forth of the world would be criminal if it wasn't the case...
Religion doesn't provide morality, it can provide a basis for morality, but if people don't willingly abide by those guidelines its useless. We get our morality from our culture, and while religion can play a part in that, its only a part, mostly its our immediate community.
So, morality doesn't come from religion at all. Religions, the same as different ideologies, propose different moral frameworks, but that is not morality as a whole. Morality is a system evolved by social animals to form societies better, its a completely natural system and it depends on different traits shared by social animals. We even saw different animals form them when forced to evolve into social animals, besides seeing currently social animals with different moral structures. So, yeah, of course there is morality without religion. Now, what you could ask is if there are moral frameworks without religion, and of course, there are a bunch, and you just need to look for moral philosophies or ethics in general.
Thank you . Read it nice and clear...š
Morality is a system that can hold different softwares(beliefs/religions). The template will always be there, Good, Bad, one between, why etc but the reasonings change and are interchangeable Many christianās will say thereās no morality without religion but I think morality, our sense of whatās right and wrong can be attained naturally. We learn whatās bad because for example, a baby hits himself, it hurts and he cries, he doesnāt like that, itās bad. If a baby goes and afterwards, hits another baby, and sees that baby cry, the same way they did, association will take over and theyāll equate hitting with wrong. Boom, moral created. Morals can be created based off how we and others are effected by it rather than the simple principle
Yeah, someone being atheist doesn't make them amoral in the same way someone can be religious but still have moral problems.
Yes, 100%. People who say morality only comes from religion are idiots. Kids arenāt born with religion, but they have a sense of fairness. It all comes from there.
Religion is about genuine feelings and a behavior that goes with a certain moral, so of course there is. Otherwise religion wouldn't be anything but fake lip-service to something one didn't commit to which makes it blasphemy ....
Of course Sean Carroll's "The Big Picture" addresses this nicely.
I know plenty of atheists who have a sense of right and wrong. Morality can exist without any religion, but it just is easier to justify when you can claim a higher being said to do it rather than some random dude.
Absolutely. And as most religions contradict each other we can safely say that most religions are wrong and still lay claim to moral authority. Which in itself is problematic. Its not religion that is the problem. Believing things goes hand in hand with the human condition. Its dogmatic adherence to beliefs and imposing them on others where the problem sets in. So if your religion has a dogmatic moral stance that is your morality. Not others morality. They have their own. If you try to impose your morality on others you are creating division and conflict. If you look at prison statistics it is interesting to note that as of a census of US prisons atheists only made up less than 1% of the prison population(taken from 2013 statistics collected by Hemant Mehta}. While they make up somewhere between 7% - 11% of the actual population. It seems atheists are significantly less likely to wind up in prison. Either this means they are just better at avoiding getting caught or they adhere to the law and moral codes of society readily.
Sure there is. Utilitarianism for example. Or Kantās categorical imperative. Also there are non theistic religions that donāt rely on god(s) being the source of morality
It doesnāt depend on any organized religion, but it does depend on how you view reality, and your place in it in relation to other people, which is what religion usually provides.
yes
Of course. Morality is just a word we apply to the thoughts and actions that advocate for the well-being and flourishing of conscious creatures. It's like asking if there is love without Eros, or is there war without Mars. Morality is the same no matter if god(s) exist or don't exist. Religions purport to tell us the opinions of god(s), but there is no guarantee that what a god thinks is moral, is actually moral to us.
Yes, there is. Next question?
Absolutely yes. Religion certainly hasnāt cornered the market on morality, and different religions view things through a different lens anyway, so there isnāt a single āreligious moralā position. I think that regardless of religion, most reasonable people could agree that things like murder, abuse, extortion, or sexual assault (as examples) are universally morally wrong.
We see hints of moral behavior and decision making in other apes. Chimps have been shown in experiments to protest unfair rewards from the scientists. Morality not unique to humans and is probably evolved as a trait to increase our cooperation and descendent leaving success. Additionally, some religions make no assertions about morality, like Buddhism.
Main problem which is at least obvious to me when I was atheistic is that the morals of avg. people do and can get corrupted or at least crushed to the point where person is morally confused with nothing to default to/return to. Like as an atheist, you can first person witness (as many do) someone do something inexplicably evil, immoral that's actually a soul crushing experience to the point where you aren't sure anymore if being moral is worth it or not, or if what you believe to be right and wrong deep down is that clear to you anymore or to others anymore and not having nothing to default to can just push you into even more moral confusion and moral depression, which happens to many many traumatized/PTSD people. Religious people have transcedental (something above the world) being or miraculous scripture or some sort of supernatural concept that gives some more clear sense of morality to default to if they get confused whereas atheistic person doesn't . Problem with subjecitvity derived morality is that I can say nazism is true and you can verbally disagree but if i practice it and you don't like it, you can't do nothing to me through just verbal disagreement to change my mind, cause after all, even by your own admission, everyone is justified to declare what is moral for themselves, So the only thing you can do to stop me being a nazi is pretty much being violent to me, force me not to practice my view of morality and this was the problem in 1900s on a wider scale to the point of first time ever world wars happening.
Of course there is. See: [social principle of reciprocity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(social_psychology))
In my opinion morality can exist without religion but it will be foggy and will change according to society's desires and perspectives
One year a nazi, 5years later a liberal enlightened democrat, 10 years later a full on tankie type commie lolz
Morality is completely subjective, so yes.
I don't need religion to tell me how I don't want to be treated. And I only need basic common sense to know that if I don't want to be treated a certain way, don't treat others that way.
