Morality

I think personal morality can be compelled by two things: fear of punishment by the society that shares said morals, and the conscience that leads them to understand and respect the harm they would be doing to others by violating those morals.

Morality is a loaded word anyway because it is subjective. The thing about is they way we are crated we are social beings. We also as a majority enjoy peace and don't believe killing is right. Religion even promotes some forms of murder. Either way a society has right laws and all it definitely doesn't need religion.

Morality is all about logic(what's good for ours and others, what's bad)and common sense, imo.

Most religion does "teaches" logic and common sense to some extent, but it is but one of the ways to learn and know what's what about logic and common sense(and judging from the latest religion cults and all religion could very well teaches immorality)

I think it's more about knowing and following the "rules" and/or "moral codes" that is already there since god knows when, why and how.

Prime, simplicistic example : murdering people is bad. You don't need to be religious to know this, you know that murderers gets into jail,perhaps from TV. jail = no/limited freedom. limited freedom = it's hard to do things you want = unhappiness. unhappiness =bad. This kind of logic and common sense domino effect tells you that murder is bad so you shouldn't do it. And it becomes a rule, a moral code.

But morality got this wide-spectrum thingy going about it. Morality is decided more by your surroundings, i believe.

Prime, simplicistic example : let's say that there's this wild tribe A that gives food based on how much other tribe's member you kill. kill = food. more food = nice chance of survival. domino effect, killing = good thing. thus it becomes the accepted moral code of this tribe.

one's morality could be one's immorality. vice-versa.

Back to the topic, all these screams that morality has nothing to do with religion. it has things to do with the accepted logics and codes that is accepted as the common law in your surrounding.

So yes, regardless of religion people are still able to have morality. or not.

In short, of course. There is nothing linking morality with religion other than our educational system merging them together.

I believe that Moral is animal/natural instinct. Again evolution have give us some kinda basic moral. In any kinda group/society they have rules. Even animal seems to have some kinda moral sense. And i agreed with Seph that our cooperation with other humans have made our status as now. Working as a team
And even how far we try, so do we always have connection to our instinct.


Ohh i did read some more postes and i agreed on point more.. FEAR seems to follow morality hand in hand. Police, religion/god and you're parents :P

I'll admit that I wasn't exactly clear when I started this thread but, when I said religion I was really referencing institutionalized morality.

The reason I question this is because of how morality and ethics differ from person to person. Without an institution to keep morality and ethics anchored to a standard then they would fall apart and I assumed people would eventually just become moral nihilists but, that is probably my cynical pessimism talking.

Well, I pretty much agree. Without institutions, people will have their own morals, but there is nothing to unify moral standards from person to person, so the result would be anarchic. However, the premise is kind of an impossibility. Even without governments and religion, you still have families, communities, tribes, whatever. Humans evolved to have a social aspect to their life, which creates institutions to a degree. If one refers to simply taking away things like religion an government, societies and families will still exist to propagate morals. There have been a few interesting sociological studies on isolated societies, many of which had very different morals than a place like the US, but there was still a degree of standardization throughout the society.

Answer:

WTF!!!! NO "Code of Ethics" = DOOMED!!!
Just imagine your Business and all your lazy assed and late good for nothing bastard were your men working for you? It’s like a Shitty day every goddamned day! oopppss sorry I snapped. But, seriously Code of Ethics is fairly needed in our Society to function at least with camaraderie and to stabilize each group of people or country or whatever organization there will be.

Religion can cease to exist but Ethics is a NO! NO!

Amen to this.



As you said morality and ethics varies from person to person and I think even w/o religion or institution to stabilize or maintain morality the said “Society” will not falter only w/o religion to anchor its belief and the solution will be the man’s instinct—it will survive w/o it, because it will become a survival of the fittest [even today] and to survive man must adopt and learn how to show camaraderie or what we call friendship in order to survive and live and thru that morality and ethics will be born even without religion itself.

Oh! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an Atheist, I’m just being my pragmatic self.

Morals are basically social conditioning, that starts in the playground and continues to your death. In a way, it's not really unifying on a global or even national level but it still works on a community level and religious education could simply be substituted with ethics.
Besides, it wouldnt lead to moral nihilism but ethical subjectivism. How is a union between those two called anyway? Basically the idea that there is no good or wrong, only on a personal (subjective) level.

What is morally right or wrong is all dependent on what you consider to be right and wrong, not what others consider.

Well I don't believe that it is necessary to have religious doctrine in the world of today, but it was very important in the formation of societies throughout human history.

In short, religion is required to build up human culture, but can be dumped at some point afterward.

None religious person that becomes a good person can be kinder than the common religious ones because they don't do their morals due to threat and temptation or magic of after life within religions but the sense and logic behind it. Though a religious person can be kinder as well for having better inspirations.