Our morals and laws come from religion?

[PermaBanned]

In the case of adultery, it's is morally wrong to cheat on your partner, but if there was no religion will society still think adultery is wrong?

And yet cheating on your spouse is not illegal if you do it without them knowing - it is if they do and are fine with it.

No, we as humans create our own morality. Hence why we (well, not me personally) can pick and choose which parts of the Bible we want to follow and those we want to forget about.

 

[Castiel]

Thats a great way of putting it. Morality existed prior to religion, and organised religion just incorporated it to control their masses with their fear of god and eternal hellfire.

Morals and Laws were not invented by religion however.

You say that as if you have unequivocal proof of that, I would like to see it.

Religious belief predates civilisation, that is a given. That we have an innate ethical compass is something that philosophers greater than you or I have been arguing over since time immemorial, if you have some insight as to how the greatest minds humanity has to offer cannot agree or prove an innate morality, yet you do I would like to hear it.

Especially when you take into consideration nihilism and what existentialists like Camus and Sartre have to say on the topic of ethics.

I think that we do have an ethical morality, but it has been ingrained by our parents and their parents before them and so on, it is a cultural and historical morality that religion had it's part to play in. Read Lord of the Flies for a glimpse at ethical behaviour among young adolescents with no controls and look at a group of children with no supervision to see just how far an innate moral compass really goes.

We are at the very base of it Animals, do Animals have a morality, or do they react and make decisions based on need and instinct only. Would a starving lion not eat their children?

If you are saying that we have some kind of innate morality, why do we differ to every other animal on Earth in this regard. Do Humans not become feral without civilisation and society to guide them?

Those figures are the official prison demographics in the USA, lots of other sites then quoted them and wrote articles. You can try and look up 'prison religion demographics' yourself if you want, and you should find the same results for the USA demographics on lots of articles.

And I am saying that they simply don't prove anything, especially when you consider the innate issues with US prison populations regarding Black and minority conviction rates, the fact that many come to religion BECAUSE they are in jail and it can lead to early parole in many states.

 

[RDM]

And yet cheating on your spouse is not illegal if you do it without them knowing - it is if they do and are fine with it.

Adultery is not illegal in the UK if your spouse knows about it or not. Hasn't been a criminal offense for quite a while.

 

[RomanNose]

You say that as if you have unequivocal proof of that, I would like to see it.

Religious belief predates civilisation, that is a given. That we have an innate ethical compass is something that philosophers greater than you or I have been arguing over since time immemorial, if you have some insight as to how the greatest minds humanity has to offer cannot agree or prove an innate morality, yet you do I would like to hear it.

Especially when you take into consideration nihilism and what existentialists like Camus and Sartre have to say on the topic of ethics.

I think that we do have an ethical morality, but it has been ingrained by our parents and their parents before them and so on, it is a cultural and historical morality that religion had it's part to play in. Read Lord of the Flies for a glimpse at ethical behaviour among young adolescents with no controls and look at a group of children with no supervision to see just how far an innate moral compass really goes.

We are at the very base of it Animals, do Animals have a morality, or do they react and make decisions based on need and instinct only. Would a starving lion not eat their children?

If you are saying that we have some kind of innate morality, why do we differ to every other animal on Earth in this regard. Do Humans not become feral without civilisation and society to guide them?





And I am saying that they simply don't prove anything, especially when you consider the innate issues with US prison populations regarding Black and minority conviction rates, the fact that many come to religion BECAUSE they are in jail and it can lead to early parole in many states.

I also found a journal recently http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
. I did not have much time to skip through it but one of the things it mentions is this

There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002). It is the responsibility of the research community to address controversial issues and provide the information that the citizens of democracies need to chart their future courses.

. Also mentioned is that secular countries such as Japan,Norway and others have a lower crime rate, what would you say to this?
Hard proof is hard to find that hits it on the nail but is this not quite convincing that secular societies have a much lower crime rate?

 

[Castiel]

I also found a journal recently http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
. I did not have much time to skip through it but one of the things it mentions is this

. Also mentioned is that secular countries such as Japan,Norway and others have a lower crime rate, what would you say to this?
Hard proof is hard to find that hits it on the nail but is this not quite convincing that secular societies have a much lower crime rate?

Interestingly Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Indonesia have lower per capita murder rates than Japan, Norway and various other secular states, so what does that say?

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita


India, one of the most religious countries in the world has one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

So again that belies being able to draw conclusions from crime rate figures, especially as South Africa has one of the lowest, if not the lowest crime rate figures globally, and you would not say that was the case had you been there.

Also the studies assume that Belief in Creationism=Religion and Belief in Evolution=Atheisim

Neither of which are strictly true, thus that skews the figures about what constitutes a secular society.

Even Japan is predominantly a religious country with over 80% of the country Buddhist.

The problem with using crime figures in such as way is that they are more defined by wealth and societal health than religiosity.

I think that secular countries generally have better crime rates, however I feel that is down to stability, wealth and efficient legal and political systems rather than a lack of religions, which really isn't the case socially anyway.


The old adage: "Who needs God when life is good" springs to mind.