Morality

Seeing as we've had a few religious debates in the last week I figured I'd touch on a subject I've wanted to discuss for a while.

Question: Can a society without religious guidance or a religious "code of Ethics" lead a moral life? In other words, if religion was gone would society be able to stay together?

To be honest I'm not sure. Atheists are able to lead perfectly good lives. The only law I've broken in my adult is a traffic law but, who doesn't have at least one speeding ticket? I don't cheat, steal, lie (on purpose),etc which I'm sure other Atheists are pretty "good" people as well. So as a society could we still keep things together or would those who can't follow their own moral compass degrade to less than civility?

I don't know. I can't speak for what all the other people will do. Assuming they do shit which makes them civil(i.e. not steal kill, etc.), then why not. If an atheist is civil and intelligent enough to not fuck shit up, then I don't see why we couldn't still have a peaceful(somewhat) society.

Yes. There have been atheist societies in human history, and it wasn't the absence of religion that made them better or worse.
Then there have been societies where religion existed, but had little say in the commonly obeyed code of Ethics.
There's also laicist nations in this day and age, and they still have perfectly normal (in the truest sense of the word) codes of Ethics.
Even when ignoring historical precedents and debating this on a purely philosophical level, I think as early as Rousseau (Contrat Social:IV), La Mettrie or even Schopenhauer (Parerga & Paralipomena), people made pretty convincing arguments for this.


Yes. Religion is not necessarily the glue that keeps society together. There's many things that may supplant it. Ideology, or whatever you prefer.

I've always been stunned and awed by the supposition that religion and morality form some sort of magically unified superstructure, and that morality without religion should be supposed to be impossible.


Firstly, this seems to me to be a different issue from the original question, whether religion and moral could exist independently of each other.
Secondly, I think most people don't follow their own moral compass whenever it's more convenient for them, religious or not. That's why so many religions know the concept of sin - in the sense of acting against a deity's word even though you know better.
I don't think this constitutes a degradation to less than civility. It is the common modus operandi of humanity, and if you suppose that we do currently have a certain level of civility, that constitutes pretty good evidence in favor of my statement, I think.
In fact, I think it utopian to assume that anyone could ever fully follow their own moral compass.

I think societies need codes of laws/ethics to function, and I think people need to find a motivation to follow the code. Religion is that motivation for some people, but there are other reasons as well: practicality(as trading the ability to murder others without impunity for protection from murder by others with impunity), fear of legal punishment, personal pride, nonreligious tradition, etc.

Religions have also had varying moral codes over times, some of which I think have been or still are fairly divergent from each other or from the morals encoded in US law, and ones which I would consider seriously deficient.

I do think that institutions in general have a profound effect on codes of ethics, mainly because of their ability create unified thinking among a large number of people and spread beliefs. But then again, this really shouldn't come as a surprise, as the organized have always been powerful.

So, I don't think religion is necessary for morals, but institutions are at least very important to unified morals.

This pretty much sums up my opinion about the world, but to me myself, I don't really avoid doing things I see as wrong just because I fear punishment, or doing right things just for a reward. It's just that I deem wrong things as "ugly" so I avoid them and well, the same thing goes for right ones. It's hard to put in words but...I guess you get the message.

But still, I think institutions are necessary because...let's just say there are (many)fools out there that really need punishment and reward to be a moral person...and I think religion exists because of those fools. They need a grand enough hell/heaven to justify their morality. But I do believe an institution with enough power and good management will do. mankind don't need religion, really.

I believe that the time matters as well. If we’re talking about today I agree that yes institutions would stand to keep people moral through knowledge and understanding.

But I do think that if before the modern age it would have been a problem. Back in the middle ages and especially before religion was necessary to keep order, and institutions would not have been enough to keep peoples ethics in line. People were not as connected as we are today so they don’t know the world, or who controls them. As most people in those days on country sides had never even seen their king. A lot couldn’t read and only knew what was around them, without the higher education we receive today people would be easily swayed, and only small groups of people with their own code of ethics would exist. These groups would be easy to be drastically changed very often, and so no defined morals would be exhibited by the populace. Religion on the other hand has an all powerful being always watching you and controlling your fate in the afterlife if you don’t follow his rules. This sways people and drives them to do what they say.

Without religion our definition of morality would differ from it's current meaning (or so I believe) so how would you be able to tell?

I don't think religion should be necessary for a general sense of morality.
Religious morality is pretty subjective; the standard for morality in society should be what is best for that society. You shouldn't not kill your neighbor and rape his wife because God will punish you if you do, you should not kill your neighbor and rape his wife because it is not good for society for you to do so.

Yes that's quite possible. However I was in church from when I was little but I remember getting bored all the time whenever there was lectures.

I remember complaining that if Jesus's all that great then I want to meet him now and ask him some questions, how do I meet jesus, pastor? I said something like that long time ago XD From when I was little kid, i think he evaded answering my question.

And plus, its far in common sense to not partake in destructive behavior because its simply a hassle to do so. Detracts from other things you would rather do, and just chill, have fun.

For example, I would be rather reading manga than go beat up some random guy on the street and take his gf. Too annoying to do. And plus, its just not cool to do. However, same perspective cannot be applied for when one is in barbarian society. But it could be possible similar to what you observe in current chimpanzee groups of the today. You would see them not giving a damn to do bad things a lot of times maybe rarely sometimes. Because they'll rather just chill together. Life's much cozier and easier that way.

