Current Events > Do you think religion is needed to instill morality into society?

(+) Yeah! (+)

not only do I not believe religion is the only way (or even a particularly good way) to instill morality, I do not think it's necessary to instill "morality" into society in the first place.

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Wutobliteration posted...

Yes.

ask a Christian what's the meaning of life and he'd gladly tell you.
ask an athiest the meaning of life and he'll scratch his head, ponder, and then fall into depression.

You don't even believe in any religion. You're just a troll, who himself is so miserable and meaningless that he has to post crap on a video game message board to get attention. Sad.

averagejoel posted...

not only do I not believe religion is the only way (or even a particularly good way) to instill morality, I do not think it's necessary to instill "morality" into society in the first place.

I don't understand where you're going with this tbh.

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CommunismFTW posted...

this topic is so stupid and TC has to be like 10 years old

if he's 10 years old, his age is twice his current user level :P

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I'm not religious myself but seeing the way the vast, vast, vast majority of anti-religious people act, and their lack of consistency or any kind of moral center, it's clear that having even a flawed religion is better than having none at all.

post 56 is

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I feel like operating within the confines of reality and facts and logic probably does a better job. Religion just gives people excuses to act poorly. "This is what God wants." "God will forgive me." People are looking up at heaven rather than straight at other people.

There have been countless gods people have worshipped and no one has any idea if they are actually following the right god the right way. Look at the tangible effects of your actions on other tangible people and you'll know whether or not you are acting morally.

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Lost_All_Senses posted...

I don't understand where you're going with this tbh.

TL; DR: it's a philosophical point.

for starters, I think it's working backwards -- morality isn't "instilled" into society; society is structured such that certain values are encouraged or discouraged, whether or not people in that society realize it. if a certain value is detrimental to society, then society should be set up to discourage that value.

the second point is that, for the purposes of structuring a society, ethics are more important than morals.

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averagejoel posted...

TL; DR: it's a philosophical point.

for starters, I think it's working backwards -- morality isn't "instilled" into society; society is structured such that certain values are encouraged or discouraged, whether or not people in that society realize it. if a certain value is detrimental to society, then society should be set up to discourage that value.

the second point is that, for the purposes of structuring a society, ethics are more important than morals.

This hurts my head.

I tried to look up the definition of ethics and it seemed to be directly tied to morals (which was what I had thought), which made that all more confusing to me. You're either overcomplicating something or speaking above what I can comprehend. It's all good tho. It's too late for me to want to try this hard. Maybe Ill try again tomorrow

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At one point, yeah

But it's also an easily manipulative way to convince masses of people to do terrible things while thinking they are doing it for righteous reasons

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Eh. No. I think it can codify and reinforce values that were already there.

No, and Id argue that the less normalized and widespread it gets the more it actually becomes detrimental to instilling morality as it radicalizes

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To answer the topic title directly, no. I believe that empathy is the best tool we have to guide moral action and religion can be detrimental to that (countless horrible acts done by religious people who feel justified due to their religious beliefs). The fact that people think religion is necessary for moral character is actually quite frightening. I've seen many people admit online that the only thing keeping them from basically murdering people at will is the belief in some sort of eternal torment if they did. Scary shit.

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I believe that when humans first appeared, we gained our moral values from religion. These days, you don't necessarily have to be religious to be moral.

Also, TC and his Islamophobia can shut the fuck up, thank you
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You can't really have most people out there thinking that there is truly no right or wrong and that "being right" means only you have enough power to get what you want and "being wrong" only means you haven't got the strength to get what you want or need. You need most people to think there is a higher power (preferably a supernatural one) that justifies what is happening around you.

Nothing quite galvanises "good" people to do terrible things like religion. And few institutions do such a remarkable job of glossing over their misdeeds like churches do. Forcing a horrible piece of anti-humanitarian legislation into practise "because God says so" is about as effective as doing the same "for national security".

So no, I think religion is a horrible yardstick for morality.

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