I’m a bit annoyed whenever I hear someone declaring that you can’t be moral without religion.
The mere fact that everyone on the globe as some basic sense of morality, regardless of her religious background should be proof to the contrary.
So, no particular religion can pretend to be the sole guide to morality.
I would go even further: since people are moral regardless of their geographical location morality isn’t brought in by religion, since most religions don’t even have a common origin.
Morality is a human constant.
That religion in all its forms is also a human constant doesn’t make religion the creator of morality.
Religions, in their organised form, are social constructs. They provide a repository of folklore and stories that are meant to guide and inspire and collect the wisdom of a culture.
As the group grows, only sufficiently organised religions can survive the changes and tensions. Religion becomes the Law that holds the group together.
Myriads of religions have disappeared under the stress brought by the enlargement of the social group that defined them. When personalities and opposing interests affront each-other, only those religions that have a stronger social cohesion can survive unscathed. Others will split and morsel.
I do recognise that religions integrate morality and as such can be positive guides to people’s lives.
What I find disturbing though is that religions claim absolute morality. The result of that that followers have a single, absolute, source of of morality that, by definition, cannot be questioned.
There is no room for personal appreciation. The organised religion isn’t just a repository of wisdom and moral stories, it’s a rigid path, ready-made recipe that doesn’t encourage compassion or understanding being its narrow definition.
Christians and Muslims and others will tell you that their god or their religion is compassion.
When you start scratching the compassion and tolerance with real-life dilemma, the bigotry surfaces.
Ask about abortion or the right to die. These are topics are are often too complex to debate with intelligence and fairness without accepting that there are cases where the religious moral standpoint breaks down.
As a religious person, accepting that conflict is accepting that your particular religion doesn’t have absolute truth on the subject of morality.
Different people will deal with the dilemma in their own, sometime opposite, way.
Religions contain moral wisdom but they are not purveyors of absolute morality.
What they teach is even often of very dubious moral value.
