If there is no morality without religion...?

Question

...secular humanists (those adhering to humanism) must either be liars or an exception to the rule? Which and why?

Answer 1

As a Chrisitan I believe God has laid down objective laws for us to follow. If I was a secular humanist, I could still follow these laws. I could still be a good person, but what would I be able to call "good" and how could I establish what is "good?" By removing God the secular humanist loses the objective basis for morality and generally replaces it with a subjective morality.

An example of subjective morality would be cultural relativism. Cultural relativism (which is now quite popular with the postmodern community) says that "good" is determined by your community. A Chrisitan community may have its own rules, and a primitive african tribe may have its own rules. Neither set of rules is any "better" than the other. It would simply depend on where you are at the time. If you were in a town where is was proper to sacrifice your children, then that must be the "right" thing to do for the cultural relativist.

Or there is Utilitarianism which says that "good" is determined by what allows the most people the highest degree of happiness. If some action makes more people unhappy then happy, it is "wrong." Clearly the application of this ethical theory has its problems. How do we measure happiness? How can we know the full consequences of our actions as they relate to others happiness? What about the individual that is harmed to allow others happiness?

So, yes you can have some sort of morality as a secular humanist. The question is on what basis and how is it applied.

Answer 2

As a Christian I can tell you that there certainly is morality without religion. I don't know who told you there isn't. The Bible says that everyone has the moral law written on his heart, including belief in God. The problem is, without acknowledging God as having a claim on our obedience, we have no objective reason to feel compelled to obey the moral law that is written in our hearts.

Some secular humanists may in fact obey the moral law, and insofar as they do, that's a good thing, obviously. But there is nothing and no one telling them that they must, and no objective reason (according to their viewpoint) for them to believe that they must. It's completely voluntary.

Now when they do wrong, their conscience will still tell them, deep down, that they're wrong. But since they have convinced themselves intellectually that there is no God, they suppress the pangs of conscience and pretend it's only a subconscious vestige leftover from childhood or something.

So there is morality without religion. Just no objective, compelling reason to obey it. And let's face it, obeying the moral law can be very, very hard at times. If you don't believe there is a compelling reason to do so, you won't make the effort. And the more society adopts the secular humanist viewpoint -- which it has been doing, more and more -- the more immorality we are going to see.

Answer 3

Religions have taught the world more about how to be sociopaths and immoral than to be MORAL with a conscience. I am an ordained spiritual humanist and though we believe in a supreme Lord in heaven, we also believe we are just AS the creator to change destiny by our BEHAVIORS. Religions do not teach fundamental acceptance for wrongful behaviors, most of what they teach is how persons can best ESCAPE responsibility for it. THAT in itself is why you have so many who hate RELIGION. Too many in the world not being responsible to humanity for their ignorant behaviors and it is TIME it all changed.

Answer 4

Imagine a world without Religion, There would be no Moral Wars about religious belief, no land conflicts based on religion, no killing abortion doctors (for the sake of Morality of course) I would go as far to say that without religion our morals would be aweful....I mean what would be the purpose of the army if there were no wars to fight or religious minorities to protect?

Answer 5

Any desire to be moral comes from God....without it you have only altruism (amongst animals). Secular humanists are merely legalistic atheists who play nice to avoid going to jail for acting out their 'free thinking ways' or are nice to counter the deep seeded fear that they better at least act right just in case they are wrong about heaven and they hope God will give them a break...

Answer 6

THose who believe in or follow a religion believe that morality and religion cannot exist without the other.
However, it is culture, and society which determines the moral and morays for its group, and then the religion develops around these cultural norms.

Answer 7

Well, I haven't killed anyone lately and I just won a scholarship, so I must assume that morality exists without religion or belief in gods.

Either that or I'm a lying, selfish, amoral bastard who cooks babies for snack food-- right?

Edit: Wow, some of the answers here are nutty. I'm convinced that our species will go extinct due to stupid people in large groups.

Answer 8

Well, according to Neitche, without childish morality you can have adult ethics. If you only know what's right and wrong by what's written in a book, you don't actually know what's right and wrong. Other people do, those who wrote a book, but you don't.

Answer 9

There is no morality without ethics, and there is no religion without ethics either (unless it's hyprocritical, which is often the case).
Humanism means treating people as you would like to be treated yourself. Jesus' message was mostly one of ethics, not of religion or "morality."

Answer 10

secular humanists are materialistic the need justify the deeds morality dose not exist in their thinking. They do not feel sorry for the American Indians they wanted to create a colony by all means.