Ethics vs. Morality

Religious people believe that morality comes from religion and when religion loses its grip, people will become immoral. Is morality a product of religion? Are irreligious people immoral?

I had a conversation with a young Muslim who insisted if it were not for religion people would commit incest and nothing would stop them to sleep even with their own mothers. I asked him whether he personally lusted after his mother and whether Islam was the only deterrent that stopped him from fornicating with her? He seemed insulted, but before he responded, I added if you are nauseated even by me mentioning such a thing, then realize that many others are just like you and feel and think the same way.

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[edit on 27-7-2004 by salam]

I am respectfully sugesting you change the title of this thread......to ~~ETHICS vs. MORALITY~~.....

~Ethnics~ as you have written...is implying the issue of race........and I was offended right off seeing the title of your thread......now I read it ..i think its just a spelling mistake???????

Originally posted by theRiverGoddess
I am respectfully sugesting you change the title of this thread......to ~~ETHICS vs. MORALITY~~.....

~Ethnics~ as you have written...is implying the issue of race........and I was offended right off seeing the title of your thread......now I read it ..i think its just a spelling mistake???????

I agree with River-- Change the title.

However, even with the title properly spelled I think the title gives the wrong impression. I have yet to see a definition for Ethics that did not share the definition of morality. Neither ethics nor morality need to be defined with "religion" in the definition.

Since I believe "God is" I would of course say that without God there would be no morality or ethics. Even if you do not believe "God is", God still made you as you are-- with the ability to choose between "right and wrong".

Religion has nothing to do with it. God can exist without religion. Religion cannot exist without God.

Ethics is a gift for humankind. Just like the intelligence, people get almost the same standard of ethnics. In other hand, morality is man made system. Morality is dynamic and changes with the development of society.
Talk about religion, we can compare religion with the outfit. Human needs clothes to protect himself and keeps warm. As human (society) grows, the clothes become more and more difficult to fit. At one point, either the clothes have to change to a bigger size, or human is suffocated, or the clothes is explose and human just throw all of them together.

That is almost the same arguement I use for those that say that homosexuals choose to be gay.

I have also came to conclude that dispite the arguements validity it is pretty fruitless. People of such strick religious fanatasism can't agree, it would mean that they have been wrong most of their life, and that their "extremely enlightened" views are infact misguided and niave.

I don't take part in any religion and have very high morals and deep respect for all life.

Bringing up and common sence are what bring morals imho.

Who do you see do immoral things? 2 kinds of people.
People that are educated or influenced to do so, no matter if its by a religion, abusive parents, bad influences, money, military education, cults or other things.

The other kind of people are those that are unable to have common sence. This happens by 2 things, 1 by the education/influence factor, where the persons sence of the world around him is deformed by what he has been tought, the other, by mallfunctions in their brain(loons, maniaks, the works, but caused by an impaired brain). Or people that are in dispair, outraged and other things like it, causing them to be unable to think clearly.



[edit on 27-7-2004 by thematrix]

Ethics and morality are both subjective. Everyone has their own "code of ethics", by which they try to adhere to. To say we get an instilled sense of morality from religion you would first have to state a universal virtue or something that everyone agrees on as being morally right. But that is just my opinion of course.

Its obivouse that religon does not keep people from doing bad acts, if that where true we would have gangs of atheists running around shooting and raping people. Its more the way your raised, when you look at say at people that are born in a place liek haitie (sp?), alot fo them are christian and muslim, and in any other enviorment like north ameriac would be told that killing is wrong, but the thing is they are born aorund violence so dont think of it unusual or wrong. Its more about what your around. Religon causes more violence then anything, its making a very clear and fine line that seperate 2 people, 2 people that will fell superior to each other and in turn may end up in violence, if there was no religon there would be no diffrence. Laws against murder and rape where around long before christ or islam.

Personally, I would rather lay the blame on the fundamentalists or extremists before I would make the statement that religion causes violence. I believe violence predates all religions, be it for survial or petty differneces.

Religion is needless when it comes to morality. In fact, if anything, religions of the world probably undermine a human being's underlying sense of right and wrong. People believe so fervently in what their religion says, that they will go against a normal code of ethics in order to appease their religious beliefs. It's not right to kill someone. But hey, my bible says I should kill you if you do this, so it's alright now! It's not right to hate someone. But hey, my bible says God didn't create you people, and looks at you as outcasts, so I hate you now! It's all silly really.

Religion does more harm than good, at least when we are talking about ethics and morality. When it boils down to it, I'm not sure there are really any positives of religion (other than maybe providing people with hope? shrug), but that's a whole other discussion.

You'd have a better chance of finding good, just people in a world without religion than a world with it. Religion is NOT the primary force in determining morality. If anything, it is the driving force behind immorality in our world. It leads people to kill. It leads people to hate. It leads people to be unaccepting and exclusivist.