Morality of Religion?

Has the advent of religion helped or hurt the human race?

I’ve already got some ideas, but I’m curious to hear everyone else’s.

I’ll start with a couple points to consider:

  • Wars in the name of religion
  • Specieism (sp?)
  • Can morality exist apart from religion? (Practically speaking)

Religion is more of an early attempt at science than a tool for morality.

Religion tries to explain things, and in many religions, in explaining and defining things, they define what it taken to be “absolute morals”.

In a similar thread to this i was just explaining how absolute sets of beliefs can cause harm when there comes a time where different morals are needed.

war is a good example. religion can drive people to the point where they would have to kill someone else in order to remain moral.

these sorts of beliefs of course harm humanity, but in a perverse ways they progress humanity.

if you morally will kill people with opposing views, and your other views happen to help a society function, then you are set to have your views propagated throughout the planet.

speciesism is an example of intolerant morals, possibly religious morals. the idea that only people have souls pretty much makes the life of an animal worthless in our eyes.

The most dangerous aspect of absolute morals is their inability to change and adapt.

Christianity claims to have absolute truth and absolute morals. Funny enough their morals have changed systematically since the birth of christianity.

Christians acknowledge that the bible has changed over time, and they somehow convince themselves that what is absolute needs to change with the times.

Christian morals are allowed to change to remain practical yet some people still claim absolute truth.

they want to have their cake and eat it too.

can morals exist without religion?

morals do not have to be absolute… they are not tangeable :smiley:

a moral is like a rule we abide by in a game we invent.

It is for no gain… Religions tend to end feud but make war more likely… They make war more likely but allow nation states with diverse groups in large societies- which increases the general brain power and level of technology… Religions are not by themselves moral, are above morality; but pick up the morality of the people they take over…The morality of this one, or that one are usually the same because morality is our common denominator, in that all our needs are the same, and the needs of all societies are the same, for health, and for life to feed the common existence…But Christianity, by putting peace before justice ends up denying justice, and for that reason, Western Society is Synonymous with WAR… Other people fight… Violence some times breaks the peace in other places, but because justice is expected and looked for, when people feel they have enough justice they look for peace… So religion, at least as we know it has not made us angels, and kept us even from our humanity… Its victory is our loss…

Good question.

I think we could all agree that a huge list could be developed for both points, one list showing the ways religion has caused harm, and another showing the ways religion has caused good. Juggernaut already pointed out some examples of religion doing harm.

But the crucial question is whether it is religion that is causing all these bad things, or whether it is people that use religion to do bad things. If it is the latter, is religion to blame? But first off, what is religion? Because to blame “religion” for bad things we must first know what it is. Presumbably a group of people that experienced the divine in a certian way, then wrote it down, codified it, and usually have a moral code, etc. What are the basic values of religion? What is the fundamental moral code of religion? Well, if you actually read, look into, and ask practicioners, you will find that all religions seem to preach good things, like universal love and compassion. None of them (that I know of) have hatred, or anger, or violence, or lying, or stealing, as their core values. (I’m talking in theory here, not practice.)

For example,
No man is a true believer unless he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. Islam
Comparing others with oneself, one should neither strike nor cause to strike. Buddhism
One hsould never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. Hinduism
Regard others’ gains as if they were your own, and their losses in the same way. Taoism
Do not do to others waht you would not like yourself. Confucianism.
And on…

How could people take these basic principles, which are at the core of religions’ moral codes, and cause harm in the world? Well, they do, of course; but is that becasue religion is bad, or people are bad and use religion for their own purposes? still, one cannot help but notice all the wars that were clearly done in teh name of religion, which makes me wonder if humanity is even ready for religion (assuming that it is good). If religion is good, how can we mess it up so bad?

At any rate, my view is that a any particular church will more likely do much more good for people and the surrounding community than I will ever do in my life. When it comes to morality and religion, I think that theoretically they can be separated (like Kant’s theory of morality), but in practice they are not. Besides my family, religion has been the only “moral” influence on my life. Well, and philosophy, but most philosophers nowadays are not teaching people to be good people; they just like to talk about morality.

Firt of all, Mans physical, intelectual ,and morality is a product of nature, as purely as the humblest weed is. The tendancy to develope moral systems must be a intergral part of human nature but we really dont have a complete theory of human nature. Our temporal behavior is governed by many, many, different physical forces. Our religions and sciences are neural chain letters. Our egos and selves are all mental games or tricks of cognition. Evolution and cognition are really two sides of the same conceptual coin. I dont take vitalism as a complete explaination.
As far as the morality of religion is concerned I’d say the universe allows for morality and consciousness and religions but dosnt require them. From a historical standpoint morality is a mere episode. Since cognition and evolution are compatable it would seem our coherance is now effecting our evolution. This is where morality and other mental phenomena comes in, and seriously effects change in the system.

syderjoe,

Your comments are insightful, but I think you went off topic. Has religion helped or hurt the human race?
I’ve noticed that in several of these forums many times the conversation gets very far from the original topic, which would be more manageable in a face to face conversation.

I don’t see a whole lot of good that religion has done, but I see a whole lot of harm.

