Topic: Although am an atheist, I believe religion helped human to become moral. (Read 282 times)

There seem to be at least some biological basis for reciprocity and fairness. I really laughed out loud at experiments on capuchins where one kept receiving cucumbers while the other receives grapes for the same exact task. The frustration is something most of us is familiar with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg

Nice reply Kavelj22

Well, I'm an atheist and I agree with your conclusion but I think the way you say it is a little dismissive!

Love it!  Yes, moral behaviour exists to manage relationships in a community.  Note also that any belief system or ideology that draws people together can have the same effect of managing relationships in the community.  All these can have a positive effect irrespective of the truth of any underlying existential claims - it is only necessary that people believe the claim, not that the claim itself is true. 

Do you dismiss the entire history of secular moral philosophy from the last 3000 years?  The idea that any book "completely teaches morality" shows a distinct lack of appreciation of the complexity of moral discourse.

The golden rule is a very powerful general idea indeed, but it's not without its criticisms.  For example, what motivates others may differ from what motivates you - the golden rule as you state it relies on the general idea that the way you like to be treated is the way others like to be treated.  This works for the majority of people but it's not a universal rule and fails miserably for outlying personalities.

Strange to hear this from an atheist! It means religion book like the Bible that completely teaches morality has helped human than any form of societal teaching we have through governments and another form of society we have without such a good book like the Bible. This Golden rule resolved most of the societal problem we have"do unto others as you will like them to do unto you", If we follow that simple rule we should have peace on earth.

About morals; it wasn't directly derivated from adopting relegious beliefs, as the human being is a social creature who need to live in communities for several reasons, so need to establish a moral system for community management. We can observe this clearly with mammiferous amimals leaving in groups/communities like apes or lions or even lambs (also birds), those animals have morals or whatever you may call it but it can be defined as a conventional system to manage relationships between troop members, which is the same role of morals for human communities, without believing in supernatural powers.

Yes, religions helped human to overpass his fears and find a lot of answers when there was no science to explain everything. But I think it became a dangerous game when spreading the idea that God/religion resume morals which is definitely incorrect/inappropriate and has no logic explanation.

People needed morals to live together and spread their genes in a safe way, long time before believing of a god creator. (We all know that humans are much more older then gods and religions). And just think about prehistoric human who believes in some natural powers because he was afraid; at that time, humans lives in separate groups and small societies.
Religions added a lot of modifications to morals (positive and negative) but it's far from establishing its unique system as humans already had ones.

Hope you understand my point.
Sorry for the bad English 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRvVFW85IcU


LOL didn't H. sapiens interbred with Neanderthals? (At least humans that migrated out of Africa.) In a sense they never really completely died out. They ceased as a group because the modern humans are better at hunting than them.

A good point of view, even tho you are a theist you still recognize the good things that a certain religion can somehow be good for your morality. The very best thing that I like about having a religion or the belief is that it have saved a lot of lost people (Drug Addicts, Prostitutes, Murderer, Rapist) and have diverted them into a better person.

I still hate some of the priests tho, or those who work for God but they themselves doesn't even value morality. But the belief itself is too pure

I agree with this. God was created to make people of doing something bad. Because god it supposed to be everywhere and see anything.

Atheist, which is defined as one who does not believe that any deities exist and who rejects existence of any deities, nevertheless, will have one thing or the order to hold at high esteem. The thing the atheist will hold at high esteem has invariably becomes the one's deity.
Therefore, so long as one exists, the idiosyncrasy of atheism should not exist based on the fact of holding at high esteem or venerating an object greatly valued.

Sure, religions have been the major force driving morality over the last few thousand years, and are largely to credit for enabling us to self organise into large civilisations in the first place, but they evolved on the back of an entire history of human thought that must be considered.  Secular moral philosophy has also played a large part, particularly since the enlightenment.

Religions have provided the philosophical framework for morality, metaphysics and [generally flawed] epistemology in all civilisations of history.  However, civilisations as we know them only go back 10,000 years or so (and only 3000 years for those based around the great monotheistic religions I assume you are talking about).  Previous to that, when we lived in small tribes, we would presumably have had beliefs much like those found in remote tribes today, far less structured belief systems based largely on superstition and passed on by word of mouth.  These tribes today are not 'savages' and have moral rules enforced by the tribe.  For the previous 2 million years of hominid history we can only speculate (although a look at gorilla and chimpanzee groups might help) but its pretty safe to say our belief systems would have been very different from those today, probably atheistic in nature (e.g. animism rather than theism), and yet the shape of our moral behaviour was conducive to allow us to survive in social groups.  Clearly the rule that murder is generally bad, for example, would have applied in those primitive moral systems too.

And much more than that.
In fact, since religion believes in an absolute being (God, creator), believers also believe in the words of that absolute being and following God's commandments since these commandments for them have been an absolute and unchangeable truth for thousands of years.
This means that both human and moral laws have adapted and followed these absolute laws for thousands of years, and not vice versa.
God's commandments are unchangeable and absolute.
In the last 100-200 years people thought they know and can do better but we see results in the world today, a lot confusion and chaos because no absolute values in society.

Not only that. According some scholars, without believing in fiction Homo Sapiens could not have become rulers of the Earth. The ability to believe in fictitious stories helped Homo Sapiens to gather in large numbers(over 200 individuals), and to defeat the Neanderthals, who were much stronger physically.

And I absolutely agree with you regarding morality. We would still be savages if there were no religion. For thousands of years various religions were helping people to be more moral and ethical, but in the recent times it looks like they are working in the opposite direction. I think that is so because the moral principles of people in general, regardless of their beliefs, have been advanced to such a level that no religion can keep up. And yet we must always remember that religion was the root cause of this transformation.

I don't believe in a sky daddy.

But I believe religion is a major part which has shaped today's humanity and morals.

There are many atheists who say they don't derive morals from religion. They know murder is wrong, rape is wrong. They don't need a religion to know it.

I'm sure, had there been no religion, morals of today would have been drastically different.

One of the best example is even the most radical atheist isn't polyamory and marries to one person they love in name of God even if it's for name sake.

Radical atheists say murder and rape is wrong even if they don't follow any religion. Well, breaking traffic lights laws isn't wrong according to religion but morally it's wrong. I have seen many atheists then breaking this morally wrong stuff of not following traffic rules. Because there's no place in religions regarding traffic laws.

Same way, had religion didn't indoctrine murder and rape as vile crimes, in today's world, even if they were seen as morally wrong, the extent would be so less and those crimes would be so common.

Another stuff I like about religion is it prohibits suicide and regards it as one of the greatest crime. This has stopped many from commiting suicide because of fear of hell. However, in the book of atheist, suicide is nothing and is neither allowed nor permitted. It's like a choice.