The effect of religion upon morality

[Patient131071]

It seems to me that the recent issue in Britain over gay marriage and the less recent issue of female bishops demonstrate that, while one must admit that religious doctrine and laws can in many cases reinforce a moral perspective (though the value of this is arguably limited, as things like 'thou shalt not kill' are fairly obvious), they also have the potential to introduce archaic values and limit people's thinking, as for many people their religion and its doctrines are the same as their sense of morality, and therefore they often become impossible to argue usefully with on said topics.
Wouldn't it be more productive to use one's common sense to carefully select the areas of doctrine one accepts?
Furthermore, doesn't it devalue any moral action to say that one was essentially coerced into it by the promise of supernatural rewards and/or damnation?

[Greyarcher]

"A moral action is devalued if its performed with an ulterior and self-centered motive".....I can't say I usually connect moral action and value to intent. But I'd say it would lower the praiseworthiness of the actor, and indicate nothing complimentary about their character.

And yeah, religion tends to act as an anchor against change. At least, insofar as the changes run contrary to local interpretations of the religion (which can vary wildly). This includes changes in moral thought.

As for using "common sense" to select accepted doctrine.... Doesn't this already occur, slowly, with younger generations who have sufficient early exposure to other views? It's the standard, "old generation has a set mindset; younger generation is more amenable to change" trend. But I don't think most religious groups teach any policy of "selectively accepting doctrine"--it's supposed to be "truth" after all. Instead, they teach doctrines and interpretation that they have pre-selected and interpreted themselves; then the next generation does the same, after adapting it to "common sense" during their younger, formative years.

Sure, they could try and be more adaptive to the times. But individuals doing that as a conscious policy would probably run contrary to the idea that their doctrine and interpretation is "truth". So instead the changes have to phase in from generation to generation.

[Patient131071]

I have to say, I think you've got a point with this generational thing. Now that I think about it, I can think of people from older generations who have adopted what I would label as a 'rational' world view, who have then gone on to say something conservative, for example regarding the capabilities of women, and simply passing it off as being 'unnatural' for things to change. People's views are affected by the culture that they grow up in, and that culture changes from generation to generation.

[ElPresidente]

The problem with debates about religion and morality generally is that they are usually treated as ontological debates (that is, discourse on what "is"), when in fact they are (almost) pure epistemological debates. Which is to say that what divides the opinions of participants is not what they believe to be the truth, but how they believe it is possible to distinguish true and false.

Case in point: Richard Dawkins. Dawkins thinks he's brilliant because, unlike religious persons, he uses reason to obtain his results, and rejects results not premised on reason, but on revealed truth. I think he's a bozo who doesn't know what the word "Reason" means. If one takes it as a premise that God exists, through faith, it is no less reasonable to obtain (back on topic) a morality based on the Word of God than it is to obtain Benthamite utilitarianism reasoning from the premise that happiness is a moral good.

Reasoning takes you from premises to conclusions. It has no purchase from which it may interrogate premises. Thus the effect of religion upon morality is to prevent the religious and the irreligious from having productive discussions about morality.

[jules.LT]

I think he's a bozo who doesn't know what the word "Reason" means. If one takes it as a premise that God exists, through faith, it is no less reasonable to obtain (back on topic) a morality based on the Word of God than it is to obtain Benthamite utilitarianism reasoning from the premise that happiness is a moral good.

I think he's written a few books about why he doesn't think those kinds of premises are compatible with reason.
You might not agree with him, but his point has been thought through in a way that definitely makes him not a bozo, especially as relates to the definition of "reason".

[curtis95112]

Reasoning takes you from premises to conclusions. It has no purchase from which it may interrogate premises. Thus the effect of religion upon morality is to prevent the religious and the irreligious from having productive discussions about morality.

You realize that Dawkins doesn't rely only on formal logic, right? He's a scientist, he's saying that there is no reason to take those premises as valid.

And had you actually read the book you'd know that half his point was that even the religious don't usually get their morals from religion. They pick the parts they like.

[Metaphysician]

You realize that Dawkins doesn't rely only on formal logic, right? He's a scientist, he's saying that there is no reason to take those premises as valid.

There can be no reason to take any first principle as valid, because then that reason becomes the first principle and thus you end with an infinite regression. Some first principles can be seen as sillier than others but the bottom line is that faith is always placed in something in some form or fashion. The silliness becomes when people decide to argue about first principles, it's pointless really because they can't by definition, be proven. It amazes me that people are still arguing about these. Aristotle covered this a hell of a long time ago.

I understand that Dawkins has other reasons for criticizing religion and some of them are more valid than others but this is a silly conversation to have since science can't prove there isn't a God and Christians can't prove there is one. What's annoying to me is that all this bickering is getting in the way of the real truth, which is that if religion is done right, with the right perspective, then it shouldn't be opposed to the conclusions of science in the least (though the social claims made by people using the findings of science may often be dubious, just as the social claims made by people using religious doctrine are often dubious. It's my experience that regardless of what information is presented, people will take it and twist it and use it to their own advantage). And lets not all sit around and pretend that science doesn't have its problems. Science has its equivalents of false prophets and charlatans as well. People motivated by politics and money falsify findings, experiment results, much of which gets caught by peer review but sometimes not until years after it happens.

I think religion has about as much an effect on the morality of human kind as anything really. I mean, when you look at human kind across the board, you tend to find that people are pretty much the same regardless of their religion or lack thereof. There are people that care for others, people that exploit others, people that save lives, people that destroy them. People that strive to free themselves and others from tyranny, people that oppress others. Science, for all its advancements, has also been used as the means to kill billions. Twisted ideologies have served as the motivation for killing billions. Across the board, throughout history, everything pretty much remains the same. Some might argue that religion is the reason for this. I argue that humanity is the reason for this. After all, the one thing all religions have in common, is that they are practiced and (depending on your point of view) created, by humans. If you're an atheist, then blaming religion seems to be treating the symptoms not the disease, the disease being the human tendency toward domination, violence, corruption... eradicate religion and it will be replaced by something else.

