How to make moral people?

[Mr Rayon]

Is religion an effective way of creating moral human inhabitants of a society (e.g. by lowering crime rates if it does etc)?

 

I have heard people say in the forums that it is like a placebo which doesn't work in actuality.

 

In your opinion what is a better way to make people become 'good' people?

Is religion the only way?

[Phi for All]

Absolutely not. Faith wanes and waxes, so what happens when a person who's morals are based on their faith suddenly doesn't believe anymore? People can be taught morality without it being contingent on what's going to happen to them after they die.

 

And if your religion teaches that you can sin but then be forgiven, what's stopping you from abusing that little loophole?.

[Mr Rayon]

Absolutely not. Faith wanes and waxes, so what happens when a person who's morals are based on their faith suddenly doesn't believe anymore? People can be taught morality without it being contingent on what's going to happen to them after they die.

 

Do you think morality ought to be included as part of the elementary and highschool curriculum for children and teenagers? If so, what if they don't take it seriously? How could one enforce good morality upon the population of a country? Are there other more effective ways to go about doing this?

Do you think teaching people morality would make a big difference in the behaviour of people in the long run?

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

This thread doesn't appear to belong in the Relgion section given that the overriding theme is morality. Moved to Ethics.

[zapatos]

I believe religion is an effective way of teaching morals to people. I put my belief into practice by sending my sons to 12 years of Catholic school even though I am not Catholic and did not encourage them to be Catholic.

 

I also believe that morals do not go away simply because you lose belief in your religion, and I use myself as an example.

 

I also believe that religious morals are generally no different than secular derived morals. Be nice, don't take other people's toys, be honest, etc.

 

And if your religion teaches that you can sin but then be forgiven, what's stopping you from abusing that little loophole?.

This is no different in religious and secular environments. In either case you can be forgiven for an immoral act, and in either case you are not forgiven if you are not sorry and you intend to repeat the immoral act.

[imatfaal]

I believe religion is an effective way of teaching morals to people. I put my belief into practice by sending my sons to 12 years of Catholic school even though I am not Catholic and did not encourage them to be Catholic.

 

I also believe that morals do not go away simply because you lose belief in your religion, and I use myself as an example.

 

I also believe that religious morals are generally no different than secular derived morals. Be nice, don't take other people's toys, be honest, etc.

 

This is no different in religious and secular environments. In either case you can be forgiven for an immoral act, and in either case you are not forgiven if you are not sorry and you intend to repeat the immoral act.

 

Your point on a catholic education resounds with me - whilst I have lost every part of religiosity, I don't believe in a god, and abhor much of organised religion; I find that my moral compass remains very similar to that taught to me by a fairly liberal and forward-thinking jesuit school. The more I try and remember the religious education I received as a teenager the more it seems secular with a veneer of religion. But I do recognize that the christian education I received is far from the norm even in the UK and would be at the most extreme liberal end of the spectrum in US terms

[Phi for All]

Do you think morality ought to be included as part of the elementary and highschool curriculum for children and teenagers? If so, what if they don't take it seriously? How could one enforce good morality upon the population of a country? Are there other more effective ways to go about doing this?

Do you think teaching people morality would make a big difference in the behaviour of people in the long run?

I think it's already taught in public schools, and enforced every day. They just don't have a class named Morality, it's more in how the teachers conduct their classrooms and the examples they set.

 

It's one of the things I had against the No Child Left Behind program. The emphasis was so heavily weighted on taking tests that it gave teachers little time to emphasize the moral lessons kids learn in school every day interacting with each other.

 

That said, I do think classes in Ethics would be good at younger ages. Far too many people (in the US at least) think it's OK to turn their problems into other people's problems. I see people a couple of generations younger than I am littering, swerving across multiple lanes because they need to exit the highway NOW, letting their dogs crap on the sidewalk and leaving it, and lots of other inconsiderate actions. We expect people not to steal and kill, but I think ethical values are built on a lot of much smaller thoughtful actions.

[imatfaal]

And further - kids can learn about ethics at an incredibly young age. I was eight when my mother was doing her open university degree (for those outside the uk - see here ) and she explained what she was studying, in massively simplifed terms; it was the difference between teleological and deontological ethics. It was over twenty years later I connected those ideas I had known "forever" with the hifalutin academic theories people were talking about.

 

Children can take in vast amounts of information and very complex notions - let's make sure those ideas are worth teaching

[John Cuthber]

"Is religion an effective way of creating moral human inhabitants of a society"

I can't see how it could be.

Imagine I'm a dictator of some small country somewhere and I believe that the assertion is true.

How do I use religion to improve the people's morals?

In particular, how do I make them believe in something they don't believe?

 

More bluntly, sex is generally the only way of creating humans, whether or not they are moral inhabitants of a society.

