Some people like to think that morality and religion are somehow inherently linked, and that only religion has a role to play in answering or explaining morality in human society. They tend to like to think that religion, especially Christianity (for expediency's sake), have played a role in shaping societal ideas and concepts of morality for the better.
This is little more than an illusion. Religion is as much subject to a shifting societal discourse of morality as is anything other cultural force. In fact it is the ignoring of most of the moral judgments of the Bible, for instance, that makes belief in it a respectable option today.
But, one might say, the Bible orders all kinds of good things. Though shalt not kill, for instance? However if you look at it with any kind of complexity, such an idea developed thousands upon thousands of years before the Bible was written, out of a biological need for humanity to protect the social relations that keep it safe from other predators and allows competition for resources; without a discourse that renders the indiscriminate killing of fellow human beings in your social group unacceptable, such relationships break down, and so does humanity.
However because we reject the idea that the Bible is a supreme moral source, or even that it is handed down by a creator, does not mean that there is no meaning to be found in ideas of morality. Morals can be examined by way of utilitarianism, of biological interaction, of sociological necessity, of natural selection, or societal need; just because we are intelligent enough to discard the ideas of fairytales that claim everything was handed down perfectly by a divine being in examining and deriving meaning from morality doesn't necessarily mean that everything is fine and morally supportable; only a simpleton would think such things.
So I suppose this is a general introduction to a discussion of these issues.
This is little more than an illusion. Religion is as much subject to a shifting societal discourse of morality as is anything other cultural force. In fact it is the ignoring of most of the moral judgments of the Bible, for instance, that makes belief in it a respectable option today.
But, one might say, the Bible orders all kinds of good things. Though shalt not kill, for instance? However if you look at it with any kind of complexity, such an idea developed thousands upon thousands of years before the Bible was written, out of a biological need for humanity to protect the social relations that keep it safe from other predators and allows competition for resources; without a discourse that renders the indiscriminate killing of fellow human beings in your social group unacceptable, such relationships break down, and so does humanity.
However because we reject the idea that the Bible is a supreme moral source, or even that it is handed down by a creator, does not mean that there is no meaning to be found in ideas of morality. Morals can be examined by way of utilitarianism, of biological interaction, of sociological necessity, of natural selection, or societal need; just because we are intelligent enough to discard the ideas of fairytales that claim everything was handed down perfectly by a divine being in examining and deriving meaning from morality doesn't necessarily mean that everything is fine and morally supportable; only a simpleton would think such things.
So I suppose this is a general introduction to a discussion of these issues.
