Does religion corrupt morality?

[Whateverist]

Former member Jonb emailed me the link to this talk which I found pretty moving.  I'm inclined too say that religion certainly can lead to some pretty bad morality but I'm inclined to think that is just because they run on the same human platform we all do.  We all have the potential to misunderstand and to paint others as enemies.  We are all homo fairly sapient, not completely wise.  From what he says here, I think religion has and continues to be a device which can focus and magnify some of our worse tendencies and bring them to bear in troubling ways.  Of course many religious groups also do charity work.

I don't think I'm inclined to accept the conclusion that religion is, all things considered, more a force for evil and backwardness, not for good and progress.  At best, I think it is correct to point out that religion is potentially dangerous since it deals in unsupportable claims.  Just look at our poor friend the professor who is constantly disturbed by apocryphal portents.  I'm not ready to concede it cannot be a positive experience for some however.  

Should we embrace anti-theism?  I'm not there yet, how about you?

https://youtu.be/hAuwB6zcdVo

[Catholic_Lady]

I don't think religion, in and of itself "corrupts" a person's morality. I think if a person has a bad heart, they will use whatever they can as an excuse to act wrongly. Not because "religion made them do it", but because they are not good people. Bad seeds come from all walks of life. The religious ones will use religion to excuse their actions, the non religious ones will use something else. Just mho. :-)

[Pyrrho]

...

I don't think I'm inclined to accept the conclusion that religion is, all things considered, more a force for evil and backwardness, not for good and progress.  ...

Goddamned Christian sympathizer!

Fuck that.  I became a better person when I became an atheist.  I do not know of even one person who got worse getting rid of that foul, disgusting, superstition.  Religion is evil.  Not pure evil (as it is too incompetent to be pure), but evil nonetheless.

[FatAndFaithless]

I don't think religion, in and of itself "corrupts" a person's morality. I think if a person has a bad heart, they will use whatever they can as an excuse to act wrongly. Not because "religion made them do it", but because they are not good people. Bad seeds come from all walks of life. The religious ones will use religion to excuse their actions, the non religious ones will use something else. Just mho. :-)

I think the point is that religions (the ones we have around nowadays, anyway) include ideas that we might find immoral or bad.  So someone might 'use religion to excuse their actions', but if justification for that action can be found in the scriptures or dogma of the religion, then that doesn't just let the religion off the hook.  

It's hard to say that all religions are absolutely corrupting to morality point blank, because I could possibly conceive of a religion that has a dogma of secular humanism and enlightenment values, and I suppose that would be morally 'good'.  But I think that any sort of morality proposed loses all...validity? when someone attaches some sort of decree or absolute authority to it.  For example, a religion can have a moral precept that we consider to be 'good', but if the justification for that moral precept is something like 'because that's what god says' or 'that's just the way it is', then it loses any sense of a real, rational establishment.  And if there's such thing as a religion that doesn't use the supernatural or authoritarian...then I find it indistinguishable from just another school of philosophy.

[FatAndFaithless]

...

I don't think I'm inclined to accept the conclusion that religion is, all things considered, more a force for evil and backwardness, not for good and progress.  ...

Goddamned Christian sympathizer!

Fuck that.  I became a better person when I became an atheist.  I do not know of even one person who got worse getting rid of that foul, disgusting, superstition.  Religion is evil.  Not pure evil (as it is too incompetent to be pure), but evil nonetheless.

I'd be interested to know what you mean when you say that you became a better person when you became an atheist.  That statement implies that there is something inherently 'better' about being an atheist.  If two people hold the precisely same moral views, but just disagree on whether a god exists, does that make the atheist 'better' than the believer?

[Catholic_Lady]

...

I don't think I'm inclined to accept the conclusion that religion is, all things considered, more a force for evil and backwardness, not for good and progress.  ...

Goddamned Christian sympathizer!

Fuck that.  I became a better person when I became an atheist.  I do not know of even one person who got worse getting rid of that foul, disgusting, superstition.  Religion is evil.  Not pure evil (as it is too incompetent to be pure), but evil nonetheless.

I believe you, but I'm sure there are a lot of Christian converts out there who would say the same thing about themselves when they went from being non religious to being Christian or whatever. It doesn't necessarily mean believing in God makes people better people, nor does it mean not believing in God makes people better people. It probably just depends on the person's experiences, and why they choose to start believing or disbelieving. 

Unrelated question to Phyrro. Doesn't something being "evil" signify some sort of moral objectivity though? If morality is subjective, then how can good and evil exist as realities, and not as just whatever the individual person thinks?

