Morality and Religion

ETWolverine · #1 Sep 2, 2009, 10:17 AM

I know, I know. This is a topic we've seen before. But I'm hoping to bring a new twist to it.

There is an ongoing question of whether morality would exist if not for its religious basis. Most pro-religion people argue that morality could not have been developed if not for religion. Atheists and Agnostics tend to disagree and say that morality is based in CIVILIZATION rather than religion, and would have developed regardless of whether religion had existed or not.

I don't really know what to believe.

But I would like to make this comment. Perhaps it's a new twist, perhaps not.

What is morality?

When we think of morality today, we generally think of the "judeo-christian" (I hate that term) values that we see in the "modern world" (ei: Europe, the USA, Australia, etc.) Most Atheists that I speak to seem to assume that these "judeo-christian" morals would have developed even if Judaism and Christianity had never existed, because they are good, and just, and right, and therefore, mankind would have gotten to that point eventually, even without religion. (Or at least that is my interpretation of what I have heard them say. I could be misinterpreting their positions, and if I am, I apologize.)

But the fact is that this version of "morality" is not the only one to have existed in history.

In the judeo-christian moral system, the highest calling of man is to be good and kind to his fellow man. Call it the "golden rule", if you will.

But other moral compasses have existed in the past.

The followers of the Norse gods (Odin, Thor, Frey, Baldr, etc.), who in the USA are know as "Asatru", have a very different "highest calling". Their highest calling is to die in battle against evil... and for the very best fighters, to become the Berserker of legend... the unstoppable warrior. Their morality is based on becoming the best, most honorable, most effective, most deadly soldier/fighter/warrior they can become.

Definitely a very different form of morality. And that is just one form of morality of many that have existed in history.

The Mongols are another really great moral study... they were BRUTAL warriors that completely decimated their enemies, including destroying women and children. But they did so with the intent of bringing peace, law and justice to the lands they conquered. Their highest calling was to brutally conquer the world to make it a better place. They placed a moral value on being as brutal as possible to accomplish it.

Again, a very different moral system than we know today.

There was a particular Aztec cult that believed that the highest calling was to suffer pain willingly as a form of sacrifice to the gods. Their morality revolved around becoming able to willingly accept more and more pain. The more pain you could suffer, the closer you were to god. becoming a human sacrifice in the most painful way possible was the highest calling in that cult.

Definitely not our morality.

If not for the existence of Judaism and Christianity to form the judeo-christian morality that we accept as commonplace today, what moral compasses would we have developed?

My point is that when those who support the idea that religion is NOT the source of morality and say that morality would have developed on its own absent religion, what do they mean? Would it have been the same (or similar) moral system we live in today? Or would it have been something completely different?

And if it would have been completely different, doesn't that mean that religion and morality ARE connected, and can't be separated as some would like to believe? Wouldn't it mean that morality cannot develop without a religious background to act as a petrie dish in which to grow?

I don't know if this is a good argument. I'm just exploring a thought. I'd like your comments on this.

Elliot

earl237 · Sep 2, 2009, 10:36 AM

This is an interesting question. I looked at crimes rates by state and there seems to be more crime in religious bible belt states in the south than in New England and western mountain states. However, since there are so many other factors in crime I can't really say if religion is a major factor in morality and crime but it does show that areas where people are less religious can still be moral, and law-abiding people.

RickJ · Sep 2, 2009, 10:55 AM

Yes, "morality" would still exist. Forget religion and look at laws: It is illegal to kill or maim someone...and illegal to steal from them...

Killing, maiming and stealing, etc. are "immoral" and therefore against the law in most places that I know of...

...

The above is only my 1.5 cents worth "short answer" to an issue about which volumes have probably been written

ETWolverine · Sep 2, 2009, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RickJ

Yes, "morality" would still exist. Forget religion and look at laws: It is illegal to kill or maim someone...and illegal to steal from them...

Killing, maiming and stealing, etc. are "immoral" and therefore against the law in most places that I know of...

Again, in certain societies, those were NOT crimes. Like I mentioned, the Asatru believed that killing your enemy was a GOOD thing. The Huns saw raiding and stealing as just part of life. The mongols felt that killing the enemy in order to bring law and justice was a good thing.

Just because not killing and not steeling are the morals of TODAY does not mean tht they WOULD HAVE BEEN the morals of today if they had not been created under a judeo-christian religious system.

...

Quote:

The above is only my 1.5 cents worth "short answer" to an issue about which volumes have probably been written

Yep.

Interesting stuff, though.

ETWolverine · Sep 2, 2009, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by earl237

This is an interesting question. I looked at crimes rates by state and there seems to be more crime in religious bible belt states in the south than in New England and western mountain states. However, since there are so many other factors in crime I can't really say if religion is a major factor in morality and crime but it does show that areas where people are less religious can still be moral, and law-abiding people.

