Goodness and Religion
Flickr Attribution: humbleslave
There are two schools of thought on this subject. One is that morality exists independent of any theist/atheist world view, and the other asserts that morality can not exist without a religious “standard” for comparison.
I believe that a standard must be in place in order to judge the morality. I also believe this standard has very little to do with organized religion or atheism. The moral standard used as the measuring stick for morality is a dynamic one, formed through the complexities played out both psychologically and sociologically in the culture being analyzed.
“Good” and “bad” are judged on personal, family, community, and cultural levels. I don’t believe in an absolute truth in moral behavior where “good” is defined the same for all people in all situations. For instance, it is ludicrous to me that an assertion of killing in self-defense is the same as killing for fun. Some theistic doctrines assert this taken at face value, and it is only the interpretation influenced by the broad factors described above that modify those judgments.
Religious communities and teachings can be great sources of educating people about morality and opening the door to those questions. When people talk about these issues in a church, for example, they learn much more from each other than can be gleaned from old manuscripts which are vague and open to interpretation.
In summary, I don’t feel that being religious has an impact on morality except for an indirect community resource that can be obtained by being part of a religious community. An atheistic group which provided intellectual presentations and discussion on these topics serves just as well.
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