[Pyrrho]

I don't think religion, in and of itself "corrupts" a person's morality. I think if a person has a bad heart, they will use whatever they can as an excuse to act wrongly. Not because "religion made them do it", but because they are not good people. Bad seeds come from all walks of life. The religious ones will use religion to excuse their actions, the non religious ones will use something else. Just mho. :-)

I think the point is that religions (the ones we have around nowadays, anyway) include ideas that we might find immoral or bad.  So someone might 'use religion to excuse their actions', but if justification for that action can be found in the scriptures or dogma of the religion, then that doesn't just let the religion off the hook.  

It's hard to say that all religions are absolutely corrupting to morality point blank, because I could possibly conceive of a religion that has a dogma of secular humanism and enlightenment values, and I suppose that would be morally 'good'.  But I think that any sort of morality proposed loses all...validity? when someone attaches some sort of decree or absolute authority to it.  For example, a religion can have a moral precept that we consider to be 'good', but if the justification for that moral precept is something like 'because that's what god says' or 'that's just the way it is', then it loses any sense of a real, rational establishment.  And if there's such thing as a religion that doesn't use the supernatural or authoritarian...then I find it indistinguishable from just another school of philosophy.

All religion is evil because it all goes against being reasonable.  If one is reasonable, one is not religious.  Not being reasonable means one will do something bad, though not necessarily in a predictable way.  Some religions are worse than others, but they all have a corrupting influence in that they entail being unreasonable.

[Pyrrho]

Goddamned Christian sympathizer!

Fuck that.  I became a better person when I became an atheist.  I do not know of even one person who got worse getting rid of that foul, disgusting, superstition.  Religion is evil.  Not pure evil (as it is too incompetent to be pure), but evil nonetheless.

I'd be interested to know what you mean when you say that you became a better person when you became an atheist.  That statement implies that there is something inherently 'better' about being an atheist.  If two people hold the precisely same moral views, but just disagree on whether a god exists, does that make the atheist 'better' than the believer?

It is not that being an atheist makes one good; it is that being religious makes one bad.  In my case, I was against homosexuality when I was religious (I was a Christian), but that evaporated when I became an atheist and starting thinking about it without concern for "god's word" on the subject.  There are other improvements, too, but that is enough to make my point.  Religion is poison.

[FatAndFaithless]

I think the point is that religions (the ones we have around nowadays, anyway) include ideas that we might find immoral or bad.  So someone might 'use religion to excuse their actions', but if justification for that action can be found in the scriptures or dogma of the religion, then that doesn't just let the religion off the hook.  

It's hard to say that all religions are absolutely corrupting to morality point blank, because I could possibly conceive of a religion that has a dogma of secular humanism and enlightenment values, and I suppose that would be morally 'good'.  But I think that any sort of morality proposed loses all...validity? when someone attaches some sort of decree or absolute authority to it.  For example, a religion can have a moral precept that we consider to be 'good', but if the justification for that moral precept is something like 'because that's what god says' or 'that's just the way it is', then it loses any sense of a real, rational establishment.  And if there's such thing as a religion that doesn't use the supernatural or authoritarian...then I find it indistinguishable from just another school of philosophy.

All religion is evil because it all goes against being reasonable.  If one is reasonable, one is not religious.  Not being reasonable means one will do something bad, though not necessarily in a predictable way.  Some religions are worse than others, but they all have a corrupting influence in that they entail being unreasonable.

I think I'll have to disagree with you there.  Nobody is 100% reasonable about everything all the time, and you can have a fantastically moral, pleasant, intelligent, and progressive person who simply believes in a god.  I don't find anything inherently 'bad' about someone holding a theistic belief at all, it all depends on the attendant beliefs/actions/statements.  I mean shit, to bring up kind of the negative-Godwin example, was MLK Jr. an 'unreasonable' person, because he was religious?  I'm not a fan of any sort of absolutist terms, and saying that 'you can't be a reasonable person if you're religious' seems a bit too far reaching for me.

[FatAndFaithless]

I'd be interested to know what you mean when you say that you became a better person when you became an atheist.  That statement implies that there is something inherently 'better' about being an atheist.  If two people hold the precisely same moral views, but just disagree on whether a god exists, does that make the atheist 'better' than the believer?

It is not that being an atheist makes one good; it is that being religious makes one bad.  In my case, I was against homosexuality when I was religious (I was a Christian), but that evaporated when I became an atheist and starting thinking about it without concern for "god's word" on the subject.  There are other improvements, too, but that is enough to make my point.  Religion is poison.

Sure, and I'm not denying that your views shifted to a more reasonable, justifiable basis after you let go of certain theistic beliefs...but that's you, not anyone else.