[induction]

There can be no reason to take any first principle as valid, because then that reason becomes the first principle and thus you end with an infinite regression. Some first principles can be seen as sillier than others but the bottom line is that faith is always placed in something in some form or fashion. The silliness becomes when people decide to argue about first principles, it's pointless really because they can't by definition, be proven. It amazes me that people are still arguing about these. Aristotle covered this a hell of a long time ago.

While I agree with the rest of your post, and I'm aware that this has all been covered before, I think that this part is wrong. All first principles are not created equal except in the absence of observation. While it's true that first principles can't be proven correct, they can be proven incorrect by counterexample. Granted, 'valid' is not the right word, but arbitrary first principles that don't correlate with empirical observation are not equivalent to those that simply haven't been proven correct but do have strong inductive support. Aristotle was wrong about a lot of things (hot things don't really fall faster than cold things, for example), and curtis rightly pointed out that Dawkins is not using an abstract philosophical approach that treats all first principles as equally likely, but rather a scientific one where first principles can be discarded if they result in incorrect predictions. While it can be argued that the use of science requires the application of faith (for instance, we have to trust that physics doesn't change over time), this amount of faith is much less than that required to continue to hold on to first principles that don't lead to accurate predictions.

On the other hand, I agree with you that morality has more to do with human nature than with religion. In my personal experience, I don't find atheists to be less moral than religious people. I think the main effect of religion upon morality is to provide a construct that formalizes and enforces moral norms, not one that deduces 'correct' moral guidelines. Uniformity of moral values can be a stabilizing force in societies.

[mosc]

It's important to separate people's beliefs (their religion, if you want to call it that) from religious institutions. This conversation is walking all over the distinction. Morality is an individual's belief. "Religion" is a word that can mean many things but if you're talking about an institution, it doesn't have that much to do with morality. People with similar moralities may attend a particular institution's events, but their moralities are their own.

What I'm getting at is don't blame the institution for how people feel. They don't feel a certain way because the institution tells them to. Very few religions have rules regarding thought (Catholicism is one of the few that does). People who attend an institution regularly often share certain morality traits, but so do people of similar racial and socioeconomic backgrounds or people with similar nationalities. You get the idea. Don't look at a person and see an institution. It's a very bad stereotype.

EDIT: Religions can change and adapt to their congregations shifts in morality quite rapidly. It's happened many times. The institution's interests are certainly distinct from an individuals interests but the institution cannot stand on a morality not held by a majority of it's congregation for very long. They never have, they never will.

[Greyarcher]

I was thinking more of religion as a pseudo-culture or semi-culture [or somesuch] in this case. There may certainly be much variance within the overall semi-culture, but we can still talk about common themes and influences as a whole. For instance, a common holy book. Or moral teachings that are tied more or less to that holy book.

I may be mistaken, but I thought it was a fairly common feature for religion to be involved in morality and moral teachings, to the point of such things as connecting morality to divine decree. So I think it would be inaccurate or misleading to emphasize that morality is an individual thing and religion has little to do with it.

[mosc]

I disagree. Morality is in the mind. It's all about what a person feels. It's very individual by nature. A religion can preach a morality but I don't see a strong correlation between participation in what we commonly define as big-R 'Religion' and morality. Common beliefs, common history, even common political views are much easier to correlate between a religions institution and it's participants than morality. I suppose morality and belief are not entirely separate things but I think morality differences would be better correlated with other things than specified religion. The concept of fairness is a big part of how we define morality. We all seem to like to balance the scale of Justice between cause and effect. The variations in morality tend to be more cultural than religious. They're more about a law you would vote for than a god you would worship.

Some part of what classically gets defined as morality is fairly universal and as such doesn't correlate with religion at all. Respect for life, care for family, the golden rule, these concepts may vary in nuance but they are fairly common completely independent of religion. I would argue the nuances of morality that vary from individual to individual (excluding extreme minorities with dysfunctional moralities) are more tied to nationality, socioeconomic background, generational differences, etc. Not Religion.

In other words, certain religions having a problem with Homosexuality has little to do with whither people view it as moral or not. If anything, the causality is reversed. Religion has a problem with Homosexuality because throughout it's recent history, it's followers have found Homosexuality immoral. For example, speaking the Christian bible in a native language was Heresy for many centuries, and now it's not. What changed? The believers didn't like the concept anymore. The book of Leviticus translated into Greek, translated into Latin, translated into English (skipping a few no doubt) contains the popular phrases "a man shall not lie with another man" but right around it are far more definitive edicts about animal sacrifice and how to deal with your local leper community. Why don't Christians and Muslims sacrifice animals to their monotheistic god anymore or kick lepers to the curb? Because it became immoral! Clearly left to it's own devices the religion would have kept right along sacrificing animals for this and that. When Christians start thinking Homosexuality is moral, the church will change much quicker than people think. It's already begun.

[curtis95112]

I agree that in practice morality is individual. The problem is, a lot of people believe that morality is the exclusive domain of religion. And they believe that their morals come from religion too, the matter of whether it actually has notwithstanding. Also, while morality is not the exclusive domain of religion, religion (the thing they believe, not what their book says) plays a big role in forming morality. It contributes to cultural inertia. Consider the amount of religious rhetoric flying around in the same-sex marriage debate.

To OP: A lot of religion is about how god(s) is infinitely wiser than us and how fallible we are. Given that, using one's personal common sense would be considered unwise and arrogant. And I think you're supposed to follow morals because it's the right thing to do. The threat of hell is secondary.

[Metaphysician]

There can be no reason to take any first principle as valid, because then that reason becomes the first principle and thus you end with an infinite regression. Some first principles can be seen as sillier than others but the bottom line is that faith is always placed in something in some form or fashion. The silliness becomes when people decide to argue about first principles, it's pointless really because they can't by definition, be proven. It amazes me that people are still arguing about these. Aristotle covered this a hell of a long time ago.

