Does religion corrupt morality?

[Pyrrho]

Bold emphasis is added:


Do you mean by that, that whether someone's morality is corrupted by religion depends on whether the person really believes their professed religion or not?

Someone might profess to be religious, due to social pressures (such as to please a family member, or to avoid execution if one lives in Saudi Arabia, etc.), without believing religion at all.  In such a case, since the person is not actually religious, their morality is not corrupted by their religion (since they really have no religion).  But that is not a counterexample to the idea that religion corrupts morality, since the person is not really religious.

Your position appears to be that the more religious someone is, the more their morality will be corrupted by it.  Is that what you mean to be saying?  If not, what do you mean?

People can believe strongly without knowing the details of what their religion actually says, they only listen to the edited highlights dished out in the place they worship. It's the one who take it home and study it and then find out they shouldn't do this and they should oppress that are the problem. It's not about strength of belief as much as is its about depth of knowledge and acceptance of that knowledge of what the texts actually say.

Your position is interesting in that you seem to think that being more reasonable about religion leads to worse results.

The thing is, the edited highlights often get people to be worse.  For example, the edited highlights in church often get people to have an overzealous hatred of gays.  As Vorlon13 likes to say, Jesus condemned divorce in three gospels, but Jesus never mentioned homosexuality at all.  But one does not usually get a sense of that just from highlights in church.  Additionally, many people end up rejecting their religion because they take it seriously and examine it.  Those who don't think about it are far less likely to notice the absurdities and contradictions.  So I think you are mistaken about the people who do not bother to study their religion.

[Pyrrho]

Pyrrho, do you think I'm a bad person?

Of course you aren't, most Christians are decent people, that is the scary part. The reason religion make people less moral is because it replaces reasoned responses with "God said so". For example in the case of gay marriage, most atheists come to the reasoned conclusion that what two consenting adults do in the bedroom is no ones business and that to deny them marriage is unfair. The argument we have been dealing with from the side that wants to keep it illegal is " God said homosexulity is wrong" and when ask why its wrong, well just look at this forum as morality has done to death here.

So you believe a decent person knowingly and voluntarily donates money to an organization that protects child molesters and enables them to molest more children?  And you believe a decent person knowingly and voluntarily donates money to an organization that causes AIDS and other venereal diseases to be more widespread than they would otherwise be, due to opposition to condom use?  And you believe that a decent person knowingly and willingly donates money to an organization that condemns many poor people to greater poverty by denying them access to birth control, thus causing them to have more children than they can afford to properly care for?

These are questions, but I am interested in how you can reconcile such things.  Perhaps you are using the word "decent" in a nonstandard way?

[Spooky]

Since I'm reading 'God is not great' presently, I'm simply going to parrot Christopher Hitchens now (Since I agree with him).

"Religion Poisons everything."

[downbeatplumb]

People can believe strongly without knowing the details of what their religion actually says, they only listen to the edited highlights dished out in the place they worship. It's the one who take it home and study it and then find out they shouldn't do this and they should oppress that are the problem. It's not about strength of belief as much as is its about depth of knowledge and acceptance of that knowledge of what the texts actually say.

Your position is interesting in that you seem to think that being more reasonable about religion leads to worse results.

The thing is, the edited highlights often get people to be worse.  For example, the edited highlights in church often get people to have an overzealous hatred of gays.  As Vorlon13 likes to say, Jesus condemned divorce in three gospels, but Jesus never mentioned homosexuality at all.  But one does not usually get a sense of that just from highlights in church.  Additionally, many people end up rejecting their religion because they take it seriously and examine it.  Those who don't think about it are far less likely to notice the absurdities and contradictions.  So I think you are mistaken about the people who do not bother to study their religion.

