Morality - does it come from religion or from societal pressures?

Question

There seem to be a lot of people who think it comes from religion and I'd like to know why.

Answer 1

societal pressures
human beings are social creatures and want to get along and connect with others. Getting approval from others helps connect to them

fyi...religion is also about societal pressures....note that there are dominant religions in all countries..its another way of connecting and gaining approval by agreeing

Answer 2

Morality is a general term, but cannot exist without a specific baseline. Without a definable boundary, ALL morality becomes relative, in other words, "it depends". The fault with that logic is that the relativism can extend beyond borders of "rationality" based on different cultures. The whole idea of ANYTHING being right and wrong comes from the 10 commandments, which is in the Holy Bible. This is not a "religion" either, but ignorance leads people to wage angry allegations concerning certain key words and phrases, and wisdom often gets trampled in the process.

Answer 3

morality is innate in some form to all people, different groups have different ways of expressing it, but it resides in all societies.

Religious teaching expounds on this for the most part. Depending on the teaching, the morals are either made more people oriented or less. For example you would not think human sacrifice is very moral, but for some they thought it to be a moral thing to do.

Jesus was a real rebell in his teaching in ancient isreal. He taught a sort of equality for the sexes, in the God looks on both with the same level of love, and expects men to treat women with respect. That was unheard of back then. The moral of the day (not in keeping with the bible) was when a woman was used up a bit, dump her and get another. Jesus taught that this was not the way God intended it to be.

morality is generally considered to be a componant of religion (in the country at least) because our country was founded on biblical teaching and our morality was a part of it.

however, as pointed out, all people, regardless of religious or not, practice some form of morality.

Answer 4

Ethics comes from societal values, while morality comes more from an inner understanding and response to external exposure to various sets of values and ethics. For example, people may say that it is not ethical to jaywalk or go faster than the speed limit, but most would not consider these immoral acts. In short, ethics is influenced by outer values, morality by inner ones.

Answer 5

Morality comes from many sources, I strongly favor self and species survival as the ultimate basis for most of the commonly shared morals.

Religion as a form of early social engineering has impacted various moral systems as has the rules and norms of various societies.

Religious people tend not to look beyond their religion for answers assume that their deity is the only definer of moral truth, therefore is hard for them to accept that others outside of their belief system can be just as, in not more, moral. It's also hare for many people to accept that there are many different moral systems that are just as valid as the one that they grew up with.

Answer 6

Morality has a lot to do with how we are raised. You can be moral and be an atheist and also be moral and be a christian. I think people believe morality comes from christianity because Jesus was so moral and we follow his teachings and commandments. When we read the bible and are reminded of how he wants us to live our lives we are able to remain moral on a regular basis.

Answer 7

societal pressures, religions change with society to keep followers

Answer 8

Societal pressures.

Answer 9

Society, most often (because people are too obtuse to understand and live the moral imperatives injected into religious allegories, and they are often archaic or wrong anyway!), supplemented by the individual conscience.

Answer 10

While morality can be religiously informed, it need not be. Consider the virtue ethics of Aristotle. That *leads* to theological statements, but does not *begin* with them.

HTH

Charles