All first principles are not created equal except in the absence of observation. While it's true that first principles can't be proven correct, they can be proven incorrect by counterexample. Granted, 'valid' is not the right word, but arbitrary first principles that don't correlate with empirical observation are not equivalent to those that simply haven't been proven correct but do have strong inductive support.

I completely agree with this statement and must say that I find it to be very well put. I meant to communicate much the same thing in my post in the much inferior bolded statement. I think I was a little lost in my own thoughts and tired at the time I wrote it, so I'm glad you picked up on it and decided to do a better job than I did with it. I think there are a lot of things out there masquerading as first principles that really aren't. For instance, if somebody came up to me and said "I believe that Toucan Sam is God and you can't prove me wrong." I would just walk away laughing. Where I think many people get confused is that they mix up believing in a God, or the possibility of the existence of a God, with believing in their God. I think belief in a God (in some form or fashion) is a valid first principle. But it ceases to be a first principle once you start to get incredibly specific. If the God a person ends up believing in defies reason, or is internally inconsistent, then it's valid to tell them that their belief in their God is unreasonable.

The core of my post though, was to encourage people to stop getting hung up on religion as the source of all the problems and realize that the real problem is unreasonable people. If we can create a more reasonable humanity, then the problems will take care of themselves in the long run. Attacking religion isn't going to get anybody anywhere, instead of attacking something people hold dear, simply advocate the benefits of reason. Teach reason and logic in schools. Teach people how to think, instead of just screaming about how they're wrong and the source of all the worlds problems. Just because it's true doesn't mean saying it will be productive. Do what the Christians want to do, get kids when they're young. Don't give them answers, give them questions, give them the ability to ask the right questions, the hard questions, and the follow up questions. Training people that are just looking to be given all the answers sure as hell won't solve the problem, because people will find their answers in the most ridiculous places and if they're conditioned to accept the answers given to them by authority, and can't think for themselves.

[Lucrece]

The problem is that it's a lot harder to argue against the conclusions/findings of a being said to be superior/supreme over men than it is to call bullshit/reject what someone of your own stature (a human being) says.

If someone says "Supreme Being says this" and enough people believe it, their trust on some greater being will always win out over trust in a peer, especially in Abrahamic religions where mankind is constantly depicted as filthy, destructive, and unworthy of trust due to its vulnerability to temptation.

Churches offer a perfect mix for population manipulation because they offer a cure to loneliness by creating reliable community, and seeking the comfort of being part of a stable community means that people are willing to take up some viewpoints that won't affect most of them (5-8% of the population is gay, and it's not like you can just change -- unlike divorce, where half of your flock could be lost if you antagonize them over it) in exchange for being part of it.

[mosc]

The problem is that it's a lot harder to argue against the conclusions/findings of a being said to be superior/supreme over men than it is to call bullshit/reject what someone of your own stature (a human being) says.

If someone says "Supreme Being says this" and enough people believe it, their trust on some greater being will always win out over trust in a peer, especially in Abrahamic religions where mankind is constantly depicted as filthy, destructive, and unworthy of trust due to its vulnerability to temptation.

Churches offer a perfect mix for population manipulation because they offer a cure to loneliness by creating reliable community, and seeking the comfort of being part of a stable community means that people are willing to take up some viewpoints that won't affect most of them (5-8% of the population is gay, and it's not like you can just change -- unlike divorce, where half of your flock could be lost if you antagonize them over it) in exchange for being part of it.

Wow, you have SERIOUS issues and a very biased and jaded reading of the bible. I'm not going to say anyone sane actually enjoys reading Leviticus, but there are plenty of uplifting parts and you seem to have missed the main points entirely.

[curtis95112]

Or maybe you're just reading the uplifting parts?
I thought the whole point of the Bible was that we're sinners? And, in absence of a strong ruler and punishment, we fall to temptation.
See: Eve, people in general by the time of Noah, Babel, the idol they made when Moses was up the mountain, punished by a massacre I think, the fallibility of even King David, the pharisees by the time of the New testament.
Job and the like seem to be exceptions to the rule.

[Copper Bezel]

Wow, you have SERIOUS issues and a very biased and jaded reading of the bible. I'm not going to say anyone sane actually enjoys reading Leviticus, but there are plenty of uplifting parts and you seem to have missed the main points entirely.

Bwah? How so? It's not at all incompatible with anything you said. I mean, you said yourself that religion slows down moral development - that it catches up "sooner than we'll think," rather; but still, it's delayed by obedience to the presumed higher power until people can convince themselves that they'd only misunderstood what that higher power said, or their parents had.

Or did you mean the bit about how people are the unworthy grime on the bottom of Someone's shoes? Because that's all over the damned book. All have fallen short of the glory, etc.

[mosc]

Slows down moral development? Did you miss the entire abolishionist movement in your textbook? Sleep through a 1940's Eastern Europe lesson or two? Wow. People are short-sided. No I certainly would never say anything that moronically stupid. I said religion reflects the morality of the culture much more than the culture reflects the morality of the religion.

Sin, sinners, and sinning is not really an old testament "abrahamic" concept. Jesus forgives sin to let you into heaven. Jews and Muslims don't have a gatekeeper, a criteria that must be met, etc. The entire concept of hell doesn't even exist in Judaism. Many more recent protestant branches of Christianity have long since abandoned things like "original sin", "eternal damnation", etc. The beliefs you speak of I would say are basically dated interpretations of Catholicism.

curtis95112, the main points of the bible are clearly about forgiveness, love, justice, and kindness. The number of passages that talk about such things are far more common than you seem to be letting on. It's a very long book written by many different people over many generations but the main themes are not that hard to miss.

[Lucrece]

How convenient of you to dismiss those parts of the text you disagree with as "dated" to try to paint them as irrelevant. Next time you go questioning people's view of the world, I suggest you take a good trip to the Philippines.

