IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION...

[Bud Bundy]

Yes, they are the same...

At one point in human history, the Torah, New Testament, Koran and many other religious books were the Constitution or Laws, and if you disobeyed them, real consequences would happen to you...

At the end of the day, what we call the laws of the land, serve the same purpose as the religious books of the past...

Read the Bible, Moses couldn't enforce all the laws by himself, so he appointed judges for every tribe...

This was probably a political strategy he learned from another nation (and not God, as the Bible claims)...

Today, we just have a more advanced and layered system, but the foundation and purpose of the system is still the same...Control of the masses...

The Judicial System is actually a religious system when you think about it...

All we did (in Western countries) was to remove the superstition from it...

you disproved nothing I said all you did was explain that in some lands the law was the religion at the time. You are missing alot of the finer points like Morality which are based on a society and what they define as the norm. Look at myans they made human sacrifices and this was seen as a way to appease the gods. You see that as wrong but that was good in there eyes and was supported by there laws and religion.

 

[daze23]

< insert Sam Harris video >

 

[nineteeneightysix]

OP, you have a strange definition of the word "religion".

I am going by the dictionary definition...

Pick any one of these definitions...

re·li·gion (r-ljn)
n.
1.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Basically, any kind of belief system that guides the way you think and behave is in essence your religion...

If you had no religion you would act on almost any emotional impulse that you felt...

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

Because religion exists for that very purpose...

No human being is born knowing right from wrong...In fact, right and wrong don't even exist...Right and wrong is the definition of religion...

Religion exists to give us a theory of how the universe and life came to be. Thats the point. Otherwise it would just be philosophy.

 

[Fillerguy]

(especially the traditional Judaism, Christianity and Islam)...

How can you say that the Newton Massacre was "Wrong"...?

Now, remember there is a difference between illegal/legal and right/wrong...For example, at some point slavery was legal, but was it right...?

Can you scientifically prove that the Newton Massacre or any such similar event is wrong...?

Ever since I stopped being a Christian, I have been struggling with this issue...People who say that they are not religious...

Even though I don't believe in a superstitious supernatural power, I believe every single human being with adequate intelligence has a religion (and I define religion as a code of morals, ethics and beliefs that govern/control behaviour)...

Think about the laws of our countries (USA and Canada), are these laws based on any kind of scientific research...? No...

So why do we believe in them, and isn't this a form of religion...?

In fact, isn't the constitution of the USA/Canada a religious book such as the Torah, New Testament and the Koran...?

What's your opinion on this line of reasoning...

Is the law of the land a religion...?

Please dont go on a killing spree, plz. Morality isnt dependent upon God, religion or society. Not in a world where concepts like the Golden Rule and Reciprocity exist.

 

[MeachTheMonster]

I am going by the dictionary definition...

Pick any one of these definitions...

re·li·gion (r-ljn)
n.
1.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Basically, any kind of belief system that guides the way you think and behave is in essence your religion...

If you had no religion you would act on almost any emotional impulse that you felt...

If we go strictly by the detention of the word, anything can be a religion. We coli members would be part of the "the coli" religion.

We all know that when someone refers to a religion or a religious person, they are referring to a belief in a deity, not just following rules and guidelines.

Three of your definitions speak of a higher power

 

[Brown_Pride]

the bible isn't a book of morality, it's a book of salvation.

Morals do not assure salvation. You can be 100% moral and still go to hell.

IMHO at its purest form morality comes from empathy, sympathy (which are emotions) and logic, usually with the later applying some frame work to the two former.

When you see someone get murdered you know it's wrong because you can "feel" and "see" yourself in that situation. That is the basis of morality.

Religion vs non-religion....
If you're religious you believe "something" (God) imparted sympathy, empathy and logic into you.

If you're non-religious you believe that's all created because of chemicals in your brain.

Either way morality is a "human" condition...possibly even chimps have some too (i don't know i've not been around them a whole lot)

 

[rapbeats]

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" -- Hamlet

The basic philosophical idea that supports laws and responsibilities etc is called social contract theory. It's based on actually deciding what sort of social order you want to live in

way not to answer the question.

how does one DECIDE what type of social order you want to live in?
what the heck is SOCIAL order without a BELIEF system.

you take out RIGHT and WRONG. you have no system, you have no ORDER. if you dont realize that i cant help you. you can choose to call it a religion or not. but the OP is correct. everyone has a religion/belief system(choosing whats RIGHT to them and whats WRONG to them).

Social order: In social sciences, social order is a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce ways of relating and behaving.[citation needed]
A "social order" is a relatively persistent system of institutions, patterns of interactions and customs, capable of continually reproducing at least those conditions essential for its own existence. The concept refers to all those facts of society which remain relatively constant over time. These conditions could include both property, exchange and power relations, but also cultural forms, communication relations and ideological systems of values.

Sociology

The issue of social order, how and why it is that social orders exists at all, is historically central to sociology. Thomas Hobbes is recognized as the first to clearly formulate the problem, to answer which he conceived the notion of a social contract. Social theorists (such as Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, and Jürgen Habermas) have proposed different explanations for what a social order consists of, and what its real basis is. For Marx, it is the relations of production or economic structure which is the basis of a social order. For Durkheim, it is a set of shared social norms. For Parsons, it is a set of social institutions regulating pattern of action-orientations, which again are based on a frame of cultural values. For Habermas, it is all of these, as well as communicative action.

Values and norms

Values can be defined as "internal criteria for evaluation". Values are also split into two categories, there are individual values, which pertains to something that we think has worth and then there are social values. Social values are our desires modified according to ethical principles or according to the group we associate with: friends, family, or co-workers. Norms tell us what people ought to do in a given situation. Unlike values, norms are enforced externally – or outside of oneself. A society as a whole determines norms, and they can be passed down from generation to generation.

