Skip to main content

Does Religion Make People More Moral?

 The philosopher David Hume wrote, "The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere."

The question we are left to wonder about, therefore, is whether religion and religious beliefs actually make people more moral human beings, or less. Or do they have no real effect on us at all. 

"Believers,"  naturally assume that their sacred "beliefs" actually make people more moral,  of course, even though non believers argue that such a "belief" is what actually leads such "Believers" to not only be self righteous in their conviction that they are right (about pretty much everything, unfortunately) but to commit some of the most immoral crimes imaginable - and always in the name of their beliefs and their "god."  

But the truth is that there is plenty of evidence that shows religion makes people more immoral, in fact, including studies that show the more religious people tend to be, the more racist they tend to be as well. It has also been found that the biggest consumers of online porn tend to be people who live in America's Bible belt. Add to this the fact that all "believers" defend a moral double standard of violence and evil, one that not only always exempts God from being judged by such a standard but which "believers" use to justify war despite the commandment not to kill.

The point is, that even if religion does make some people better (which is debatable, of course), it clearly also makes some people worse as well (which is indisputable). The question ,then, is whether "believers" chose to simply "believe" that their beliefs make more people better than worse, even as non-believers think it is the other way around. 

This is not surprising, of course, because once we look under the hood of what drives such believers, we see that there is nothing but air. That is to say, that this "belief" that people are potentially more moral if they "believe" in god or a religion, is itself simply another "belief" that "believers" are just willing to accept as true, regardless of whether there is any evidence to support the claim, even if there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

And this only supports the idea that once a person is willing to believe in something without proof, they are easily willing to believe in practically anything without proof. They will, no doubt, reject all of this as simply a "belief" as well, which only proves how they pick and chose which baseless beliefs they are willing to believe are "true," and which they chose to believe are false.  And while it tells us nothing about the validity of such "beliefs" one way or the other, it does tell us that our "morality" is as fickle as what we are willing to believe, and why. 

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Christianity is More Unnatural Than Homosexuality

I grew up in a family that is about as homophobic as Phil Robertson and the Westboro Baptists, only they're not quite as boisterous about it; at least not in public anyway. They have also conveniently convinced themselves  that their homophobia is really just their unique Christian ability to "hate the sin, but love the sinner" (even though these very same Christians adamantly refuse to accept that people can "hate Christianity, but love the Christian").  The sexual superiority complex necessarily relied on by such Christians is, of course, blanketed beneath the lambs wool of the Christian humility of serving "God." They interpret their fear of those who are different, in other words, as simply proof of their intimate knowledge and love of God. And the only thing such Christians are more sure about than that their own personal version of "God" exists, is that such a "God" would never want people to be homosexual - no matter how ma

Christianity: An Addiction of Violence Masquerading as Love: Part II

"But God by nature must love Himself supremely, above all else." Fr. Emmet Carter   This is part  two of a look at an article written about the "restorative and medicinal" properties of punishment, as espoused by Fr. Emmett Carter (https://catholicexchange.com/gods-punishment-is-just-restorative-and-medicinal/).  Ideas of this sort in Christianity go back to St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas - two saints who saw the suffering of Christ as sure fire evidence that God needed humans to suffer to balance the cosmic scales of his love for us. Sure, he could've come up with a better game, or made better humans, but its apparently the suffering he really enjoys seeing. Carter's essay raises countless questions, especially about the true nature of God's blood lust, but lets stick to just four simpler ones. The first question deals with the idea of "free will." According to Christians, God designed us with the ability to freely choose to obey or offend h

Christianity: An Addiction of Violence Masquerading as Love: Part I

If the Holy Bible proves anything at all, it proves that the Christian God has a blood-lust like no other God in history. From Abraham to Jesus to the end times to eternal hell, the Christian God loves suffering even more than, or at least as much as, said God loves Himself. And if everything from the genocides in the Old Testament and God killing everyone on the planet with a flood, to Jesus being tortured and murdered (rather than the devil, who is the guilty one) and the fiery end of the world followed by the never ending fires of hell, are not enough to convince you that Christianity is really an addiction to violence masquerading as "love," just consider the psychotic rantings of a Catholic priest trying to convince his faithful flock that murder and mutilation - which he calls "punishment" -  are proof of just how much his "God" is pure love.  In an article published on https://catholicexchange.com/gods-punishment-is-just-restorative-and-medicinal/,