Wow, you have SERIOUS issues and a very biased and jaded reading of the bible. I'm not going to say anyone sane actually enjoys reading Leviticus, but there are plenty of uplifting parts and you seem to have missed the main points entirely.

And a person with this kind of reaction has no issues? Defensive much about your religion? Oh, sorry,you haven't been on the receiving end of the real-world applications of your sublime text. Of course, feel free to pass off Reform Judaism as the model followed by all Jews of the world and more conservative/orthodox views being "dated".

curtis95112, the main points of the bible are clearly about forgiveness, love, justice, and kindness. The number of passages that talk about such things are far more common than you seem to be letting on. It's a very long book written by many different people over many generations but the main themes are not that hard to miss.

And I suffer from selective reading? Jesus does not just let you into heaven. You have to believe in him and follow the rules. You have to be repentant. You have to recognize certain behavior as "sin" (i.e. inferior, undesirable behavior) when you don't even believe it is bad or immoral behavior.

It seems like you haven't even taken a look at Corinthians and just what prick Paul could come off as.

[Copper Bezel]

Slows down moral development? Did you miss the entire abolishionist movement in your textbook? Sleep through a 1940's Eastern Europe lesson or two? Wow. People are short-sided. No I certainly would never say anything that moronically stupid. I said religion reflects the morality of the culture much more than the culture reflects the morality of the religion.

Sin, sinners, and sinning is not really an old testament "abrahamic" concept. Jesus forgives sin to let you into heaven. Jews and Muslims don't have a gatekeeper, a criteria that must be met, etc. The entire concept of hell doesn't even exist in Judaism. Many more recent protestant branches of Christianity have long since abandoned things like "original sin", "eternal damnation", etc. The beliefs you speak of I would say are basically dated interpretations of Catholicism.

Stating the obvious here, but Protestantism is a reaction to Catholicism. Everyone (save, what, the Eastern Orthodox Church?) went through that bottleneck. So "outdated" or no, Catholic dogma is every bit as foundational as the scripture itself to modern Christianity. (The Trinity is also a non-Abrahamic invention of the early Catholic Church. Going to toss that out, too?)

But yes, you're right that the effect of religion on morality is minimal and that cultural norms drive changes in religion. The Abolition movement is a good example, because each side of that debate quoted scripture at the other, the morally right side won out, and now the moral premise is accepted as a part of what the religion has to say on the issue. But that process can't not take time. To me, that seems like a straightforward, structural implication that religion must slow moral development. So I'm sorry for attributing an idea to your post that you didn't intend, but I really did think it was implied in your argument.

But I'm biased by the fact that I live in the US, where religiosity and resistance to evolving cultural norms and moral views are absolutely synonymous. But I'm probably reading the causality backwards, there; religiosity is really just a result of a certain set of norms within that subculture. Religion could have no effect on morality at all, so long as morality doesn't have to filter through that loop I mentioned earlier.

The idea that humans are the shit that shit shits is doubtless less prevalent elsewhere as well, but it's quite mainstream in US Christianity, particularly in the Evangelical movement.

If someone says "Supreme Being says this" and enough people believe it, their trust on some greater being will always win out over trust in a peer, especially in Abrahamic religions where mankind is constantly depicted as filthy, destructive, and unworthy of trust due to its vulnerability to temptation.

Giving credit where credit is due, this was sort of the point of religion in the first place, or at least its first, best contribution to civilization. The Code of Hammurabi and the Mosaic Law worked in exactly the same way - attributing a code of laws to a deity to put them above human authority, including that of the ruler himself. I don't think that works without religion as a mechanism.

[curtis95112]

curtis95112, the main points of the bible are clearly about forgiveness, love, justice, and kindness. The number of passages that talk about such things are far more common than you seem to be letting on. It's a very long book written by many different people over many generations but the main themes are not that hard to miss.

That's because they're the only parts you read in church.
The main theme of the Bible is "You are unworthy. Obey, or burn for eternity". Human fallibility is what makes the whole story work.
Eve eats the fruit, that becomes the reason for everything bad. Humans are given a partial retrieve in the New Testament, contingent on us doing exactly what we're told.

You cannot miss this. You cannot say that forgiveness is the main theme of the Bible when you have the whole world massacred by a freaking flood (If you want to go further, there's also the fact that we've all been sentenced to pain and death because our great-great-......-great grandparents ate a fruit). Having Jesus come to "save" us isn't forgiveness, it's more akin to sparing the few sympathizers.

[Lucrece]

Not to mention that the whole implication of forgiveness is that there was something wrong with us to begin with, enough to merit the death of God's one and only son. What a hideously anti-humanist commentary.

[mosc]

Original Sin is hardly mainstream dogma for anyone but Catholics let alone any non-christian faith. Even within Catholicism, there's been a shift away from it with Pope John Paul's edicts respecting other covenants. The bible's plenty big where if you look for hate, you'll find it. I'm not arguing that point at all. I don't know why you want me to defend all of the worst parts of all religions here or something. I'm just trying to separate morality as a separate and fairly independent thing from Religion. I'll be the first to say that there's been more murder and death in the name of Jesus Christ than any other cause in history. Religions are by nature somewhat elitist which in and of itself can be viewed as intolerant. But so are any social clicks, circles, etc.

Don't you see how all these concepts you are mentioning stem from the politics of the time? Feudalism very survival depended on the structuring of the church to fit it's needs. It's no different today with "Evangelical" variations sprouting up in all flavors. They're a reflection of the culture and the morality of the people who were unsatisfied with existing religions.

TOPIC: Religion doesn't have much effect on morality. Morality has a much more direct effect on Religion. Although much of morality is widely consistent, variations correlate more closely with political groups, generational differences, social circles, etc. Religions have adjusted dogma time and time again to re-align with current trends in politics and morality.

[Copper Bezel]

Original Sin is hardly mainstream dogma for anyone but Catholics let alone any non-christian faith.

