As a nonreligious person, where do you get your moral guidance?

[Anomalocaris]

I think Ahriman is right here, though perhaps in an indirect way.

So for example MY morality didn't come from religion, because I've never been to church, and didn't start reading about religion until well into my 30s. Safe to say my morality was pretty much set by that time.

But history didn't start with my parents. If we're of European descent, the culture we live in was shaped, like it or not, by Christianity. We may have shed the religious justifications, but a lot of our morality is directly descended from religion. 

Many atheists reproduce a specifically Protestant view of society, how it should progress, what responsibilities we have, etc. 

Readable book on this topic: 

https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christia...626&sr=8-8

As for whether one religion's moral system is better than another's: that's a tricky question, because we are always judging "better" based on our own set of values. That other religion can just as easily judge us.

I still remember reading a scholar who spoke of Nietzsche's Ubermensch concept, that ultimately the only great way to judge morality is whether or not it is "life-affirming". Essentially, to Nietzsche, does your worldview allow you to live a life that strengthens both yourself as the individual and your community? If you are a rampaging murderer, you will kill and then get killed. But perhaps a rampaging murderer in a battlefield in which you fight for the preservation of your nation and its citizens is a noble thing.

Was a rampaging murderer in a battlefield in which you fight for the preservation of the third Reich a Nobel thing?     Is morality fundamentally about prescriptions or responsibilities?    Are prescriptions training wheels on the way to responsibility or sufficient as end in itself?

Who would say responsibility is an end to itself and why?

[Jehanne]

As a former Catholic, I believe that organized religion has a seat at the morality table, just not the only seat.

[Anomalocaris]

Christianity and Islam have both long been accustomed to muscling in onto any table upon which transactions might take place which can be leveraged to aggrandize themsleves.. But that is a different thing from implying the state of morality, or the state of transaction on any table onto which they’ve imposed themselves, are the better because these two are there thumping on the table and pontificating in great volume and with great condescension.

[The Grand Nudger]

But history didn't start with my parents. If we're of European descent, the culture we live in was shaped, like it or not, by Christianity. We may have shed the religious justifications, but a lot of our morality is directly descended from religion. 

History didn't start with the christians, either - and by the same rule like it or not religious moralities also came from somewhere or somewhen or someone before.  They don't issue forth fully formed out of the stories themselves..rather, the other way around.  Such that it makes little sense to say that human morality "comes from religion" when religion and morality are similar phenomena that share the same source, themselves, in human beings...and, were we to order the two in a chain of dependence, it's religion that depends on morality, and not morality that depends on religion.

A religious belief must be a moral belief, whereas a moral belief has no such requirement.

[Anomalocaris]

in both cases the concept of right is ambiguous

Why do you always act like you've got a six-foot-long stick up your ass?

It’s only a three-foot-long stick, and it is hinged in the middle!

[Jehanne]

A religious belief must be a moral belief, whereas a moral belief has no such requirement.

The belief in transubstantiation, a religious belief, is not necessarily a moral belief.

[Ahriman]

A religious belief must be a moral belief, whereas a moral belief has no such requirement.

The belief in transubstantiation, a religious belief, is not necessarily a moral belief.

Of course it's a moral belief, Catholics believe they are doing something moral by drinking the blood and eating the body of Christ. A cannibal's morality, if you will.

[Anomalocaris]

But history didn't start with my parents. If we're of European descent, the culture we live in was shaped, like it or not, by Christianity. We may have shed the religious justifications, but a lot of our morality is directly descended from religion. 

History didn't start with the christians, either - and by the same rule like it or not religious moralities also came from somewhere or somewhen or someone before.  They don't issue forth fully formed out of the stories themselves..rather, the other way around.  Such that it makes little sense to say that human morality "comes from religion" when religion and morality are similar phenomena that share the same source, themselves, in human beings...and, were we to order the two in a chain of dependence, it's religion that depends on morality, and not morality that depends on religion.

A religious belief must be a moral belief, whereas a moral belief has no such requirement.

No, most religious beliefs are not moral beliefs.     However, if a religious belief is not in itself a moral belief, it is always used to bolster the religion’s perceived credential for imposing moral beliefs.      In fact, if a religion started out with a body of beliefs that are not moral beliefs in themselves, and are also not amendable for use in bolstering the region’s credentials for imposing moral beliefs, these beliefs will gradually be relegated to the sidelines and then forgotten or jettisoned.


Morality did not come from religion.   But religion exist to enable some people to aggrandize themselves by pretending to be uniquely essential, and uniquely credentialed, conduits for morality.

Essential - you burn in hell if you don’t.

Credentialed - god anointed ME with that little gem.

[The Grand Nudger]

Religions can't start out with bodies of beliefs that are not moral, as a religion is the shared normative code of a given community as they relate to the sacred and the taboo.

There's a fair chance that much of what people consider to be religious is more accurately categorized as superstition - these beliefs are neither explicitly religious nor do they need to be a moral proposition. It's a superstition, for example..that a demi-god rose from the dead. Religious beliefs that could arise from or be buttressed by that superstition, otoh, would describe what that meant for you with respect to a good life.

In this light, we might be able to see why searching for the source or origin of moral codes in religion is folly. Religions arise out of and serve moral communities, and moral communities arise from human intelligence and sociability. Ultimately, religions are highly local and thematic commentaries on our preexisting and ever changing idea of right or good living.

[Anomalocaris]

Religions can't start out with bodies of beliefs that are not moral, as a religion is the shared normative code of a given community as they relate to the sacred and the taboo.

There's a fair chance that much of what people consider to be religious is more accurately categorized as superstition - these beliefs are neither explicitly religious nor do they need to be a moral proposition.

No, many religions no doubt started out with an inherited set of beliefs about origins of the world, cause of natural phenomenon, and what is there in the rest of the world outside the immediate environs over which the religion initially held sway.  You can call it superstition. But religion is just superstition with some more superstructure built on top of it.

They also tend to start with some body of stories about the founders of the religion.   No doubt these stories only made it into the religion at the beginning because some body things it helps to exhibit some unique credentials of the religion, but these are not in themselves necessarily moralistic.