Would we have the same morals and ethics if it wasn't for the influence of religion.

Evolution young? I beg to differ. The idea originated with the Greeks. Darwin just popularized it centuries later.

Evolution is one explanation of biological processes. However, it does a poor job of adequately explaining where morals come from and why there are morals. Religion attempts to explain the origin of ethics and to define them.

Ok but how do you think our morals would have developed without religious idiolgy?
Evolution does explain the fact we have a developed frontal quartex which has probably given us the ability to reason and have moral discipline.

I’ll admit: I don’t know where morals come from. I’ve been searching for that answer and hope to find it someday. So many ideas out there…yet so little proof.

I guess we have just evolved to question our own actions and decide whether they are a good thing or a bad thing. And religion is an invention that allows us to create widely accepted ideals about about the way we act.

It does create some unity.

I think we figured out the golden rule behavior by ourselves. There were people before the bible. Many native Indian ideas are much more moral than the old testament.

From it’s most primitive form religion codified behavior and made possible an expression of base and primitive actions in a ordered environment. Killing was acceptable if done with a ruling body overseeing the offense as an example or in earlier societies as sacrificial. It may have appeased fears and primitive blood lusts. It made possible other society necessities such as property by restricting theft. It allowed for family units protected as well from the adulterous aims of another member of a tribe. It probably created the concept of other societies from enemies of the religion of the tribe. In many ways it formed the basis of organized society itself.

@Barbs “astute” is the right word for you, you cute little fluther puppy.

Religion is to thank for our current set of morals. Without it’s influence, we would have a different set. It’s absolutely affected everything people do these days.

I find it highly amusing that some think we’d have no morals at all if it weren’t for religion, when, in fact, tribal rules and codes of ethics existed long before the advent of known religion. That is not to say that some religions don’t have a good set of tenets, because many do, but that certainly isn’t a prerequisite to the development of morals and ethics.

I’m tired of people asking this same question. Obviously yes, we would have the same morals and ethics if not better. Do you think non-religious people, even hundreds of years ago, had less morals? Religion may have reinforced morals for some, but it certainly did not create them. End of story.

“So what I am saying basically is why are some people so against the concept of god and religion when maybe we have something to thank for it”

We don’t need it anymore. It did its job when there was no knowledge of science and no knowledge of how the world works. It had some sort of “explanation” be it a false one, as we know now. But it has run its course, plus its detriments outweigh its benefits in modern day society.

@HTDC
All illusions serve a purpose.

Its all so obvious to some people isnt it.
I have made up my mind now anyway. It seems that human beings have invented morals through reasoning and being able to question their actions. At some point it was decided that there be a mass acceptance of what is right and wrong. Obviously this does not happen quickly and the boundaries change.
Religion has helped popularize common beliefs about what is right and wrong but it is not the reason for those beliefs. But the fact still remains that we are indirectly influenced by religion because it is the search for certainty about why and how we came to being. Isnt the search for the truth through science also a form of religion.

@Barbs
Meaning- It’s all just sooo obvious to these cerebral types that we can dispense with God religion and anything spiritual or mystical…well excuuuuse me…
is that what you meant?

Hang on. I dont believe in god but we all take sides about the fact we think we can find the ultimate truth and understanding about the universe. How big do we think we really are?

I also have a cerebral quartex! I am a human being like you. Why is it more wrong to believe in a certain thing just because it doesnt seem logical or sensible. Surely there is a limit to human understanding and I dont think that is being pesimistic I think it is just being humble!

Ok interesting thoughts but completely wrong. Philosophy presupposed science and religion was pre philosophy.

So do you think morals are inbuilt and were around before religion and philosophy. I mean there must have been reasoning before philospohy and there must have been morals before religion then.

No it was normal to act in ones own interest and kill or be killed like an animal. Some banded together for safety but this was hardly moral. Eventually some powerful individuals codified this behavior as rules.

So as a result of a well developed frontal quartex we invented morals?

As an order for the tribe from a dominant male no doubt.

@SeventhSense “Some banded together for safety but this was hardly moral”

i think of this as moral. if you consider morality as an emergent phenomenon, it’s in large part the phenomenon of promulgating beneficial behavior. Banding together being an idea that was spread from one person to the next. Like a virus, the good idea spreads.

People just like things that make sense to them. They can’t help but want their lives to go “well.”

Also, I liked your idea, @Barbs. Religion has sorta been the marketing scheme for those moral ideas to promulgate. They way I see it, life wanted things to go well for itself so, it’s building itself into what it wants to be.

Yes, I think we would. Decency is an innate knowledge.

As religion establishes a sense of peace, guidance and security in an otherwise dog eats dog world, I’m thinking that it merely compliments the natural urge to have morality and ethics and live by them. We’d have em otherwise, even if under some different presentation, I’m sure.
All that stuff comes from us, religion is just an excuse, so to speak.