do you believe that morality should be based on religion?

Answer 1

No. I'm religious, but don't believe that morality should be tied exclusively to religion. I have many friends who are quite moral, and are non-believers. Religion and morality are separate issues.

Answer 2

No. The most immoral actions ever have been committed in the name of religion. Religion caters to the herd mentality of the human brain, like joining a bowling league, or quilting club. It comes from the part of the brain that identifies others that share the same mentality as friends and those that have opposing views as foes. It's partly a survival technique. As we are social creatures, and different societies will take our lives for our resources, we band together in physical groups and in ideological groups for strength in numbers. I don't trust organized religion. The ultimate power lies with the organizers who frequently exploit people's need to belong, their fervent wish to be a productive member of the group, and the ease with which masses can be manipulated. My morality is my own, I impose it on no one, and defend it from all impositions.

Answer 3

No I don't base my morality on religion. Christians base their morality on what they perceive as sin. Many things Christians perceive as sin I find to be morally ok and fine. Sex for example. I don't find consensual sex at a legal age to to be a moral issue.

Answer 4

No, because religion doesn't dictate what kind of person you are. There are people who are strict Bible-based Christians and some of the meanest snakes around with their attitudes...& judge their neighbors in the "name of God". Really, everyone has a right to his or her own beliefs, but if you are going to follow a figure such as Jesus Christ, for example, look at the way he LIVED. Loving and being charitable; Jesus (or any other figure), never taught any hate, only people do. Same with God or higher power...

Answer 5

This is no trivial, insignificant question. If there is no God, then there is no Supreme Being to which we must give an account—no Judgment Day, no heaven or hell. There is no right or wrong, no good or evil. We should live by the saying, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” If this is just a great cosmic accident, then there is no such thing as "morality."

But if there is a God—well, that’s a different story. Are we an accident, or the image of God? Are we without purpose, or have an eternal goal? Do we live like an animal, or like a child of God? In the end, is it dust, or eternity?

There is an interesting anthropological argument that is known as the “moral argument” that is sort of connected to what you are asking. The argument is this: Man has within him a moral nature, a sense of “oughtness”; where did it come from?

You see, there arises in all of us, in any culture, universal feelings of right and wrong. Wherever you go, people in every place and every walk of life, say things like: “That’s not fair.” “How would you like it if someone did that to you?” “That’s my seat, I was there first.” “Come on, you promised.” When people say things like that, they are appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which they expect the other person to know.

The other person doesn’t say, “forget your standard,” but almost always tries to make an excuse to show that they really didn’t go against the standard. As C.S. Lewis said about this standard, “...the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm.” You know, there are reasons why you should be let off the hook. That time you were unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money came when you were very hard-up. You never would have promised that if you would have known how busy you were going to be. And then comes the argument between these two people. It is clear that they both believe in a standard or they couldn’t argue about it. You can’t argue that a football player committed a foul unless there is some agreement about the rules of football.

If morality is simply something learned from our culture, as they want us to believe, then why are the moral teachings of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Indians, Greeks and Romans so very similar? C. S. Lewis talked a lot about this. Has there ever been a culture where people were admired for running away in battle? Or admired for being selfish (even though they might differ about who you should be unselfish to)? Men have differed on things like whether you should have one wife or four, but they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked. In the words of Thomas C. Mayberry, “There is broad agreement that lying, promise breaking, killing, and so on are generally wrong.”

And whenever you find someone who says they don’t believe in right or wrong, you will find them going back on it a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you break one to him, he will immediately be complaining “It’s not fair!” Even a thief gets upset and feels wronged when someone steals from him. As it has been said, “If there is no God, no atheist can object on moral grounds if I want to kill him.”

I had an atheist friend some years back that I would always argue creation/evolution with. One day he came in and told me how mad he got from watching a documentary on the Holocaust. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I thought, “Why are you so mad; it’s just survival of the fittest, right? You don’t even believe there is such a thing as right and wrong.” You see, no matter how much he denies it, he feels that standard as well as I do.

So, where did it come from? We don’t see it in animals. A dog doesn’t feel guilt from stealing another dog’s bone. Apes don’t sit down and talk about morals and ethics. If an ox gores a man to death, it is not arrested, tried, and condemned to the electric chair. We recognize its inability to make moral judgments and so we might just confine it in a sturdier pen and warn people to stay away. If we evolved from animals, how did we come to be moral creatures?

Could non-moral matter combined with time and chance be an adequate cause for this? If people are merely products of physical evolution and “survival of the fittest,” why do we sacrifice for each other? Where does courage, dying for a cause, love, dignity, duty, and compassion come from? This seems to be the opposite of what evolution would produce; in a struggle for survival, will the existence of a conscience help or hinder survival? As John Adam has said, “...according to the evolutionary principle of survival of the fittest, a loving human with a conscience is at a great disadvantage and would be unlikely to have survived the evolutionary process.”

Answer 6

Not on just any religion.

The Ten Commandments is our standard and is for our own good and it makes common sense no matter what generation.

Otherwise, every person could just make up what they felt was right. No one would agree or obey except what they wanted to.

There is a Huge difference in "religion" and true Christianity.

Answer 7

No. I think that morality should be based on the person thinking it. Religion is just there to cloud ones better judgement in MY opinion.

Answer 8

...Certainly. If one doesn't derive morality from his faith, where on Earth should he derive it? From the New York Times? From some political party? From whatever skewed ideas are in vogue? From Hollywood?
...I'll lay odds that many of those who complain about this really haven't a clue where to take their beliefs from.
...What set of principles can you point to, besides the Bible?

Answer 9

No. It should be based on common sense because that's something we all share. Morality based on fantasy beliefs has lead to the murders of billions.

Answer 10

In some parts of the bible, it considers some things to be moral that I found outrageously offensive.

So, no.