Frans de Waal: Morality Without Religion

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[烏梨師斂]

I live in Japan. One of the least religious countries in the world. Also one of the most moral and respectful societies in the world.

[Aran_Zar]

"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion"

- Arthur C. Clarke

[psychotic]

When I was a little boy, I kept asking God to give me a bicycle. Then I realized that this is not the way God works. So I stole a bike and then asked God to forgive me. Religious morality in action :-D

[Repulver]

The foundation of morality is empathy. Empathy is found in highly developed conscious beings and is even more finetuned in a society of such. Religion is just one strategie among many, to overcome a number of psychological problems that arise with a highly developed consciousness.

[blockhead]

If my empathy, compassion and love are all part of an evolutionary process, why does my moral assertion apply to anyone else. Who am I to impose my views on you another human?

[Nonnimable]

Also, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Germany to a certain extent. Overall happiness rating is extremely high in Northern-European countries (happiness index) and the higher amount of cases of depression and mental illnesses is strongly connected to the fact that there are doctors who can identify these illnesses in these countries and people have access to them; other countries might have more people with mental illnesses, only they are never actually diagnosed with them.

[officialpjkillah]

In order to live in morality without religion is to teach the basics of psychology and the theory of nature & nurture to everyone. We are our own believe system if we can influence making the right decisions on one another and keep the motivation to evolve our world for the greater good. Than yes we are absolutely capable of morality without religion.

[ranjitshastry]

Wow! that's what I'd call a 'monster' of a perspective :) Thanks for sharing that thought!

[blockhead]

This quote of mine does not say God is not required for omv, it only says human perspective has no bearing on omv.

[Subrees]

Both of you are correct in the fact that with or without religion bad things will happen. The question is knowing that bad things will happen anyway why is religion needed. We have laws and an evolving moral system to keep us from regressing to old broken systems. So what is the point of using religion to create another moral system especially when it is hard to change?

[Johnny]

He points out that most of the world's religions are 2, 000 to 3, 000 years old, and thus he concludes that morality existed beforehand and the religion was, in his words, "tacked on" to them... what he neglects is that there were many religions then, as well... religions that are now largely dead.

[Arachnoscribe]

Apart from providing symbolic answers to the unknown elements of life+death, religions (including the ones that Frans has apparently deemed irrelevant) serve to justify warfare, geographic expansion, social hierarchies and a host of other things that are incongruous with the notions of (a) perfect being(s).

[BlitzenRot]

1:27 he says he is struggling with it. He says he doesn't really know whether we need religion or not. The way he says this, is telling me, that he thinks that morality comes forth out of religion, and that religion is nothing more. He also asks the question: Is this really needed (1:57). And back to 2:35 he says that he doesn't think religion is really needed. And those are the points that 'disgust' me.

[darkbsp]

If this a legitimate question, it's because of gravity. It pulls in all directions equally, thus creating a sphere (it's not technically a sphere since it's squashed at the poles.)

[soccafan]

It bothers me when my parents think I'm going to live a lonely and sad life because I'm an atheist.... I wish they could understand that my life will be even more joyous knowing that these 80-90 years on this planet are all I got so I'm gonna make the most of these years.

[blim]

That depends on how you define (moral values).

[ThatBoomerDude]

I am not proposing hallucinations as an explanation. I am merely saying that each side of the thought experiment (and formulas) is relative to the other. This does not violate either the thought experiment or the formulas in any way.
There is no such thing as a universally objectively "stationary" position and Einstein's formulas do not require it. In fact, if you understood your own "proof" you would realize that this is exactly what is shown. Mass varies & time varies with relative velocity.

[blockhead]

The Euthyphro Dilemma is a different argument altogether.
Objective moral values are values that exist even if no one believed them to be true.
Subjective moral values are values based solely on the perspective of one person or another.
Do you believe objective moral values exist?

[EugenAntunGojks]

The conclusion that "religion could not have induced our morality, because current religions are only 2-3 thousand years old, and morality existed before that" is logically unsound for two reasons. First, the conclusion states "current" religions, but religions existed long before the "current" religions. Older religions may have influenced morality. Second, there is an implicit assumption that morality had the same principles in the last 2 thousand years as it did 20 thousand years ago. There is a lot of evidence that this is not the case - morality evolved across cultures, over time, and across geographical areas. Current religion may have helped in shaping the current morality, just as older religions may have shaped older forms of morality.

Frankly, sounds like a chicken-and-the-egg discussion.

[JamieHumeCreative]

very candid and genuine. I agree with this premiss myself. Only those without empathy need a structure to have a guide to moral behaviour...