Evangelicals in the US don't call it Original Sin, but the idea that the world exists in a fallen state since Adam's fall and that all human beings are flawed and in need of salvation is very mainstream within that group, and it's a doctrine that literally and straightforwardly posits that every human being who has ever lived deserves eternal punishment. My understanding is that Baptists believe similarly, while Episcopalians and Lutherans downplay that doctrine immensely. The neutered doctrine that removes Hell and salvation is a minority. I can't speak on groups outside the US.

Even within Catholicism, there's been a shift away from it with Pope John Paul's edicts respecting other covenants. The bible's plenty big where if you look for hate, you'll find it.

The bible is a a hateful book and there's a lot of hate in it, but it's not interchangeable with the religions it inspires. We're discussing religion here, not literature.

I'm not arguing that point at all. I don't know why you want me to defend all of the worst parts of all religions here or something.

Specifically, you're being asked to defend the part that you felt was worth personally insulting Lucrece over when ze criticized it. But I don't suppose that's very productive.

[mosc]

Specifically, you're being asked to defend the part that you felt was worth personally insulting Lucrece over when ze criticized it. But I don't suppose that's very productive.

Ok fine. "Churches offer a perfect mix for population manipulation..." Is bullshit. It's pretty close to the old "religion is the opiate of the masses" line, is completely intolerant of Religion (good and bad parts alike), unfairly classifies religion as propaganda, implies malicious intent, etc. Say what you want about Religion as a concept but it's not exactly opaque. One of the few constants is an almost compulsive need for communication. It's almost how we define how religious someone is, by how much they talk about their religion. Population manipulation is a bigoted exaggeration of intent.

[LaserGuy]

Original Sin is hardly mainstream dogma for anyone but Catholics let alone any non-christian faith.

The five largest denominations in the United States are: The Catholic Church, The Southern Baptist Convention, The United Methodist Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Church of God in Christ. Of these, only the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) do not have a doctrine of original sin. Other major denominations that have doctrines of original sin include most Lutherans and Pentecostals, two of the largest Protestant denominations in the world. I'd be tempted to say that most major Christian denominations believe in original sin, and a similar majority (with considerable overlap) believe in hell.

curtis95112, the main points of the bible are clearly about forgiveness, love, justice, and kindness. The number of passages that talk about such things are far more common than you seem to be letting on. It's a very long book written by many different people over many generations but the main themes are not that hard to miss.

Some fun facts...

The words love, loves, loving, loved mentioned a total of 441 times in the Bible. The words sin and sins are mentioned 509 times.
The words forgive, forgave, forgives, forgiveness are mentioned 69 times. Vengeance is mentioned 66 times.
The words justice and just are mentioned 116 times. Wrath is mentioned 256 times.
The words kind and kindness are mentioned 88 times. Hate is mentioned 99.

Make of that what you will. Oh, this is from KJV, by the way.

[Greyarcher]

But I'm biased by the fact that I live in the US, where religiosity and resistance to evolving cultural norms and moral views are absolutely synonymous. But I'm probably reading the causality backwards, there; religiosity is really just a result of a certain set of norms within that subculture. Religion could have no effect on morality at all, so long as morality doesn't have to filter through that loop I mentioned earlier.

Spoiler:

That--hmmm. You know, for a long time I've thought that religion is a lodestone of tradition, and its presence slows cultural shifts. But it suddenly occurred to me: older generations are relatively less response to change than newer generations anyway, yes? Also: racism. As far as I know, it's not especially a religious phenomenon, and yet it seems to have a strange lingering hold in the US. If morality falls into a pattern like........

...actually, I suppose that's not especially relevant. The only questions are:
1. Are churches or other religious gatherings predominantly focal centers for teaching "older" moral views?
2. Do these teachings have any efficacy?

If the answer to both question is "yes" then religion does serve to slow cultural/moral change. Primarily by propagating and reinforcing older moral views amongst the population.

...Unless there is some other element of religion that actually serves to accelerate moral change in the population. E.g. by eventually assimilating and teaching newer moral views and thus facilitating their spread in a manner that would never occur in the absence of religious moral teaching. Then again, these hypotheticals involve picturing how particular societies would deal with moral teaching in the complete absence of religion (e.g. within family groups only?); I'm not sure how the answer would play out in various countries.

------

I disagree. Morality is in the mind. It's all about what a person feels. It's very individual by nature. A religion can preach a morality but I don't see a strong correlation between participation in what we commonly define as big-R 'Religion' and morality. Common beliefs, common history, even common political views are much easier to correlate between a religions institution and it's participants than morality. I suppose morality and belief are not entirely separate things but I think morality differences would be better correlated with other things than specified religion. The concept of fairness is a big part of how we define morality. We all seem to like to balance the scale of Justice between cause and effect. The variations in morality tend to be more cultural than religious.

If you acknowledge that one's external/social world has an influence on moral views, then there's no basis for saying that morality varies according to culture but religion has no impact. To do so is to claim that religion or religious teachings have no sort of social impact, which I think is wholly untenable. A discussion about the degree of influence is a different story.

The idea that religion is used as a vehicle by a certain sub-culture to teach its particular moral views, and so morality is primarily a cultural issue--that's somewhat interesting. But I think that's still what we could call "an effect of religion upon morality". Unless we are insisting that many things people normally think of as "religion" would better be thought of as "sub-culture" and not "religion" at all. But since I think of religion and its denominations/sects as semi-culture from the start, I don't think I'd go that with that.

Not that I think you hold that view. It just occurred to me when running through possible ways in which your denial of religion's influence on morality would be tenable.

[Lucrece]

Specifically, you're being asked to defend the part that you felt was worth personally insulting Lucrece over when ze criticized it. But I don't suppose that's very productive.

Ok fine. "Churches offer a perfect mix for population manipulation..." Is bullshit. It's pretty close to the old "religion is the opiate of the masses" line, is completely intolerant of Religion (good and bad parts alike), unfairly classifies religion as propaganda, implies malicious intent, etc. Say what you want about Religion as a concept but it's not exactly opaque. One of the few constants is an almost compulsive need for communication. It's almost how we define how religious someone is, by how much they talk about their religion. Population manipulation is a bigoted exaggeration of intent.