Is religion necessary for social order?
MARK STRICHERZ

Religion is surely not a necessary and sufficient cause of social order; witness India and Pakistan. But it is, I think, a necessary one; witness Britain and our big-city ghettos. Over at his crunchy con blog, Rod Dreher engages in a an intriguing back-and-forth with no less a figure than David Rieff. Rod’s view, in brief, is that society does need religion for social order, or at least a binding communal sense of the transcendent:

I do wonder, though, on what basis UK culture, or any culture, that slides into the kind of slough of disorder and social pathology emerging in the UK now (or, for that matter, in the US inner city, and beyond) can be arrested and reversed, if not on a religious basis? You cannot make people believe in religion because it’s good for them. Yet the culture we’re in now is so hedonistic and individualistic that it’s hard for me to see how, absent a heroic commitment to transcendental values, society as a whole recovers. The Victorians faced a similar crisis, and rallied. But they at least had a strongly residual Christianity to build on. Once Christianity has been lost, replaced by a secular hedonistic ethic, on what basis can one appeal for repentance and renewal?

I’m not saying that only religious people can be morally upright. Obviously we all know religious people who are nasty and unethical, and atheists who are thoroughly decent and admirable. I don’t wish to be misunderstood on this point. Nevertheless, it seems plain to me that society cannot carry on without some more or less commonly shared basis of social order, rooted in some sort of felt (as distinct from merely cerebral) transcendental commitment. I, for example, believe that Islam is untrue; nevertheless, one must recognize the role that the Islamic faith plays in keeping social order in the societies it rules. The point I’m making is not a theological one, but a sociological one. Robert D. Kaplan wrote about the differences he observed between the chaos and ruin of West Africa, versus the order he observed in Egypt. Both places were very poor, but Islam gave its people a sense of internal order and dignity that allowed them to bear their dire material circumstances more successfully than the West Africans.

What I would like for us to discuss is whether or not religion (not only Christianity, but religion itself) is ultimately necessary to social order. Is continental Europe ultimately going to go to pieces because of Christianity’s collapse? Can a society falling apart because of problems related to the lack of self-discipline and self-restraint return from the edge without in some real sense embracing religion? And if so, what might that be? What kind of secular ethic could replace real religion; i.e. what kind of secular ethic could be experienced by most people as binding on their conduct?

^^That is the point the OP is trying to make. Or question(s) he is asking.

 

[nineteeneightysix]

Religion exists to give us a theory of how the universe and life came to be. Thats the point. Otherwise it would just be philosophy.

Not only...

Religion also exists to give us rules about what is socially acceptable and not...

You can't read the Law of Moses and not tell me that is an archaic Constitution of a nation...

Laws about marriage, property, inheritance, finances, dress code, labor, diet and etc...

That's a constitution if you ask me...

 

[zerozero]

OP's question is good, the responses are needlessly aggressive , the truth is this is a complex issue

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

OP's question is good, the responses are needlessly aggressive , the truth is this is a complex issue

you should be able to understand why its offensive to nonreligious people he is basically saying we "can't" have morals.

 

[Type Username Here]

OP's question is good, the responses are needlessly aggressive , the truth is this is a complex issue

The question he asked is one of the basic tenants of moral philosophy, but interjecting this:

I believe every single human being with adequate intelligence has a religion (and I define religion as a code of morals, ethics and beliefs that govern/control behaviour)...

is unnecessary. He's playing Dictionary Gymnastics to further an agenda.

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

Not only...

Religion also exists to give us rules about what is socially acceptable and not...

You can't read the Law of Moses and not tell me that is an archaic Constitution of a nation...

Laws about marriage, property, inheritance, finances, dress code, labor, diet and etc...

That's a constitution if you ask me...

I'm not saying that a religious text can't come together to be a social contract, a philosophical treatise, and a metaphysical explanation of a universe in one. I'm just saying that good vs. evil comes from philosophy, and what makes religion purely religion is when it offers and explanation of the emergence of the universe and life.

Obviously early civilizations often depended on religions and religious text for many things.

 

[NoMayo15]

I am going by the dictionary definition...

Pick any one of these definitions...

re·li·gion (r-ljn)
n.
1.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Basically, any kind of belief system that guides the way you think and behave is in essence your religion...

If you had no religion you would act on almost any emotional impulse that you felt...

Okay, so how is the judicial system a supernatural power? Or a power regarded as the creator and governor of the universe? People worship the supreme court? I mean, we might look up to or revere some of it's members ... but where's the worship? Again, it's a strange usage of the word.

But I get what you're saying. A set of beliefs, or morals to you is religion. Okay, fine. And by using that definition, I suppose you are correct. If I don't have a set of morals then I can't say what happened in CT was wrong .

But you're wrong in a way when you say morals have nothing to do with science. Well, maybe not science exactly, but since we're bullshyttin with words anyway. I suppose the better word for it would be empiricism. We developed our morality (religion, as you call it) as a society by observing certain actions and collectively deciding which actions are more harmful to society at large than beneficial. Unlike religious dogma, however, these tenets are subject to change if we learn something new. As an atheist, I can say that what happened in CT was wrong because I acknowledge that being shot would harm me, my family and friends would feel grief ..... the total benefit would be outweighed by the total harm. If someone killed me they would have taken from me my one and only shot at existence. In my opinion, no one has the right to murder ... even in the case of justice.

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

OP's question is good, the responses are needlessly aggressive , the truth is this is a complex issue

He cant stick to an issue and doesnt seem to be absorbing arguments. Not to mention the premise of his argument is flawed. So....