Thread: Do we need religion to have morals?

Not specifically practice religion, anyways, but base them on it? I don't like murder, theft, or any of that bother. It is straight out of the Ten Commandments, yet I'm not a Christian or Jew.

Do you think you need religion to have morals?

No.

Originally Posted by StephenT

No.

Please explain.

Are you of the view that 'morals' are hardwired into your DNA like some sort of instinct, or you make them up as you see fit?

Underlined and bolded make everything authoritarian.

Do you need a set of instructions to use a toothpick?

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Do you need a set of instructions to use a toothpick?

Do you consciously try to be stupid or does it come natural?

Originally Posted by Good as Gold

Do you consciously try to be stupid or does it come natural?

What the hell?

No, morality is something that is an evolutionary by-product that happened to be advantageous for social creatures like ourselves. We are all born with a capacity to learn morality, just in the same way we are born with the capacity to learn language. Religion is not needed for either.

Morality is a completely subjective concept though, one which relies on the perceptions of the individual and the society/community/group/etc that individual interacts with. Objectively though, there is nothing stopping us from doing anything we want, whether it is acts of altruism, or acts of wanton destruction. However, we act upon what is profitable for the community/group and ourselves, and avoid what is not, using morality to justify such actions and to promote social cohesion.

Do we need religion? I think it's impossible to base your morals on religion, given the stupidity and hypocrisy of most religious texts. Nobody bases their morals on religion. Some try, but they still end up ignoring certain parts.

Originally Posted by Good as Gold

Please explain.

Are you of the view that 'morals' are hardwired into your DNA like some sort of instinct, or you make them up as you see fit?

Underlined and bolded make everything authoritarian.

I'm not educated in psychology or biology to make an assumption of the creation of morality.

However, the suggestion that morality is God given or spread by religion can be denounced with common sense or research.

If morals were God given, nobody would be immoral. However, it is quite clear that there are many immoral people, and that everybody will be slightly immoral at some point in their life. A fundamentalist might say something like, "Immoral people refuse God's gifts." If this were the case, all Atheists would be immoral. I remember reading a study a while back which showed that non-religious inmates occupy less than 1% of jails. Statistically, they should occupy 16%. This also denounces that morality is spread by religion, which would mean that anybody who hasn't at least been the subject of a conversion attempt would be immoral.

The concept of morality being spread by religion also portrays religion as a nearly perfect example of morality, although it is a major contributor to war, segregation, and hate.

Originally Posted by StephenT

I remember reading a study a while back which showed that non-religious inmates occupy less than 1% of jails. Statistically, they should occupy 16%. This also denounces that morality is spread by religion, which would mean that anybody who hasn't at least been the subject of a conversion attempt would be immoral.

It really depends on how you read that statistic. It could just mean that the other 15% of atheists are better at not getting caught in the crimes they do commit

(For the dense among us, that was a joke.)

Originally Posted by Alextanium

It really depends on how you read that statistic. It could just mean that the other 15% of atheists are better at not getting caught in the crimes they do commit

(For the dense among us, that was a joke.)

Ha ha... yes... a joke >.>;

*runs for the hills*

Originally Posted by Good as Gold

Not specifically practice religion, anyways, but base them on it? I don't like murder, theft, or any of that bother. It is straight out of the Ten Commandments, yet I'm not a Christian or Jew.

Do you think you need religion to have morals?

Do not murder, do not steal, etc. are straight out of the Bible. They're also straight out of the religious beliefs of ancient pagan peoples who worshipped entire pantheons of gods, and primitive animistic religions that saw God in every plant and rock. They're also in the belief systems of people who have no religion and don't believe in God at all.

For some people, morality is merely a matter of common sense. Be kind to others because it's the sensible thing to do, to make friends and allies, to prevent oneself from making enemies, to ensure survival and to just socialize properly. People learn that if they go killing others and stealing things, etc., it won't be good for their social development and well being, hence they learn not to do it. Religion doesn't have to be involved in the least.

Originally Posted by tehuti88

Do not murder, do not steal, etc. are straight out of the Bible. They're also straight out of the religious beliefs of ancient pagan peoples who worshipped entire pantheons of gods, and primitive animistic religions that saw God in every plant and rock. They're also in the belief systems of people who have no religion and don't believe in God at all.

For some people, morality is merely a matter of common sense. Be kind to others because it's the sensible thing to do, to make friends and allies, to prevent oneself from making enemies, to ensure survival and to just socialize properly. People learn that if they go killing others and stealing things, etc., it won't be good for their social development and well being, hence they learn not to do it. Religion doesn't have to be involved in the least.

That's interesting. I read somewhere -can't recall where, sorry- that morals are hardwired in some animals brains, including ours, but others mostly only have a pack mentality as part of their instincts. Perhaps this is what inspired the ancient peoples to do so, which led others to copy and et. al...

Originally Posted by Good as Gold

Not specifically practice religion, anyways, but base them on it? I don't like murder, theft, or any of that bother. It is straight out of the Ten Commandments, yet I'm not a Christian or Jew.

Do you think you need religion to have morals?

Ever considered that maybe the ten commandments are ripped off from principles of basic decency, and not the other way around?