So you think a setting when you go in and sit while some self-appointed leader/theological authority gives you life directives on a one-way format (no Q&A whatsoever after the sermon in front of the parish), that is not population control? What is religion if not a taught set of rules to live by? How often have you seen members of the church-going community stand up during a sermon and object to a point the pastor is saying? When over 4000 evangelicals were bused in from nearby New Jersey and other states by the senator Rev. Ruben Diaz Sr. to protest same-sex marriage legislation under his leadership (and sunk that legislation in that session), was that not population control? When membership in a church community is contingent on sharing/pretending to share the entirety of the dogma of the pastors and clerics, is that not population control? When nuns get excommunicated for provided emergency abortions to vulnerable mothers, is that not controlling your flock under threats of spiritual separation? When the LDS Church excommunicates gay people who refuse to participate in "reparative therapy", and commands the family to separate from those undesirables, is that not population control?

Maybe I'm biased in the U.S., but over here the dominant denominations function strictly under spreading propaganda. If you can't see that in evangelical Christianity and the incredibly lucrative industry of celebrity religion in the likes of Joel Osteen, I don't know what to tell you other than you have a very sheltered view of how churches function in the world at large and not in a few select urban centers with the less populous UCC/Reform Judaism denominations.

[mosc]

No effect... hm. I don't think it's that binary. Religion is in part a social construct. I believe social connections often correlate with moral common ground. That said, Religion has other parts to it. Those parts try to be more static by nature. Eliade called it the "separation of the sacred and the profane" which has always made the most sense to me. Religion is a form of social grouping with shared sacred and profane dogma. This dogma is central. More central than morality.

So you think a setting when you go in and sit while some self-appointed leader gives you life directives on a one-way format (no Q&A whatsoever after the sermon in front of the parish), that is not population control? What is religion if not a taught set of rules to live by?

Religion is not just rules to live by. It may include such things but there are plenty of religions that don't even have these things. Observances center around dates of significance and highly ritualized patterns. Religion better correlates with social groups celebrating anniversaries of births, deaths, events (weddings, tragedies, etc) with specific events and foods. Less state propaganda and more remembering to bring the macaroni salad you make every year for your aunt's memorial day pick-nick.

Maybe I'm biased in the U.S., but over here the dominant denominations function strictly under spreading propaganda. If you can't see that in evangelical Christianity and the incredibly lucrative industry of celebrity religion in the likes of Joel Osteen, I don't know what to tell you other than you have a very sheltered view of how churches function in the world at large and not in a few select urban centers with the less populous UCC/Reform Judaism denominations.

I'm not even sure I would classify "televangelists" as religion. It fails many of the criteria we would use to define religion. They are better described as grifters, con men, scam artists, etc. Their product, if they have one at all, is to form a cult of personality. They may borrow heavily from religious themes and terminology but the message is more fundraiser and less culture.

Maybe the problem is some folks here are trying to talk about a fairly loud minority of "devout Christians" and I'm talking about the concept of Religion more academically. When you say things like "Religion is an impediment to progress", you're not talking about some rather intolerant Christians alone. Please keep that in mind. Religion does tend to label and rule harshly on that which it does not approve of, I make no argument there. It has been the cause (read not cause->effect but cause as in rationale/excuse) for war and bloodshed on a global scale. But this is rather inherent because any human society forms religion-like rituals and special dates of remembrance. Just as they also find reasons to hate and kill the neighboring society. Religion is a constant presence and acts as a window into the history of a culture but with identity often comes a superiority complex.

[DSenette]

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I disagree. Morality is in the mind. It's all about what a person feels. It's very individual by nature. A religion can preach a morality but I don't see a strong correlation between participation in what we commonly define as big-R 'Religion' and morality. Common beliefs, common history, even common political views are much easier to correlate between a religions institution and it's participants than morality. I suppose morality and belief are not entirely separate things but I think morality differences would be better correlated with other things than specified religion. The concept of fairness is a big part of how we define morality. We all seem to like to balance the scale of Justice between cause and effect. The variations in morality tend to be more cultural than religious.

If you acknowledge that one's external/social world has an influence on moral views, then there's no basis for saying that morality varies according to culture but religion has no impact. To do so is to claim that religion or religious teachings have no sort of social impact, which I think is wholly untenable. A discussion about the degree of influence is a different story.

The idea that religion is used as a vehicle by a certain sub-culture to teach its particular moral views, and so morality is primarily a cultural issue--that's somewhat interesting. But I think that's still what we could call "an effect of religion upon morality". Unless we are insisting that many things people normally think of as "religion" would better be thought of as "sub-culture" and not "religion" at all. But since I think of religion and its denominations/sects as semi-culture from the start, I don't think I'd go that with that.

Not that I think you hold that view. It just occurred to me when running through possible ways in which your denial of religion's influence on morality would be tenable.

well i think this is the problem. religion doesn't need to be "thought of" as a sub culture....it is a sub-culture. that doesn't remove it's influence on the members of said culture.

which is...you know....what culture is (the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular group). the culture that someone belongs to completely influences the traits that are inherent in said culture.

MORALITY is a term that we use to describe what we've deemed to be acceptable, there's nothing inherent about it or innate about morality. there are certain traits of moral behavior that appear to be the norm (i.e. not running around killing folk) but the vast majority of what most people consider morality are learned behaviors. like, "stealing is bad". while children and higher apes (and some other animals) are capable of altruism (once they realize that there are other entities that are not themselves in the world) and generosity, they all start off as stealing little fuckers that take whatever they please from whoever happens to have it at the time. the social culture that they live in will either encourage that behavior (like certain monkey "tribes" that will encourage their members to not to steal from each other...but taking things from "not monkeys" is encouraged. or human cultures through out history who have rules about killing people, unless those people were part of another tribe, or your slaves, or your adulterous wife, or your sister who was just raped.....)

