Morality and Religion

Morality and Religion

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TOC o “1-3” h z u Morality and Religion PAGEREF _Toc322867786 h 3Introduction PAGEREF _Toc322867787 h 3Morality and Religion PAGEREF _Toc322867788 h 3Moral Arguments PAGEREF _Toc322867789 h 5What Is Ethics devoid of God? PAGEREF _Toc322867790 h 6Is Morality related To Religion? PAGEREF _Toc322867791 h 7Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc322867792 h 9References PAGEREF _Toc322867793 h 10

Morality and ReligionIntroductionCan humanity be morally upright without inclination on a dogma or God? Can humanity be moral devoid of religion? The response to these queries is an undeniable Yes. Humanity indeed does not require to believe in God a deity or to profess to any religion so as to be morally upright or to perform good deeds. However, believing in a religious entity or God can play a significant role in a person’s moral values, but it is not obligatory. This paper will begin with breaking down what it means to be moral with the description of moral, which is relating to values of wrong and right in conduct, or conformity to a standard of appropriate behavior. In that perspective, a human being can be ethical devoid of belief in God, since it depends on the individual to decide to be moral. Humanity does not of necessity to belong to some religion, so as to have a sense of moral wrong or right. Moral righteousness is innate, and not predicated on mystical faith, since morality is a creation of social, but not religious interaction. Unfortunately, the erroneous idea that humanity cannot be moral devoid of professing belief in God or without professing to a religion is dominant in the majority of societies across humanity. This erroneous idea is largely accountable for lack of advancement in those areas of human existence where religions apply moral authority (Craig & Sinnott, 2004).

Morality and ReligionIs there any interrelation between religion and morality? Ethical obligations are often considered as commands with power behind them. Nevertheless, what is the foundation of that authority? Is it appropriate to declare that the single grounds for them being ethical obligations are that they have been instructed by God? The character of the relationship between morality and religion, whether there is one in any way, is a fundamental concern for religious advocates. According to Alston (2006), be religious and to declare religious allegations is to be devoted to a set of moral principles.

Much religious lingo is the expression of morality and consequently religious advocates have devoted themselves to behavioral norms. This includes abstaining from a number of actions in addition to fulfilling others. However, is the interrelation between morality and religion and morality and God the same thing? Is it conceivable that religious morality is perhaps unrelated the moral instructions of God, or is it feasible to be submissive to the instructions of God devoid of being devoted to a religious moral society? Religious believers might argue that, even if a human being gets away with outrageous transgressions on earth, chastisement would follow him in the eternal life. On the other hand, those who have defied the persuasion to do wrong will be recompensed, and, therefore, even if it is likely to evade earthly punishment it is not in the religious believers’ eschatological interests to do so (Wainwright, 2005). There is a close relationship between eschatology and the issue of religious morality, because hell is customarily associated with chastisement for wrongdoing, whereas heaven with recompense for goodness. This is despite the fact that the majority of most Christians may argue that admittance into heaven is not attained merely by performing good works (Street, 2010).

In contrast, an existentialist viewpoint maintains that, in the event that there is no God to maintain the command of the moral law, subsequently there is no risk of chastisement or promise of recompense, and, therefore, morality is pointless. Effectively devoid of God, everything is permissible, since God assumes the role of the custodian of morality, saving humanity from declining into moral pandemonium. According Dostoevsky, God is the lynchpin of morality and order in society, whereby in the absence of God, all hierarchy crumples, and everything can be permissible. Dostoevsky was troubled by afflictions but unable to discard belief in God since God is essential for morality (Pruss, 2009). Maybe God does not require to essentially being present for Him to be the center of morality, as well as the means of controlling moral conduct, this would mean that the notion of God is sufficient to maintain moral order.

Moral ArgumentsMoral arguments in support of theism include efforts to ascertain the God’s existence from a number of alleged facts concerning morality. Several people are of the opinion that objective moral principles are necessary in order to make sense of some features of human life, for example, and that God is the single possible foundation of such principles. The meta-ethical moral case challenges the existence of objective moral doctrine either necessitates God’s existence or at any rate is best explicated by theism. One version of these arguments alleges that:

If there exist objective moral principles, in that case God exists. 

There exist objective moral principles. 

Consequently, God exists.

The first argument fails since the first hypothesis is baseless. The underlying principle for thinking that objective moral principles require God is the hypothesis that only God can ground the objectivity of morals But, in fact, there seems to be no way that God’s existence can ground moral facts, anymore than it can ground scientific or mathematical facts. The typical objection to the godly command conjecture of ethics demonstrates that the objectivity of morals cannot be grounded in deity (Craig & Sinnott, 2004).

An interrelated epistemological, moral case argues that, conception of the existence of objective moral principles necessitates the existence of God. Other moral viewpoints include the prudential, moral viewpoint. This viewpoint alleges that, humanity should believe in God as well as the afterlife, in order that apprehension of judgment following death will dissuade people from committing acts of immorality (Street, 2010).

What Is Ethics devoid of God?There have been numerous philosophers throughout history who have endeavored to demonstrate that it is feasible to have universal morality devoid of God. Numerous arguments have been presented to sustain this position, and in conjecture, they might be right, although it would depend on what one connotes by the phrase universal. Those in support would declare that, all a person requires to have is an agreement on what is deemed right or wrong behavior. Their position would be; in the event that God is essential for morality, in that case whatever God considers moral is therefore, moral. Consequently, why eulogize God for what His deeds if He could have with equal ease done the contrary and that too would have been considered as equally moral. Secondly, if goodness is a central attribute of God, in that case, God cannot be applied in defining goodness. This would result into circular reasoning in that, if goodness is used in defining God then, God must not be used in defining goodness. Thirdly, if one does not believe in God, then complying with God’s commands will not assist one to resolve any moral problems (Pruss, 2009).

