Religious Morality

Morality as we understand it is a concept, and as such is an abstraction.  We say a person has good morals when they act in a certain way, and that they lack morals when they act in the opposite way.  Because these judgments of morality change from culture to culture, person to person, and even minute by minute it is difficult if not impossible to assign a generic moral code to the human race.

Of course there have been those who have tried to say that certain moral principles are universal.  There seems to be some comfort in the idea that we are all bound by a common thread of decency, a mysterious inner voice that tells us that certain things are wrong.  Interestingly most moral systems focus on what is wrong rather than what is right.  Take for example the famous ten commandments Judeo-Christian faiths.  They are almost exclusively “thou shalt not” statements and other verbiage telling you to worship God in a certain way.  It seems strange to me that we need to be constantly instructed in what not to do, but what is right and proper seems to come naturally – especially in Western religion.

If we were able to survive hundreds of thousands of years without formal ethical systems, then why do we need them today?  Logical dictates that we do not, and that the obvious reason for their existence is to lend an air of respectability to the religious doctrines that they are associated with.  A key argument for most people of faith is that without their systems of religions people with lack the value systems that we hold dear.  This can be countered simply by pointing out the fact that all civilizations have honored the basic moral tenants set forth today and they did so without the dogmatic religious doctrines of our era.  One can also see that those who do not align themselves with a particular faith are still able to function quite peacefully in our society.  This begs the question; if we don’t need religion for moral guidance, then what purpose does it serve?