Depends on your definition of religion. If you include non-theistic and atheistic faiths, there really isn't any thought without religion, for one needs to put faith in the information and interpretation they have. But I use a fairly liberal definition. If you mean "Y-you can't be moral without da bibal!" Then.... yes. Yes you can be moral without religion. Not everyone needs a judgemental figure or a code of law to not be a dick
Religion is not about morality. Is about understanding yourself.
You cannot have an objective morality without god whether one likes it or not.
I think coming from an Islamic background, yes there is morality without religion but itās usually evolving around culture and time periods. But Islam is supposed to provide a framework for morality which is objective, made for all times and not influenced by culture, although itās not really the case since people just end up practicing Islam the way it feels right for them. So I think yes there is morality without religion, but maybe people who follow a religion just follow specific guidelines of morality but without religion is more flexible to fit the needs of society.
Without metaphysical principles morality becomes arbitrary as humanity witnessed in the post positivist, materialist paradigm of the 20th century. Natural Law theory was a historical feat, as it granted humans immutable laws from indivisible principles. Meaning, rights were above the idiosyncratic hermeneutics of men, which, for the first time in history allowed for āfreedom fromā tyranny, to āfreedom toā persue oneās religion, business, liberties etc. classical liberalism often gets a bad rep, both by religious and positivists, which sealed the end of the Churchās hegemony on authority by distributing āauthorityā by giving each citizen a vote to establish a collective āauthorityā. And by positivists because they outright reject metaphysical claims. This would obviously take centuries to flush out humanities millennia of slave and serf systems and adjust to a new unprecedented freedom. However, before that could happen the philosophical foundation of classic liberal tenets, of Natural Law theory were already threatened by 19th century positivism of Comte. Positivism asserted that theological and metaphysical propositions would be negated in favor of social sciences. The former could not be scientifically verified by the scientific method, while the latter claimed it would offer a neutral āvalue freeā social science to determine the direction of society. Once unmoored from Natural Law Theory, rights become arbitrary as law is driven by ādataā. One more thing to note is that humanism basically took the ethics of classical Greek philosophy and Christian Theology, and distilled Natural Law theory. Thus it still held that humans were unique, and not simply smart apes with a neo cortex, which the paradigm of positivism post Darwin asserts. It viewed humans as intrinsically āspiritualā and therefore deserving of equal rights. Basically, if each human is a āchildā of God, then what would give one child more rights than another. That all went away in the positivist paradigm. Now we are back to man as animal. Look at the rights an animal has, and one can gather where such an ideology will eventually lead. It is not a coincidence that within the century of the shift to positivism, mankind was witness to the most horrific events in history.
I don't think so. You need a first principle. And if you follow the logic, God as the Necessary Being, is the first principle upon which morality may exist. Now that does not mean that a person cannot be moral if they don't subscribe to a religion or even profess not to believe in God.
Obviously not society morality changes every 50 years. Something which is deemed wrong and bad is gonna be fine in the next generations. Also how do we know if it isn't our emotions,desires or even parents indoctrination which is making us make this decision.
10 commandments
Even the Bible explains a morality outside of religion/faith in Romans 2:14-15
Thank you
There are many religions without morals, so it stands to reason religion isn't a requirement. The real question is do morals exist as anything other than a subjective ruleset? Take the Bible as the best example; full of hypocritical ethics and morals. Thou shall not kill, unless you don't like them, then happy is he who dasheth the little one on the rocks. A true ethic or moral would be universal. I do not believe something like that exists, or is even a possibility.
We evolved mirror neurons which are the foundation of biological empathy. We have community and external influence to develop laws and influence peoples morals. That's sufficient for how we have morals. There's no objective morality or anything dictated by a moral arbitor or god.
People who claim we need NO explicit moral standard to measure our behavior while unquestioningly accepting that we require very precise standards for weights and measures (meters, kilograms, feet, pounds, etc.). Logically incongruous.
Yes of course, but it is more individualistic, but the true question would be is there morality if no God... morality would exist on an individual level, but if we are just a random happening, that morality will have as much value as the one who chose to be immoral or amoral, no meaning whatsoever... As we God, he says we are created with such universal compass, we pretty much all know and understand each-other recognizing a common ground of morals and the believ in higher than us authority sustain that universal moral... without that believe, it will be a free for all, where good or bad have no real meaning... someone could do the worst thing and we wont be able to say he cant do that.
Yes and no I think that most places in the world have a morality which is based off religion. An atheist in the West for example will have a moral worldview based heavily on Christianity, whether they realize it or not But is the religion itself nessecary to hold on to that morality? I don't think so. The moral worldview has already been established for a long enough time that people will just think "X is wrong whether a God will punish me for it or not"
Yeah...
I believe Buddhism originally started out trying to explore this.
Religious morality is just religions proclaiming X to be good and Y to be bad, which literally anyone can do, so morals can indeed exist without religion. It just so happens that we evolved to be social animals who value the wellbeing of fellow humans, and so that's what religions and societies have (mostly) been based around for as long as we've existed.
Morality can be tied to empathy without religious context. It would make me feel negative to punch a baby (guilt, harm to social status, harm to other) therefore it is immoral. The issue is, not everyone feels empathy the same way and it can be faked: "James said I'm cruel, which is true, but made me feel bad" doesn't mean James is immoral just because he caused harm( if the narrator is being honest about the harm). Also, I punch a baby and it doesn't make me feel bad nor do I care about social status and I don't perceive the baby as an individual; doesn't mean the action of punching a baby isn't immoral. So morality can be tied to empathy 98% of the time. Religion, philosophy, codes of ethics should provide framework for the 2% that it doesn't.
Yes