Originally Posted by
Athos
Ok, but the question is how does religion affect society in America. I think religion has a huge effect on society - America and elsewhere - even in secular societies.
Hi Athos,
In the context of our societies I think most people would say we are a Christian society and follow a Christian ethic. I also think the effect of this is a society that regards political, social, religious and legal institutions as reflecting these Christian values.
This is both true and not true at the same time. Sounds a bit contradictory but I will explain.
For the sake of this argument I am only considering modern society. I am also going to divide ethics into two camps. Naturalism and non-naturalism. This just means we can divide ethics into, (a) Ethics imposed from an outside agency. The best example of this is God's commands and his directives to us.
(b) Ethics being imposed through human experience. The hedonistic approach is a good example of this. Such a theory is derived from human nature and experience.Now we have two competing ethical theories in society coming from different directions. Which theory or theories do we use today?
There are certain things that are wrong and the majority of people would agree that stealing is wrong and murder is wrong. These laws are reflected in God's commandments to us. They are also reflected in secular laws. But, we live in a complex society and sometimes it becomes impossible to use divine commands to determine the moral worth of certain issues.
For example, in Australia the government is going to impose a carbon tax. This makes a majority of Australians very unhappy. They believe such a tax will result in job losses and large increases in prices for just about everything. Low wage earners are particularly worried.
The majority of people see this tax as being politically, socially and economically bad for Australia. There is also an argument that says the tax is morally corrupt. The reason being is that this tax is creating fear and anxiety in a large number of people.
If we regard the tax as a moral issue then no amount of ethics from an outside agency is going to settle the issue. In other words, there is nothing in religious texts that can help us here. What is required to solve the problem is to look at human nature and experience. This is where hedonism comes in.
We can argue that the tax is morally wrong because it is not creating happiness for the majority of the population. An action is right if it creates the greatest happiness of the greatest number. An action is wrong is it produces the opposite. And clearly this tax is creating the opposite of happiness for a majority.
To answer the original question I would say that in our modern society the Christian ethic is not as influential as some people think when it comes to non-religious institutions. Having said that I still think it has an important role to play in society as a whole. Some people may disagree with that.
Tut