Smith6ma,
Well, I thought it was important to put religion in an evolutionary perspective. Id say a dexterous hand has been helpful for the human race. I think brain size has help humans to a certain extent. The compromize of increased mental powers is that the mind is vary cumbersome and elaborate, and can sometimes be harmful for survival as well as being helpful to survival. I think its the same for religion, some aspects form social cohesion, and are seen as good, some aspect form tribal divisions and are seen as bad. Its all good but bad.

If religion is bad then minds are bad. If science is good then the mind is good. Which is the same as saying evolution is good or evolution is bad.

I don’t follow. Does someone else?

If you read my two pevious posts it might make more sense where im comming from.

Religion is a byproduct of diverse adaptations if religion is bad its produced as a byproduct by many mechanisms of human consciousness, whatever harmful teneencies we see in religion pre exist ih human groups.

An example is agency detection, human’s are primed /trip wired to detect agency so that fragmentary information like the wind can sound near identical to people talking etc. That comes into religion’s a lot.

This is a good (and long-standing) question.

I’m personally rather undecided on the morality of Religion in human history. People talk about religion as a civilizing influence, promoting peace and tolerance. There were definitely ways in which that occurred. But there were also great atrocities done in the name of religion, atrocities that likely would not have occurred at all to the same degree if religion had been absent. I think both of these statements are virtually undeniable.

What is much more of a gray area is which one has been more dominant. I am unsure, but if I had to guess, I’d say that historically, religion has been marginally good overall. (By “historically” I mostly mean up through the 1700s.) After all, belief systems that ostensibly promote the status and consideration of the poor (Christianity, Muslim, and Buddhism) are in some part to thank for more egalitarian systems of govt, overthrow of feudal systems, etc. Those religions provided both a unifying force for individuals, and a doctrine propelling them to act. The promotion of such morals and forms of government may well outweigh local atrocities committed by those same individuals.

However, we certainly don’t obtain any such benefits in more recent history, or now. We have government, international notions of human rights, and other means of measuring and enforcing good behavior that is completely independent from religion, functionally and (irrelevantly) in origin. I think now, the sooner religion phases out the better.

Cyrene, this is completely true, but I think implies something not true. I don’t know if you meant this implication or not, but the idea that 1) religion must be considered ok because it’s the product of evolutionary adaptations, or 2) religion doesn’t cause any harm that wouldn’t’ve occurred anyway – both of those are clearly false. Rape is also the product of evolutionary adaptation. And we’re also primed to form “us and them” group distinctions, and to prepare for violence based on those distinctions. There are numerous examples where religion has clearly exacerbated our tendencies for sectarian violence, both in the past and in the present.

This is crap.

Total Crap.

This is a great point. Many people want to look at everything in an evolutionary perspective. I’m a big fan of evolutionary thoery, but what does evolution have to do with morality, about making value judments, or about deciding what we ought to do? There is a reason that philosophers are not talking about evolution when they are arguing for the truth of a moral theory; it simply doesn’t apply. As the quoted author points out above, rape is wrong even though rape might make sense in an evolutionary perspective (everything must, right?).

No doubt evolutionary theory can try and explain how humans developed the capacity to think morally; but now that we can, we are reasoning in a whole new field (i.e. not science, but philosophy).

Again, I’m finding it very hard to see how this has anything to do with the original topic, especially your example of agency detection and how that sheds light onto whether religion is bad or good to the human race.

I am loving this discussion!

To those who said that religion itself is morally neutral:

I am thinking of religion as a human creation for the purpose of utilization, and to put it into practice is an action that deserves moral considerations. If the overall good is what we are trying to promote (from a consequentialist viewpoint, of course), then has the practice of religion netted a loss or a gain in overall good?

I personally think a fundamental consequence of religion is the avoidance of responsibility, i.e., attributing one’s success to God, or thinking that once forgiveness is asked for, one is free from some burden. It seems that in the second instance, one can view forgiveness as the shaking of an etch-a-sketch. He may feel free to start living normally again without the feeling that his wrongdoings are compounding, thus giving him less incentive to avoid further wrongdoing. It does not necessarily have to be this way, but the idea of forgiveness or, more generally, the involvement of some mystical being in one’s life seems to take away from one’s understanding of his full scope of impact on the world.

Religion, specifically spiritualism is a form, it was probably the first step of humanity into philosophy… But it was never morally neutral…When people began to try to tap into a power outside of themeselves, it was never for good… Their good has always worked into evil for others, and even evil for themselves…

I’m not sure if that’s necessarily true juggernaut… it seems that religion began with the cave paintings that were supposed to bless the band with a good hunt. I guess that could be translated into evil towards the animals they hunted but that’s iffy. However, it does seem that it has worked in evil ways against people. From the other side of the fence, though, hope, as it is achieved through or caused by religion, intuitively seems like a good thing.

True, and necessary… Within the ability to conceive of objects, or animals spiritually or abstractly is the germ of all philosophy…And for primitives there was no difference between the representation and the being… That is what gave art such power… You think of the confusion between the form and the reality even into Platonic times; but through that time when Rome defeated a city the first thing they did was take the city’s patron god, which no doubt was added to their own pantheon… For the defeated there was no difference between the representation of the god and the god in reality…Yet, once you have a representation you can conceive of the reality againt the representation much as we compare morality against Christian morality in action…