Crime and morality are not the same. There are quite a few crimes that are not moral issues (parking violations being a case in point), and there are quite a few moral failures that are not crimes (adultery is a perfect case in point as well). I would even argue that there are times that judeo-christian morality is best served by BREAKING the law. (Certainly the people who saved Jews from Hitler's Nazis were highly moral people, but they were breaking German law by doing so.)

So I'm not sure that you can judge morality based on crime rates.

You are also assuming that "morality" can only be defined in the Judeo-Christian manner.

If the "Judeo-Christian ethos" had never existed... if instead the Western World had been dominated by Asatru instead of Christians... would things like murder, anger, etc. have been sins? They weren't sins in Nordic tradition. They were in fact, the best way to live life... killing your enemy and taking his stuff was how you lived life if you worshipped the Nordic gods.

If that tradition had dominated the Western World, would killing have been a crime? If being the best killer you can be is the goal you live for, would killing be a "sin"? Would it be a moral failing? I don't think it would.

And if it was NOT a moral failing, would it have become a "crime" in the legal sense?

Again, you are assuming that the moral scale we have today would have come into existence on its own without the existence of religion... specifically the judeo-christian ethos. I don't know that that is a true statement. If history had been SLIGHTLY different, I think we would have come up with a very different version of morality.

Or maybe not.

Elliot

paraclete · Sep 2, 2009, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ETWolverine

There is an ongoing question of whether morality would exist if not for its religious basis.
Elliot

When you ask this question you also have to ask what defines religion.

Among the Australian Aboriginees, a stone age people who existed long before the judeo-christian morality began to arise (according to their legends)
there is a form of morality that defined who you could marry or even have relations with based on blood and totem. They also had a legal system which provided that an offender would be speared and placed outside the camp and an expectation that every thing was shared. You could say they were the first communists.

I think we have to examine whether religion gave rise to morality or morality gave rise to religion. The realisation that there must be something greater than yourself to whom you owed existence and therefore obedience to the law is obvious in the earliest peoples. Is this civilisation or religion.

Tokugawa · Sep 3, 2009, 01:30 AM

Quote:

Atheists and Agnostics tend to disagree and say that morality is based in CIVILIZATION rather than religion, and would have developed regardless of whether religion had existed or not.

Perhaps it would be wise to ask whether or not civilisation can exist without some type of religion. Certainly I would say that it would be impossible without SOME type of morality, and it seems to me that the nature of the Gods that are worshipped by different cultures reflect the moral attitudes of the people who worship them, not the other way around. In that sense it is very much a matter of circumstance. Morality first, and then religion, are shaped to suit the people who are to make use of it. Morality is, first and foremost, a tool for survival, and as such, people in different circumstances derived different moralities, different "tools" for survival.

When looking at society as it exists today, we see a bizarre mish mash, a conflation of moral ideas which is perhaps symptomatic of the nihilistic bent inherent in capitalist culture. Capitalist culture is all about promoting "wealth", in terms of "possessive goods". Notice how the fundaMENTAL movement within the church seems to place a great importance on wealth, telling it's followers that "God WANTS you to be rich!!", as if being rich were some fundamental pre-cursor for happiness or fullfilment, that neither of which are possible without an over abundence of "goods". Notice how the "economy" is seen as an end in itself, it never even occurs to economic dogmatists that the "economy" is simply a function of society, and not the measure of society itself. They never stop to ask of themselves, these self important embodiments of mediocrity, just what function the "economy" actually serves in relation to the society as a whole. They will the "great economy" at the expense of "the great society", on the feeble assumption that creativity, endeavour, and all the noble attributes of man are driven by nothing more than a will born of gluttony and covetous.

We also see the softening of attitudes towards countries like China. This of course is nothing more than a confirmation for those of us with more grounded beliefs regarding our view of "The West". The real problem with China, was not the oppression of the populace, which is still apparent, but rather that they were not wealthy enough for our more "enlightened" palate. Having addressed this situation some what, many of us now say to ourselves, "perhaps they are not so bad after all". There is nothing inherently "wrong" with taking this position, they have to a large extent been "converted" to OUR religion of wealth after all.

ETWolverine · Sep 3, 2009, 06:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paraclete

When you ask this question you also have to ask what defines religion.

Among the Australian Aboriginees, a stone age people who existed long before the judeo-christian morality began to arise (according to their legends)
there is a form of morality that defined who you could marry or even have relations with based on blood and totem. They also had a legal system which provided that an offender would be speared and placed outside the camp and an expectation that every thing was shared. You could say they were the first communists.