[SamBridge]

Religion can easily help build a cohesive society, but it can also be easily abused.

[Moontanman]

Religion fails miserably as a moral guide, just the Abrahamic version of religion teaches everything from genocide to child molestation as being allowed... actually demanded by god. The Christian religion as we know it has been gelded, we do not see what religion did when it had almost complete "moral" control, personally if i pray for anything I pray that biblical morals will never be allowed control of our society again...

[overtone]

Everyone I know of got their moral being or compass from a basic human nature admitted into a context of stories - tales, myths, legends, gossip, accounts and recountings - from the adults and society around them.

 

Clearly a religion can be a rich source of stories.

[John Cuthber]

Religion is a source of many stories: some of them are grossly immoral.

[john5746]

In your opinion what is a better way to make people become 'good' people?

Is religion the only way?

Obviously, guns are the answer. The more plentiful and powerful, the better.

 

Seriously, although in the US it might be hard to imagine, many countries in Europe seem to be doing just fine without it.

 

[SamBridge]

Religion is a source of many stories: some of them are grossly immoral.

But some of them you have to admit are good and are moral, especially those Buddhist ones and some of the Christian ones.

Edited February 1, 2013 by SamBridge

[menageriemanor]

One of the most important things to teach a morality that leans towards kindness and social cohesian, is empathy. It's very easy to teach, even the very young. Those who claim religion gives an important grounding, cherry pick the morals, the attitudes of dominating another's sexuality and views, the sometimes comical and outrageous rulings that are in many religions, but are ignored and glossed over, by all but the fundamentalists or trouble making atheists.

 

I have to say the aggressive capitalism of America is, I thnk, the reason why so many people in many different social classes. seem to think in fact, that, 'get in first,' is the lesson dominating in most education, which seems to take for granted, a Christian base.. Why else would they, in a stable country, politically, be obsessed with being armed? The number of foreignors that shoot up the general populace, kill children, are nothing compared to their own citizens, often with that background. If America is one of the most stridently proud religion based western societies, then I thnk the report card should read Could Do Better, as a minimum, and as a parent, I'd be leaving the system yesterday.

 

I still cannot comprehend how the very people who desperately need the protection of universal health care, were convinced to aggressively fight against it. That at least, you would think any kindly, educated, "Christian' adult would embrace. That all their fellow citzens and their children, should never die because they live in poverty or are struggling working poor. Or rely on publicity and the occasional kindly health professional taking them in or queueing for possibly years, to get. into a free to the penniless, teaching hospitals.

 

Just as I cannot comprehend how the population of a country allows the minimum wage in so many jobs be so low, that the working poor rely on the kindness of strangers to tip them enough to have an income that barely covers necessities. In so many countries in Western Europe, they would never stand for their most vulnerable to be treated that badly. That is the test of a country, and with the proud obsession of America, with religion and Christianity in particular, I would shriek and run away from that mentality being pushed into my child's head.

 

Since when has a Universal kindness and care for the most vulnerable in your community, been communism? The wealthy donate a lot? Only wealthy, often, because their lowest level employees aren't paid a comfortable wage, and the wealthy don't pay a fair tax. If they paid a fair tax, there would be far less need for them to donate and then claim kudos and importance, to what was fairly owed by them, to the government, to help the broken and needy, to improve services, etc., as their fair share.

 

There are kind individuals in America, but to the world, the religion raised, well off everyman has an image of an unattractive, greedy fat child, demanding more and then, bizarrely, the huge numbers of hungry and desperate of their own citizens,, who scream, "Yes, give them more," even as they are denied basic healthcare and dignity, for fear of being accused of being communist or socialist. I fear most of those citizens didn't get the basic education to understand how they have been totally screwed.

 

Like Pavlov's dogs, they howl, on command from the tea party types, on the word communism/socialism. The enemy of their proud Christianity, that forces old age pensioners to lose their homes, who worked all their lives, in order to treat a cancer or replace hips, and forces them to live with rotting teeth, til they fall out. A lot of Western European countries compassion for their most vulnerable citizens, their desire to give every human a dignity of existance, a minimum level of care, with a total disinterest in religion, at state level, makes the question, as a generality, just sad, if it is framed as a question of without religion, where would our citizens morals bottom out?

[zapatos]

menageriemanor:

I agree that you do not comprehend much about America. You have an attitude that I find very common when people of one country (or state, or locality) compare themselves to another: 'our way is good, your way is bad'.

 

Your view that people are being shot on every corner, which would cause you as a parent to 'be leaving the system yesterday' is ridiculous. I've used guns all my life. At least half the people I know own guns. I do not know anyone who has ever been shot. I've never heard the sound of a gun in my neighborhood.