A number of philosophers conclude that the suggestion that a moral law necessitates a divine lawgiver is unsustainable. Other philosophers allege that for God to characterize what is right or wrong is subjective. On the contrary, God is not subjective since He is the foundation of all life and consequently the foundation of all truth. Humanity therefore, has no basis to even comprehend the idea of being arbitrary apart from in reference to an eternal God. Secondly, these arguments fail to distinguish the nature of humanity. If man was not degraded by sin, then humanity would have immeasurable potential to generate from within itself a universal moral system. On the contrary, humanity is corrupted and, therefore, incompetent of fully perceiving what is just. Humanity is incapable of doing what it understands being good. Therefore, the issue of right or wrong has all to do with the foundation of faith, but not merely its substance. No matter how genuinely an individual believes they are right in relation to some moral judgment, the right test is in the foundation of that faith. Therefore, it would be fitting to assert that, God is the single universal, as well as, absolute foundation to all morality (Alston, 2006).

Is Morality related To Religion?Several people believe that religion and morality are fundamentally related, whereby, they may consider this as an argument for the existence of God. One basis why some theists suppose that morality presupposes the existence of God is that their viewpoint appears to grant their lives obvious purpose. According to Christianity, man was created by God in His likeness, in order to fulfill the purpose that He intended for mankind. Christianity developed this fundamental idea into the conception of natural law in order that humanity can see how it should conduct its affairs through working out what its purpose is. The Pope’s disapproval of homosexuality is an illustration of the working of this theory. This approach to morality is controversial since it may be perceived as a poor imitation of morals (Street, 2010).

A different rationalization of the purported relationship between morality and God is the notion that humanity has an obligation to comply with God’s commands, since He is the omnipotent maker, to whom humanity owes its existence. The divine command hypothesis bears an apparent semblance to the natural law approach, but it entails a focus on the commands of God. The most universal opposition to such an approach is that, this approach makes morality appear rather arbitrary. This is insofar as the commands of God would be at best conditionally related to the needs of humanity. Obviously, such a perception is what lies inspires the allegations of numerous persons who allege that atheists cannot y any means be moral. The assumption is that if an individual does not believe that they will be chastised for transgressions, then, there are no grounds to obey morality’s dictates. In this case, then atheists would not have any motive not to steal when they would not suffer any sanction for stealing, whereas the theists would at all times fear the sanctions of an Omni-present God. This entire line of thought is founded on an overly thin understanding of the grounds an individual might have for conducting themselves morally. It supposes that these grounds would require being prudential. This is grounded on the belief that conducting oneself morally is in an individual’s self-interest (Alston, 2006).

Nevertheless people occasionally act morally when they figure out that this would not be in their best interests. Morality is not entirely about self-interest, but also entails sacrificing a person’s self-interest for the sake of the greater good of other persons. Several thinkers have posited that the very reality of a sense of conscience is substantiation for God. Strictly speaking the independence of religion and morality is reasonably compatible with the God existence. It becomes a mater of concern when persons allege that the existence of conscience rationally presupposes a deity to whom humanity owes responsibility. If this is permissible, then God might appear as the sole candidate. Some philosophers such as Newman supported this school of thought, inquiring why individuals would feel culpable if they do not believe they were being monitored (Pruss, 2009).

In particular, the allegation that if humanity developed through evolution, it would not have had a conscience is untrue. It is erroneous to presume that a conscience is an absolute curse from the perspective of evolution. It is also extremely probable that a matured conscience, in its entire characteristics, is not a precise adaptation, but a consequence of humanity’s advantageous cognitive capabilities. What of the allegation that a conscience would make no sense except there is a deity for humanity to be answerable to? There would be two ways to resolve it, whereby firstly to grant for the benefit of the argument that humanity’s sense of conscience assumes that it is answerable to somebody. Secondly is to point out that, there lacks any sound reason to grant that humanity’s sense of conscience presupposes that humanity is accountable to somebody. Once this view is rejected, moral obligations would be based in individual self-interest, or comparable to legal responsibilities (Craig & Sinnott, 2004).

ConclusionMany people in the contemporary world believe that God is unnecessary, and an overbearing task master. They allege that they do not require God to live morally upright, and they have the ability to set their individual rules for living. This means that the contemporary world is obsessed with individual values, whereby what individuals do depends on their individual values. The very conception of basing morality upon individual values means that humanity has bought into the conception of a structure of relativistic ethics. Individual values have substituted the significance of virtue as the pedestal for ethical thought. The world today continues to build an ethical structure based on enlightenment and tolerance with the exception of God. Humanity has tried many approaches to teach this godless variety of morality. However, this paper has demonstrated that there is something erroneous with delinking morality from religion. Morality is better served through religious foundation, rather than an explicitly neutral, atheistic/materialist foundation. It is fitting to mention that morality cannot subscribe to natural law in the sense that the adherence to the natural laws of nature may designate the moral path and what would be regarded as an infringement of the natural law.

ReferencesAlston, W. (2006). What Euthyphro Must Have Said. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Craig, W., & Sinnott, A. (2004). God? A Discussion between an Atheist and a Christian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pruss, A. (2009). An Additional Step in Divine Authority Dialectics. Philosophy and Faith 26 (4) 26-32.

Street, S. (2010). A Darwinian Impasse for Realist Theories on Moral Value. Journal of Philosophical Studies, 127(8) 66-75.

Wainwright, W. J. (2005). Religion & Morality. London: Ashgate.