Yes, we need an external moral code, as there is no innate morality. Whether this come from religion or not I am unsure.

Originally Posted by psychology student

Yes, we need an external moral code, as there is no innate morality. Whether this come from religion or not I am unsure.

We need an external moral code? Since when?

Originally Posted by bluefinger

We need an external moral code? Since when?

Since we were human.

He means we need some way to tell right from wrong.

No, we need religion to have wars.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

He means we need some way to tell right from wrong.

I know, but was still emphasising on the point of external moral codes.

Originally Posted by psychology student

Since we were human.

Okay... care to explain? Other social animals such as elephants and chimpanzees have social structures and behavioural patterns that resembles forms of what we know as morals, so if they are doing fine without an external moral code, why should it apply to humans?

Originally Posted by Replicon

Ever considered that maybe the ten commandments are ripped off from principles of basic decency, and not the other way around?

Of course. Have you ever considered that I was asking questions to see what you thought on the values and morals of both religious and non-religious peoples?

All you need is love for morals! But most people lack love, or lack the understanding why you would need love, or lack the understanding why you need morals, so yeah, theres where the story of God the punisher comes in =P

I always find the statement that we do need morals from an external source very insulting to our intelligence. We are humans, for goodness' sake! We have higher intelligence than anything else on this planet, we can think about stuff! It's the same as saying we need an external source to have taught us language. It's true that language, just like (most) morals are passed on from generation to generation, so it comes from an exterior source NOW. But does that mean we couldn't have possibly figured it out ourselves?

Quite a famous biologist and a very prominent ethologist and primatologist in our country, who is also, by the way, very much recognised in the whole wide world, is Frans de Waal. He has studied apes, particularly chimpanzees, for years and years at a time, and he has found out that they DO have morals (or at least the building blocks for morals). They have sympathy, for example. When a chimpanzee was unable to take care of himself, the others shared their food with him. And yes, it's true that chimps are a bit more primitive in their thinking than we are, but they still have some sense of morals. How can this be? Well... I don't know... Maybe it's natural?

Now, let's work this out further... Think about this: we are humans, right? So we can think, right? Do you think the world would work efficiently when we would steal from each other? When we would kill each other? When we would steal each other's wives? When we wouldn't take care of someone when they got sick? I don't think so. So that's why we shouldn't do it. It just wouldn't have any use, not to mention the fact that when we would kill someone, their family would probably come after us as well... So much for survival, ey? Also keep in mind that morals have been passed on time and time again, and they would've therefore been made up in the time of the early man, when we lived in tribes of maybe 15 men. At that time, EVERY person counted. Would it be useful, then, to kill someone? Or to steal and make him your enemy? No... The less people there are, the less chance there is of you killing a mammoth, the less chance there is of having a nice piece of meat lying on your plate. And the more enemies you have, the less chance there is of them including you in their group, therefore making you into a loner, therefore dropping your chances of survival to nihil. (also see cuddlyperson above)

So: where do our ethics come from?
Careful consideration (probably during the times of the cavemen) about how our world, our society would work best, and how we could live and survive the longest. This is then, as language becomes more developed and the population starts to grow, passed on from person to person, as we've become indoctrinated, almost. And morals are, of course, also connected to our natural (and evolutionary?) values: family values, property values, etc. And sure, ethics have evolved since then, to adapt and fit to the society of today, to the cultures, the values and the discours of today, but the fundamental building blocks are still there... 'Thou shalt not kill'? Too late, man... The cavemen did it already!

And that's also the reason why we have immoral people: some kind of value is stronger than their moral codes. Think about a mugger, for example: he steals so that he can eat, or so that he can snort some coke. I can understand why he does that: if he wouldn't get the money, he wouldn't be able to satisfy this need (in this case: hunger, survival, or the satisfaction of an addiction (either physical dependance, or mental)). His survival values, or his mental/physical dependance values at this point are higher than morals, and therefore they have the power to 'take over' people who have a 'weak' will.

Which brings me to the word 'immoral'. I don't like that word. It's not that they're immoral. Most criminals do feel bad for the things they do, and the rest (try to) talk it right by appealing to those values (murderer: 'but he shot my daughter'). Only people who are mentally insane (mass-murderers) could be called immoral, and even then their thinking is impaired by a mental condition. Depressed people might turn to drugs, and might in turn turn to theft. Their mental condition has rewired itself to think 'nothing matters', and this, along with their values, might result in them stealing without feeling much remorse. So, true, a mental condition might make someone immoral, but that's not their fault, they're simply ill.

And then of course, we have the 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you'. And yep, that has originated and indoctrinated in our society because we can think... When we had decided every human was equal, it isn't to hard to go to the 'he has the same value as me, so I should treat him like he's me'-mentality, now is it?

Originally Posted by Good as Gold

Not specifically practice religion, anyways, but base them on it? I don't like murder, theft, or any of that bother. It is straight out of the Ten Commandments, yet I'm not a Christian or Jew.

Do you think you need religion to have morals?

Absolutely not. Morals come from social contract agreement resulting from a collective will to survive and the autonomic nervous system principle of conscience. The fact that zebras and apes have codes of morals shatters the idea that religion is necessary for morals.