Ethics - show what you think?

Question

Who out there belives that ethics and morals are just things created to keep us inline by the religion and culture? i do, what do you think?

Answer 1

Ethics and morals help people live close to other people.

A hermit does not need morals. He doesn't affect anybody. However, if you live among other people, he greatly helps to agree on some sort of "house rules", so that you can spend more time living and less time worrying about the next guy.

Some morality is ingrained in our instincts. Our instinct for group formation governs a large part of our morality. Our compassion for those we consider in our group and enmity towards those outside our group affect how we interact with each other.

Additionally, we get our morality through our country, society, family, friends, and our own experience. All of that shapes us and helps us determine what our role is in society. What we consider our role in society shapes how we present ourselves to others in society, which is known as our character.

Of course, everybody has a different set of morals, because everybody has a different life that shapes them differently. There is no absolute right or wrong, no matter how many people claim such. There are things that tend to work better in society than others. For example, a society where people wantonly killed each other would not survive as long as a society where people respected each other more.

It's good that people have different morals. If everybody had the same morals, we would stagnate and we wouldn't progress. We don't need to be exactly like someone else to work with them. Of course, we have to have some commonality to interact, but that differs based on the interaction. For a store clerk, I don't have to share any political views or agree on whether abortion is moral or not. We just have to agree on what a fair basis for the transaction would be. For a spouse, we would have to be more closely aligned.

And no matter what it claims, religion has been a repeater of societal morality, not a source of them. That's why such a large percentage of religious morality is outdated and even harmful to society.

Answer 2

No.

Ethics and morals existed as soon as a society existed,way before religion was thought up.

These are the rules that allow us to live in a group without having to constantly watch what the other members of the group are doing.

They are the rules that allow us to cooperate and allow the group to be greater than the sum of it's individual parts.

Morals are memes, they evolve. Societies that have successful morals do better and absorb the societies that have unsuccessful ones.

Answer 3

Morals and ethics are traits. Society with such traits had a better overall chance for survival. A society where rape and murder and theft is part in parcel of daily living will not progress and be as economically viable as a society where one's efforts can be focused on productivity rather than personal protection. Therefore it makes sense that nature will select for these traits as the moral gene pool has a better survival chance than the ammoral gene pool. Natural selection--evolution--at work.

Answer 4

I hate religion, but morals and ethics are separate from religion

what you have to remember is that the best way to trap people with propaganda is to mix some truth in with the lies. So Christianity (for example) tells us some statement about morals. They hope that if we agree with the statement, we will buy the rest of the crap.

Answer 5

Ethics and morality are a result of our evolution. They can be used to control us, but they would exist without religion. Many species of animals have a system of morality.

Answer 6

ethics are required for the betterment of society...

religion should not own them...

Answer 7

No, they are hardwired. Please read the attached article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/27/AR2007052701056.html