Religion and morals...?

Question

we had a class discussion about morals and where they come from and religion came up...

so the question is...
Does religion play a vital role in morality? If so, explain why. If not, is it common sense, or basic values or etc?
if you would... even go into if we need morals or not.
Thanks...

Answer 1

Some claim that common ethics codes like "don't kill people", "don't steal", etc. come directly from religious dogma, and then sometimes try to use this as a slippery slope argument that atheists must therefore be immoral people, etc. However, this isn't exactly true.

When people started settling down and creating cities, they realized quickly that they needed some summaries of behavior codes. We know from biology and psychology that people have first and foremost a drive for self-preservation. People also have drives to see those close to them and also their environment both kept out of harms way, in part because this affects the first instinct. So inevitably, you find ethics codes built with these underlying ideas in mind. It shouldn't be any surprise, then, that you find this showing up in various religions of different cultures.

Answer 2

Morals(and values in general) have different sources. These include thought and insight, superstition and tradition, the need for order, humans' natural tendencies, and maybe others. It seems likely that many specific morals have more than one kind of source. Religion, being meaningful in many people's eyes and being part of their cultures, plays a role(or is otherwise connected) in some cases, but not all of them. And it wasn't the source of morality in general.

And by "morals" I mean what people believe to be right, not what actually is right.

Answer 3

Societies use religion to back up their training.

The leaders of societies want to perpetuate the society they live in so they train the young people to behave. Society works when people are honest, hardworking and caring so children are trained from infancy to behave that way. Mostly it is done through praise. Our human nature loves praise and we will conform our behavior (usually) to get it. By the time we're adults, this training comes through as feelings of conscience. I feel bad if I am dishonest, for example.

The problem with this behavior training is that feelings don't have any moral authority over us. For example, I might feel bad if I cheat on a test but what are a few bad feelings compared with passing the test?

Religion is important because God is the only moral authority to Whom we are obligated to listen to and obey. With God as the moral authority, that behavior training is now seen as just reinforcing God's commands and authority.

Look at three possibilities:
1) Society without religion. Communist USSR did not have a moral authority and had to use propaganda and force to make the people behave.
2) Society leaders invent religion. I think the medieval rulers used the Catholic Church to perpetuate their own rule.
3) Society forms around God. The USA began this way with society formed around Christianity and not the other way around.

Answer 4

morality makes the herd survive so it can breed with each other religion has nothing to do with it. it's derived from necessity

Answer 5

RELIGION STARTS WHERE MORALITY ENDS.....SO ITS RELIGION WHO ASK TO NOT LIE...AND BELIEVE ME IF WE STOP LYING OUR MORAL CAN BE BETTER THEN NOW. RELIGION HELPS TO GROW MORAL HIGH. BEST WISHES FOR YOU.