[Greyarcher]

well i think this is the problem. religion doesn't need to be "thought of" as a sub culture....it is a sub-culture. that doesn't remove it's influence on the members of said culture.

which is...you know....what culture is (the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular group). the culture that someone belongs to completely influences the traits that are inherent in said culture.

I don't really disagree. I'm just iffy on wording because, for instance, Christianity and Islam are spread across multiple countries and cultures. So in a sense religion is both super-culture and sub-culture. The common elements across cultures are super-culture; but specific local themes and interpretations are sub-culture.

That's why I've been tentatively calling it "semi-culture". Because it's not the entirety of a culture, nor merely super- or sub-.

[mosc]

DSenette, I agree. Much of what we talk about as morality is instinctual. What we think of as immoral is probably pretty much a direct reflection as what we think of as different from ourselves or against our own interests. It's not much more complicated than that.

I believe people are generally uncomfortable with homosexuality because they are uncomfortable with sodomy. They cannot think of male homosexual intercourse as a mutually pleasurable and mutually desired by two men. They place themselves in that situation and feel violated. I also find it not completely without cause. Sodomy can be tied with heterosexual male hazing rituals, torture, and in many ways pure dominance. These things come to mind more intuitively for a straight male than what could more accurately be described medically as mutual masturbation between two consenting adults. A lack of clarity (not saying justly) over the causes of the preference variation also contribute.

Wow, that paragraph is probably going to disturb some people. Good. I think those are the real issues. Religion will change with the flock.

[DSenette]

DSenette, I agree. Much of what we talk about as morality is instinctual. What we think of as immoral is probably pretty much a direct reflection as what we think of as different from ourselves or against our own interests. It's not much more complicated than that.

I believe people are generally uncomfortable with homosexuality because they are uncomfortable with sodomy. They cannot think of male homosexual intercourse as a mutually pleasurable and mutually desired by two men. They place themselves in that situation and feel violated. I also find it not completely without cause. Sodomy can be tied with heterosexual male hazing rituals, torture, and in many ways pure dominance. These things come to mind more intuitively for a straight male than what could more accurately be described medically as mutual masturbation between two consenting adults. A lack of clarity (not saying justly) over the causes of the preference variation also contribute.

Wow, that paragraph is probably going to disturb some people. Good. I think those are the real issues. Religion will change with the flock.

uh, no that's not what i said....most actions that people would consider moral are not instinctual. in fact IN GENERAL morality is completely opposite of what we would currently consider moral (i.e. fucking as many women as possible, by any means possible, to create as many children as possible is TOTALLY instinct....it's not moral though)....so your idea that morality is "internal" or "entirely personal" is...well retarded.

our culture is what shapes our morality and influences our ideas about what is right and wrong....religion is a HUGE part of that culture, ergo, religion has a huge effect on morality.


also, to your middle paragraph....a male not wanting to be raped, and people being uncomfortable with sodomy are not the same thing. at all. and people aren't NATURALLY afraid of sodomy (as far as i know)....it's culturally influenced fear.

[Copper Bezel]

uh, no that's not what i said....most actions that people would consider moral are not instinctual. in fact IN GENERAL morality is completely opposite of what we would currently consider moral (i.e. fucking as many women as possible, by any means possible, to create as many children as possible is TOTALLY instinct....it's not moral though)....so your idea that morality is "internal" or "entirely personal" is...well retarded.

Too much of the "socialized ape" and the "state of nature" in there, I think. Some of our moral stances certainly are biological in origin. Chimpanzees have a morality, too. So I wouldn't lump in "resisting base inclinations" with "resisting biology," because they might overlap, but there are things that fall in one category but not the other. (If we're using "natural" as "biological," that is. If we mean "natural" to mean "in the absence of culture" - well, maybe, but you'd have to accept the lineage of culture that goes back before Homo sapiens.)

also, to your middle paragraph....a male not wanting to be raped, and people being uncomfortable with sodomy are not the same thing. at all. and people aren't NATURALLY afraid of sodomy (as far as i know)....it's culturally influenced fear.

No, I don't think it's related to fear of rape at all. I do think it's a gut reaction that's only encouraged and reinforced, rather than caused, by religious ideology. People tend to get a fair bit squicked over any sex they wouldn't like to have a part in. Whether that's biological or cultural is anyone's guess (although incest taboos, for one, are certainly biological in origin.) Really, I don't think it's any different from the reaction you might get from weird food combinations - I think mosc is right that we naturally place ourselves in the role we see played and react to that imagined experience.)

[mosc]

What would you call a common morality difference? How about if homosexual relationships are moral? The argument proposed above is that religion is cultural and therefor has an effect but do we see people who grow up in a religion today holding the same morality as the previous generation? Clearly no. Age is fairly well correlated with homosexual tolerance. Religion is clearly not shaping the next generation's morality.

[Lucrece]

Will you still need me, will you still heed me, when you're sixty-four?*
In recent months we’ve seen several polls showing a majority of Americans now support marriage equality (plus one from NOM, less favorable, that merely highlights their own polling desperation).

These polls always display amazing support from young voters. Our opponents dismiss that: People get more conservative as they get older. They’ll change their minds. They’ll come to our side.

Many people do get more conservative as they age. Does that mean we’ll lose them? I’ve got two replies:

No.
It doesn’t matter.
I dove into the ABC/Washington Post poll, which compares results from March 2011 and October 2005 and breaks down the data by age. It’s pretty damn interesting. First, let’s deal with…

It doesn’t matter.



Support for marriage equality has increased in every age group from 2005 to 2011.



Now, this doesn’t tell us whether we’re losing people as they age. When you compare, say 30-39-year-olds in 2005 and 2011, you’re not comparing the same demographic group. The older half of 2005′s 30-39ers aged up into the 40-49 group by 2011, and were replaced by 2005′s older 20-29ers.

