MORALITY AND RELIGION
Sudakhya (434), First year, Philosophy Hons
Miranda House
"Does God love goodness because it is good, or is it good because God loves it?" PARAPHRASE OF SOCRATES’ QUESTION IN PLATO’S EUTHYPHRO
This paper will discuss the relationship between religion and morals. Specifically, this paper will explore if morality depends on religion and whether one needs to be religious to be moral.
Ever since the earlier times when human beings started documenting historical events it has been noticed that morality has persistently been linked with religion. Morality has been identified with adherence to godliness and divine, immorality with sin, and the moral law with the command of God so that the moral life is seen as a direct and personal relationship with the ultimate one. It is taught that to act immorally is to disobey God. Whether it is a Shiite Muslim fighting a holy war in the name of Allah, a Hindu killing an innocent animal as a sacrifice to bring rain, or the Christian giving to charity in the name of Christ, religion has changed the idea of morality as indiscriminate from religion.
There have been exceptions: Confucianism in China is essentially a secular system, there are nontheist versions of Buddhism, and the philosophers of Greece contemplated
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Theists argue that there are about six reasons by which morality is enriched y religion, these are: First, if there is a god, good will always win over evil.
If some omnipotent divine power is there then the cosmic energy of justice is always there.
Moral reason always overrides immoral reason, because of the fear of punishment. If theism is true, then there is an ultimate power which loves us all and cares for us- whose love inspires us all.
If there is a god who created us, then all person are of equal worth and there is no class, caste, gender or race.
Theism inspires us to care not about us only but for the future generation as