I think we have to examine whether religion gave rise to morality or morality gave rise to religion. The realisation that there must be something greater than yourself to whom you owed existence and therefore obedience to the law is obvious in the earliest peoples. Is this civilisation or religion.

Great points.

Thanks.

ETWolverine · Sep 3, 2009, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tokugawa

Perhaps it would be wise to ask whether or not civilisation can exist without some type of religion. Certainly I would say that it would be impossible without SOME type of morality, and it seems to me that the nature of the Gods that are worshipped by different cultures reflect the moral attitudes of the people who worship them, not the other way around. In that sense it is very much a matter of circumstance. Morality first, and then religion, are shaped to suit the people who are to make use of it. Morality is, first and foremost, a tool for survival, and as such, people in different circumstances derived different moralities, different "tools" for survival.

When looking at society as it exists today, we see a bizarre mish mash, a conflation of moral ideas which is perhaps symptomatic of the nihilistic bent inherent in capitalist culture. Capitalist culture is all about promoting "wealth", in terms of "possessive goods". Notice how the fundaMENTAL movement within the church seems to place a great importance on wealth, telling it's followers that "God WANTS you to be rich!!", as if being rich were some fundamental pre-cursor for happiness or fullfilment, that neither of which are possible without an over abundence of "goods". Notice how the "economy" is seen as an end in itself, it never even occurs to economic dogmatists that the "economy" is simply a function of society, and not the measure of society itself. They never stop to ask of themselves, these self important embodiments of mediocrity, just what function the "economy" actually serves in relation to the society as a whole. They will the "great economy" at the expense of "the great society", on the feeble assumption that creativity, endeavour, and all the noble attributes of man are driven by nothing more than a will born of gluttony and covetous.

We also see the softening of attitudes towards countries like China. This of course is nothing more than a confirmation for those of us with more grounded beliefs regarding our view of "The West". The real problem with China, was not the oppression of the populace, which is still apparent, but rather that they were not wealthy enough for our more "enlightened" palate. Having addressed this situation some what, many of us now say to ourselves, "perhaps they are not so bad after all". There is nothing inherently "wrong" with taking this position, they have to a large extent been "converted" to OUR religion of wealth after all.

I find one major flaw to your argument.

The people who are becoming more accepting of China, despite its oppression of its people, are those on the left... the very people who claim to be most against "wealth accumulation" and most in favor of "economic equality". The people most interested in seeing us in open negotiation with China are those on the Left of the political spectrum... the same people who are in favor of redistribution of wealth and who most decry "corporatism" and "capitalism" and "economic power". I certainly don't know any Conservative Right-Wingers who are accepting of China, and it is the Conservative Right-Wingers (like myself) who are the biggest proponents of capitalism, corporate freedom, and wealth accumulation.

If the same people who are "anti-capitalist" are the ones most accepting of China and its oppressive regime, wouldn't that argue AGAINST your point that reason we are more accepting of China is because of its wealth and economic power?

Elliot

NeedKarma · Sep 3, 2009, 06:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ETWolverine

The people who are becoming more accepting of China, despite its oppression of its people, are those on the left...

Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.

Quote:

From a Chinese perspective, Bush has been a good steward of the Sino-American relationship. Consider, for example, the Strategic Economic Dialogue the two countries began in 2006 under Bush's secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, the former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs and a long-time friend of Beijing. One key, if unspoken, agreement of these talks was that the US would mostly look the other way as China manipulated its currency, the yuan, to fuel its export-driven juggernaut of an economy, which has averaged double-digit growth during Bush's tenure.

The Bush administration also blinked as the central government continued to trample on human rights in China. The crackdown was particularly apparent during the buildup to last summer's Olympic Games, when Beijing did its best to eliminate any possibility that its international coming-out party would be marred by the embarrassment of political protests.
...
While other Western leaders such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed reservations about attending the opening ceremony of the Olympics, Bush always was and continued to be a great supporter of China as Olympic host.

The Bush White House has also seen China reach deeper into Africa for raw materials while at the same time cozying up to some disreputable regimes - for example, those of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan and President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe - with a no-strings-attached policy that prompted only muted concern from Washington.
...
All-in-all, China has had much to be thankful for during the Bush years. Even the president's biggest mistake, the war in Iraq, worked to Beijing's advantage, stretching America's military capacity and weakening its international reputation as China's continued to rise.

In return for its accommodation of Chinese interests, Washington won some concessions. Beijing pledged to share data on food safety after tainted Chinese exports caused death, injury and illness in the West. There was also an agreement to allow foreign mutual funds to invest in China's stock market. Moreover, although the yuan remains significantly undervalued, Beijing has allowed it to rise 21% against the US dollar since 2005, keeping the China-bashers in the US Congress at bay.