But it doesn’t matter. Even if we were losing some individuals as they age, we’re still making inroads into every age group. According to ABC/WP’s data, we’ve gone deep enough to gain a majority across the population, with momentum on our side.

Still, I would like to know what’s happening in people’s heads as they get older. Are we losing them? I can’t be sure, but I think the answer is…

No.

I wish this data were broken into five-year cohorts (30-34, 35-39, 40-44, etc.). That would better match the five-and-a-half-year period between surveys: 2005′s 30-34-year-olds would become 2011′s 35-39ers, and we could see how they had changed.

But we’re stuck with these ten-year cohorts. That means about half of 2005′s 30-39ers have aged into 2011′s 40-49er group. Let’s make the best of it and compare those numbers.

This chart compares each 2005 cohort with its aged-up 2011 counterpart.





That’s pretty cool. Except for the oldest respondents, each group in 2011 was more supportive than its younger neighbor in 2005. (And that oldest group spans more years than any other, possibly making it less susceptible to change.) So in other words:

For the most part, older people are more supportive of marriage equality in 2011 than younger people were in 2005.

Of course, this on the sloppy side, the result of wrestling with whatever data’s available. To do this right, we’d want a long-term longitudinal survey, asking a large sample of the same people year after year, preferably with the marriage equality question buried among a bunch of other issues covered by the survey.

That being said, I’d still like to point out this startling result:




Do you see that?

50-64-year-olds today aren’t just more supportive than 50-64-year-olds five years ago…

…or 40-49-year-olds five years ago…

…but are even more supportive than 30-39-year-olds five years ago!

That’s amazing. And it makes it hard to believe we’re losing people as they age. They may get more conservative (I don’t have data on that) but they’re not abandoning us. In fact, they’re joining us. That makes sense. Every year you live is another year you might meet more real, live gay people, decent folk to knock out the demonizing anti-gay stereotypes most of us grew up with.

Lord, I’d love more data. If anyone has other surveys conducted over time and broken down by age, please send them to me.

One last note.

Some people look at these surveys and say, We just have to wait for the bigots to die. Ugh. A gay commenter on another blog made an angry point along the lines of, I’ve been fighting for equality since the 60s. When you’re waiting for the older generation to die, you’re waiting for me to die. I fought too hard for too long — and you’re reaping too many benefits — for me to put up with that bullshit.

We don’t have to wait for anyone to die. And we don’t have to dismiss any generation as bigots. That’s what these numbers tell us. We can reach every age group. We can fight for everyone’s equality, no matter how old they are, no matter how old we are, and we can do it today.

http://wakingupnow.com/blog/when-youre-sixty-four

I think that's more of a result of visibility than of age. Ultimately, some people started taking steps and coming out despite the consequences, and we're reaping the benefits of that visibility. It's not so much age as lack of exposure and counterexamples to the boogeymen the churches were creating. Of course, it's easier to fight prejudice at younger ages because defense mechanisms are less sophisticated and easier to overcome.

It is true religion is shaping morality less, but at least in the U.S., we're nowhere near close the numbers for religion to be irrelevant yet, so while religion shapes morality there's a cognitive dissonance going on when it comes to it affecting those you know or care about.

[Greyarcher]

What would you call a common morality difference? How about if homosexual relationships are moral? The argument proposed above is that religion is cultural and therefor has an effect but do we see people who grow up in a religion today holding the same morality as the previous generation? Clearly no. Age is fairly well correlated with homosexual tolerance. Religion is clearly not shaping the next generation's morality.

I'd more explicitly remark on the question of efficacy though. After all, the ability of culture to change in spite of any religious influence is not an indication that there is no religious influence. That would be like saying parents have no influence over their children in cases where the children end up taking their peers' views instead; the conclusion would be a gross leap in logic.

The more secular a society is, the more I would expect religion to lack this efficacy. It's a natural effect of exposure to contrary social elements. Though head back a number of centuries, and the balance between these social elements changes quite a bit.

[guenther]

Let me offer up another example that I haven't seen mentioned yet. Religious people are more likely to donate time, money and blood than secular people (I lost my old citation, but this seems to make the same claim, though I didn't have time to read the whole thing). Does this reflect a difference in morality? Or if the religious and the areligious agree that such donations are a good thing, does it reflect how well those moral beliefs translate into behavior?

In my opinion, I think it's clear that religion plays some role in morality (as well as moral behavior), but I think the relationship is often complicated, even for a single person. Beyond the above reference, I don't have much to offer up besides anecdotes.

[Greyarcher]

Let me offer up another example that I haven't seen mentioned yet. Religious people are more likely to donate time, money and blood than secular people (I lost my old citation, but this seems to make the same claim, though I didn't have time to read the whole thing). Does this reflect a difference in morality? Or if the religious and the areligious agree that such donations are a good thing, does it reflect how well those moral beliefs translate into behavior?

In my opinion, I think it's clear that religion plays some role in morality (as well as moral behavior), but I think the relationship is often complicated, even for a single person. Beyond the above reference, I don't have much to offer up besides anecdotes.

I would say it represents a difference in social activities, and possibly incentives. On the one hand, there's the simple fact that the non-religious have no concern with heaven or any other afterlife, or otherwise living up to some supernatural moral standard, so they lack an extra motivation that the religious have. Thus, moral thought isn't reinforced by some other set of beliefs. On the other hand, the non-religious often don't have the same social gatherings that the religious have; there is less opportunity for group influences towards a charitable direction, and again, less opportunity for moral thoughts and activities to be reinforced by external influences.

It's probably more complicated than that, but those are two factors that come to mind.

I'm not familiar with non-religious moral gatherings, as with humanism or suchlike, but it would be interesting to see if their statistics differed from the religious and the unaffiliated non-religious.

[Lucrece]

The non-religious have far less robust organization to mobilize certain drives and donation gathering. There are churches comprised of 4k+ people, all of which just need prodding from their pastor to hand over donations. How many atheist congragations do you see, and what are their usual numbers?