 

People relying on the 'kindness of strangers' for tips? Sounds like a scene from Gone with the Wind. Very melodramatic. While tips are up to the customer, getting a tip is almost a given. On average an employee who gets tips will know what to expect in a given week.

 

Thank you for recognizing that there are kind individuals in America. If the image of the world of the average, religion raised everyman, is that of an unattractive, greedy, fat child, then I can only blame your biased media and/or how gullible the average non-American is.

[John Cuthber]

But some of them you have to admit are good and are moral, especially those Buddhist ones and some of the Christian ones.

Some of the stories in the Bible are moral, some are not.

How can you tell the difference?

The answer is that you need a sense of morality.

Obviously you can't get that from religion because religion thinks that all the Bible stories are "good".

The fact that religion relies on a Bible that tells you you should kill your children for being rude to their parents is, as far as I can tell, proof that religion is not a way to generate moral people.

 

While religion continues to preach intolerance and murder, it is not a guide to moral behaviour.

[SamBridge]

Some of the stories in the Bible are moral, some are not.

How can you tell the difference?

The answer is that you need a sense of morality.

Obviously you can't get that from religion because religion thinks that all the Bible stories are "good".

The fact that religion relies on a Bible that tells you you should kill your children for being rude to their parents is, as far as I can tell, proof that religion is not a way to generate moral people.

 

While religion continues to preach intolerance and murder, it is not a guide to moral behaviour.

Well some stories you can say pertain to common experience more than others or are more clever in their attempt to show a point or a view without morals.

[iNow]

Some of the stories in the Bible are moral, some are not.

How can you tell the difference?

The answer is that you need a sense of morality.

Obviously you can't get that from religion because religion thinks that all the Bible stories are "good".

The fact that religion relies on a Bible that tells you you should kill your children for being rude to their parents is, as far as I can tell, proof that religion is not a way to generate moral people.

 

While religion continues to preach intolerance and murder, it is not a guide to moral behaviour.

I'm repeating and reinforcing this point because IMO it is so crucial to understanding this issue.

 

People pick and choose which parts of the bible to follow and which to ignore. Despite what the bible says, we don't think it's okay to keep slaves and beat them, we don't kill our brides for failure to be a virgin on their wedding night, we don't stone homosexuals to death and we eat shellfish and wear clothes made of different fibers... and these are just a small sample among a great many that the bible says are wrong and immoral yet believers still ignore.

 

We must have an existing moral code from another source to be able to determine that parts of the bible should not be followed. If the bible were the source of morals, we would follow all of its teachings equally. Since we don't, we know our morals are derived from other sources. That source is our surrounding culture or society. We are pack animals following the social mores of the group or tribe, and we've evolved a tendency to align with the expectations of the pack (as those who went against pack expectations were ostracized, and hence less successful reproducing due to reduced access to mates, food, and protection).

Edited February 3, 2013 by iNow

[ydoaPs]

Is religion an effective way of creating moral human inhabitants of a society (e.g. by lowering crime rates if it does etc)?

No.

[arknd]

I believe morality is 100% relative to your enviornment. Because of that, you cannot make a universally moral person. Maybe by our standards, for as long as our society is the way it is, we can, but only relative to our enviornment. Back when the bible was put together, it was reasonable to kill our wives for not being virgins, and in some parts Africa today, witchcraft is still around.

So, I do not think it is possible to create a moral person. You can immerse someone into whatever society you wish and they will turn out as fine, morally correct people, but only in that society. So to answer your question, religion might be a good starting point to instill relatively good morals into a person, but you could just as easily let everyone run wild and base their morals on human nature and their own individual conciense.

[SamBridge]

I believe morality is 100% relative to your enviornment.

That's not really correct, there's way more than your environment that effects someone. That's actually a pretty formerly common but outdated way of thinking about it.

Edited February 5, 2013 by SamBridge

[arknd]

Upon further inspection of my own work, I definetely agree with you, morality only being dependant on your enviornment is not correct. Using enviornment very, very broadly, you can still give it SOME credit, but it is definetly not 100%. I really think after looking at what I wrote there, I really wasn't even paying attention to what I was writing. Do you feel the rest of my argument is at least somewhat reasonable, though?

[SamBridge]

Upon further inspection of my own work, I definetely agree with you, morality only being dependant on your enviornment is not correct. Using enviornment very, very broadly, you can still give it SOME credit, but it is definetly not 100%. I really think after looking at what I wrote there, I really wasn't even paying attention to what I was writing. Do you feel the rest of my argument is at least somewhat reasonable, though?

Yeah I can still agree with some of your points, People created a society, then that society creates an environment that effects people who go on to modify a society thus creating a modified environment over time. Religion can be good, but can also be easily abused.

Edited February 5, 2013 by SamBridge