- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Crosspost from [email protected].
An overview of studies which investigate correlations between morality and religious vs. secular / atheist ideologies presented by Phil Zuckerman who is a professor of sociology and secular studies at the Claremont colleges in California, USA.
Summary: Atheists / secular people not only have morals but are even more moral than religious people.
Note: Of course moral is a matter of perspective. In this context we agree that compassion and empathy are our foundations of moral.
The counter argument that I hear from other atheists that aren’t anti-religious is that religions makes stupid people more moral than they would be if they didn’t have the looming threat of angering their sky daddy.
I have never heard that argument from an atheist. Only from religious people who claim there’s no morality without their god.
The dude who made the McDonald’s documentary had a show putting opposite people together. A Christian lived with a Muslim family. He said that if you don’t get your values from god, he couldn’t imagine where you got them. He couldn’t imagine empathy.
Again empathy doesn’t entail morally good actions, any more than a sense of smell entails a popular choice of perfume.
That’s a completely different argument, and one I’ve had with many religious people, but that’s not what I’m referring to.
Empathy and logic require intelligence, yet many people are too stupid to be empathetic or logical, and religion provides them with a much simpler reason to do the right thing when no one is looking.
Can you give an example of how this reasoning is suppose to work? Trying to parse this the only behaviors coming to mind are the ‘fire & brimstone’ type. The 'I hate those people ‘cause the pastor said the book says to’.
“Can you give an example of how this reasoning is supposed to work”
Easily. Fear of punishment is a deterrent1.
Technically most non-philosopher atheists seem to ascribe to moral anti-realism, which logically leads to the moral permissibility of all actions. It’s actually them engaging in erroneous logic that they adhere to morally good behavior.
Pff no. They just find a way to use the religion to justify what they’re doing
Some will, but I’d posit that’s not the dumb people that I’m referring to that are responsible for that. It’s more the smart immoral people that are using religion to manipulate other less intelligent and less logical faithful people into doing evil in the name of religion.
No. It just gives them an excuse. They can be “forgiven”.
This.
“No matter what I do, it’s ok because sky daddy forgives me! I can be as shitty as I want to people and just feel bad and confess later, and everything is ok!”
Ever wonder why religions are incredibly popular among criminals?
This certainly doesn’t seem to be a practice among religious individuals any more than non-religious. One still has to factor in that even if “sky-daddy” forgives you, there is still social pressure to “atone” for one’s actions. So trying to pin poor behaviour on belief in a “forgiving sky-daddy”, requires proving that the social pressures disappear, and good luck with that.
Like “born again” virgins?
Using religion to protect from the social pressure is the whole point
“Only god can judge me!”
And they get away with it far too often, without even a sense of guilt to slow them down
“Moral”
Religion is the opiate of the masses, for certain
The problem is that the “moral” things they induce people to do are many times anything but