Well I don't know about the US, but over this side of the pond in the Church of England the emphasis is on the happy clappy "lets all be friends" passages of the bible and by passes all the stuff that doesn't conform to that view. Intolerance is in the bible and of course if that's what your pastor, preacher, vicar wants to expose you to then that's what they will do. Over here, overwhelmingly, they don't. Some people study the bible, find out how shit it is and leave. But a lot of people read the bible (other religious texts are available) and go "I need to double down on the hatred". The sad part is everyone is right. If you want to get peace and light from the text you can, if you want to get hatred and oppression thats in there too. Ambguity and conflicting messages seems to the mainstay for lasting religions.

[robvalue]

God is dead, may Hitchins rest in peace.

Religion provides cover for immorality which can't be rationally defended. It also teaches that same immorality, inevitably turning some people immoral who might otherwise not have been. Both ways round is bad.

On the other hand, the number of people who are only good because of religion, or significantly more moral, is I expect much less. In fact in almost every deconversion story I've heard about, the person is just as good if not better afterwards.

[Napoléon]

I've noticed that it hardly matters what the religious texts say, all that matters is what people think they say. The two are increasingly not the same.

Just chiming in to say that I disagree with this. 

It does matter what the texts say. If the bible explicitly said homosexuality was okay, and that using condoms was fine, or that it wasn't a good idea to own slaves... well... maybe you can see where I'm going with this.

[Longhorn]

Your position is interesting in that you seem to think that being more reasonable about religion leads to worse results.

The thing is, the edited highlights often get people to be worse.  For example, the edited highlights in church often get people to have an overzealous hatred of gays.  As Vorlon13 likes to say, Jesus condemned divorce in three gospels, but Jesus never mentioned homosexuality at all.  But one does not usually get a sense of that just from highlights in church.  Additionally, many people end up rejecting their religion because they take it seriously and examine it.  Those who don't think about it are far less likely to notice the absurdities and contradictions.  So I think you are mistaken about the people who do not bother to study their religion.

Well I don't know about the US, but over this side of the pond in the Church of England the emphasis is on the happy clappy "lets all be friends" passages of the bible and by passes all the stuff that doesn't conform to that view. Intolerance is in the bible and of course if that's what your pastor, preacher, vicar wants to expose you to then that's what they will do. Over here, overwhelmingly, they don't. Some people study the bible, find out how shit it is and leave. But a lot of people read the bible (other religious texts are available) and go "I need to double down on the hatred". The sad part is everyone is right. If you want to get peace and light from the text you can, if you want to get hatred and oppression thats in there too. Ambguity and conflicting messages seems to the mainstay for lasting religions.

He was talking about the RCC. Dying in Western Europe fortunately, but still strong in many paces and still causing harm

[robvalue]

Nap: Sure, it does matter, you're right. I suppose I should have said it doesn't matter as much as it should. It's clear from this forum Christians don't know their own bible and have based their opinions on popular ideas. When we present them with evidence to the contrary, it goes in one ear and out the other. I don't think I've ever heard any Christian on here admit that their knowledge of the bible was actually wrong.

[Whateverist]

Pyrrho, do you think I'm a bad person?

Of course you aren't, most Christians are decent people, that is the scary part. The reason religion make people less moral is because it replaces reasoned responses with "God said so". For example in the case of gay marriage, most atheists come to the reasoned conclusion that what two consenting adults do in the bedroom is no ones business and that to deny them marriage is unfair. The argument we have been dealing with from the side that wants to keep it illegal is " God said homosexulity is wrong" and when ask why its wrong, well just look at this forum as morality has done to death here.

I thought that was the point of the recent INCEST and BEASTIALITY threads.

[downbeatplumb]

I've noticed that it hardly matters what the religious texts say, all that matters is what people think they say. The two are increasingly not the same.

Just chiming in to say that I disagree with this. 

It does matter what the texts say. If the bible explicitly said homosexuality was okay, and that using condoms was fine, or that it wasn't a good idea to own slaves... well... maybe you can see where I'm going with this.

Yes I can but being the bible there would be passages that directly contradicted these stances. The biblical authors hedged their bets.