There was a discussion about this in a philosophy class I was in a while back, and the teacher said this (heavily paraphrased):

Morality can exist without religion, but there's nothing to back it up. Religions state what is moral and immoral, and they say that they know what is moral and immoral because God says so. The afterlife enforces morality because if you are moral, you'll be rewarded, and if you're immoral, you'll be punished. Take away religion, and you have no concrete reason for determining what is moral and immoral, and you have no reason to be moral, since God will not punish you (and even if the government wants to punish you, your punishment is not certain, as you can always run away).

Not saying I completely agree with that, but it did give me something to think about for a while. I still think about it to this day, honestly.

Wow. That is one odd view of morality.
Is morality not really a set of often implicit societal rules which are not necessarily codified by law?
Is it not so that the breach of any of these rules would either yield actual punishment (by means of society shunning the individual), or at least make the offending individual assume such retribution to take place?
Is it furthermore not so that any institution could take the place of religion perfectly well (as 'the ancients' or simply 'patria' did in the roman republic; as 'the party' or 'marxism-leninism' did in the USSR, ...) to provide an abstract original and ultimate authority for these rules?

From that I infer that no heaven nor hell is required as a motivator: The fear of social repercussions is quite effective as a motivator. I furthermore infer that religion is not needed as a pivotal point to base these rules upon, because religion (as mentioned before) can (and at times in history has been) supplanted by other institutions.

Most people are scared of a government or police force taking action if you break the law, but it's still just people versus people. If one person thinks he is better than every other person, then he won't bother to obey the law. Same goes for things that are not against the law but are generally considered immoral by other people. If the guy is better than everyone else, he won't care what others have to say. Thus, there is no reason to act morally. But you throw God in the mix, and that guy may not be such a dick because he'll be afraid of going to Hell.

Think of the wealthy businessman who steps over everybody to become successful. Where is his morality? All he does is legal, and even if something isn't, he can buy his way out of it, and he has people who can spin things so that no one will think badly of him, no matter what he does. He has no reason, whatsoever, to behave morally. And I can't say anything to him to get him to stop. "Exploiting people is wrong," I say. "That's business," he replies.

But if religion is thrown into the mix, it turns out differently. "Exploiting people is wrong. You'll go to Hell if you keep doing it," I say. "I don't want to go to Hell!" he replies. Granted, that's only if he accepts the religion, but that's the idea - without God, how is morality enforced?

People are constantly shunned by society but still live happily. (People with fetishes, for example, are often shunned by the majority.) People have repeatedly stood up against the law throughout history, for whatever reason, but people still do it to this day. (Political protests come to mind, in countries all over the world.)

This leads to another question - If morality can change, is it truly morality? If we can change our minds every fifty or hundred years about what is right and wrong, then the stuff isn't really "right" and "wrong," is it?

If someone thinks himself above judgment ("sociopath"), the concept of a vengeful god will not help much either. I don't think that's a very good example.


Again, not a very good example in my opinion, as there's plenty of religious, yet exploitative businessmen out there.


Again, not a very good example, as these people also live against the rules religion would impose on them.
The vast majority of people is very much afraid of being shunned by their surroundings; it's why politeness exists in the first place: The loss of social face is in fact one of the most powerful motivators known to man.



Huh, when did that come into play?


Of course it can change, and it must. As reality changes, the cultural superstructure must follow suit or perish.

Can't agree more to that. But still, to those who prefers to have "absolute" rights and wrongs in morality...one question. How do you define those "absolute" rights and wrongs? Isn't morality, while having the same general structure to all, relative?

In short, a non-religious person can be just as morale and good as any religious person. Even a non-religious person lives by personal rules and codes of ethics and what have you.

Morals don't have to be hand-in-hand with religion. I follow no religion, but I still keep the basic premise of knowing what is right and what is wrong, but I decide that for myself, not by what any organization tells me.

I'm not even a moral person in the purest definiton of things because I'm a Nihilist, but that's not to say that I believe in killing someone because life has no meaning. It just means, for me, that I'm going to choose to live life how I want regardless of what anyone else thinks of my choices. I still share many moral thoughts in common with other people, but I don't believe they mean everything, if anything much at all.

I don't thing that things would be very different.I mean, you don't need a religion in order to know that molesting children or killing is bad

I am an agnostic individual. So an idea of a world without religion does not sound that bad, but I do worry that a world without religion would quickly fall apart. without something to organize the majority of the masses, I feel that people who once turned to religion to calm there insanity, or to take some stress off of their lives will break down, go insane, kill, or turn their previous religious time into something else destructive or counterproductive. I believe that religion is a mind control device to control/assist [whatever you wanna call it] to support/control those of us who are not strong enough to live without it. Otherwise it's just filler jobs for those who can't do anything else but "preach". Religion also keep some us in line with its pull of "rewards" for good behavior and such. Like heaven for example. It cleans up peoples acts and make the world a more enjoyable place. Otherwise, the world would comprised of jack-offs and asshole. So I believe religion is necessary for the world to function at this level, but it's just not for me.

Just voicing my opinion.

My view on this is that our morals have been shaped by evolution. Clearly, for a creature as physically weak as Homo Sapiens, working together peacefully increases your chances of survival, and thus, most people today are peaceful to the people they collaborate with.

I am not religious but I am very moral... I put everybody before myself, I'm selfless and love all life. I do nothing unless it is in the interest of other people and I promise - I am not trying to brag... I wouldn't do that. I believe if other people hold the same love as me, the world would be full of peace and happiness and most importantly, love.