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The relationship between morality and religion
Morality vs religion
How does religion influence moral behaviour
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Religion and morality are two things that people seem to connect quite often. Many people believe that in order to be moral, there has to be belief in God. This belief makes you a moral person because you follow what God is stating in his bible, such as never lying or stealing. But is that the case of every individual? Is a person who believes in God morally correct all of the time? Being moral means to know and act upon the differences of good and bad, wrong and right. Your behavior is morally correct if you do a good action, such as helping someone. If you are immoral, you would ignore what is right and do something wrong. Opposing other’s views that do not correlate with yours tends to happen when you do not agree with something another …show more content…
Blaise Pascal’s argument was fairly simple: you are better off believing in God because if he does exist, you will go to heaven, but if you do not believe and he happens to exist, you are likely to be punished with hell. There are several things wrong with his argument because he is insinuating that if people go about living a morally correct life, but do not believe in God, they are not welcome in heaven, if God is proven real. With that being said, Pascal rules out all the people that do well in the world and basically live by God’s biblical rules, but do not believe in his existence for a matter of reasons, whether it is lack of evidence or perhaps they believe in another God. A fallacious point made in Pascal’s argument for making people prefer to believe in God, is that he does not mention what God to believe in. If a person is to believe in another God that Pascal is referring to, that person will not benefit from heaven because they do not believe in that exact …show more content…
On the other hand, if a person is atheist, but is morally just, they more often than not are considered “not good” people. While it is certainly acceptable to believe in a God, it is the actions that you present to the world that make you a moral person. Another problem with Pascal’s Wager was that if people choose to believe in God just so they can go to heaven, they would have to follow the religion untruthfully and pretend to have ties with it just to go to heaven. It would be an immoral thing to pretend to follow a religion for one’s benefit and if God were to be omniscient, he would be aware of the false beliefs of a person. With the problem of evil comes the problem of free will for humans and God’s omnipotence is challenged. People’s free will decides whether they will do immoral actions or not. God’s omnipotence is tested because if he would be able to truly have a power over us, he would always make humans do the moral thing in our everyday lives. Human beings create many problems that are immoral from their own free will. Since many people devote to religion, perhaps the people committing crimes or immoral actions are religious beings that do in fact believe there is a
Then he goes on to conclude by saying that, “The lessons learned from observing people and their beliefs support the position that I have defended: rational people may rationally believe in God without evidence or argument” (Feinberg 142). In schools today, students grow up listening to lectures that are subjective and then later are tested on what the teacher thinks and believes. Whether or not the taught perspective is factual or not, it teaches students from a young age to just take what the teachers, adults, and any authority says as truth, as a way to respecting authority. In the same way that it is reasonable to believe respectable authority, it is rational to have belief in God without specific evidence because we are created with the inclination that a higher being exists and God has shown Himself to be true to every generation. Furthermore, God has placed in every human the inkling to believe what is right or wrong, so when it comes to deciding whether to act a certain way, we can rely on our gut feeling if it is a good action or not. It is a very common and suggested thing to trust one's gut feeling when making a decision, even though it does not require any evidence to see if it is actually the right decision to
Pascal’s Wager was a major strength of his theory on God and Religion. The argument made in Pascal’s Wager is an example of apologetic philosophy. It was written and published in Pensées by the 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Pascal’s Wager claims that all humans must bet their lives on whether God exists. He argues that rational people should seek to believe in God. If God does not exist the loss is minimal, but if God does exist there is an infinite gain, eternity in Heaven. It was a ground-breaking theory because it utilized probability theory and formal decision theory. Pascal’s Wager is applicable both to atheists and theists. While other philosophies may
Whether god exists or not has been in discussion for thousands of years, and an important discussion. Whether it is rational to believe in god or not is another story, like believing in god itself, this topic has brought many discussions. It is one thing to discuss whether god is real or not and it is a complete other to discuss whether it is rational to believe in god or not. I believe that while there may not be any convincing evidence or arguments that God does exist, I do still believe that it is still rational to believe that god does exist. I think this because, believing in God is not simply just believing that he exists, but believing that it can bring good to our lives, we otherwise would not have. It teaches us to have a moral responsibility not only to others, but ourselves. It is obvious that many people do believe in god, but many of us choose to do so for reasons other than just believing in God. I do believe that just because there is no evidence, that does not mean God doesn’t exist. Like I said, God brings more to our lives than just a belief, but an ability to achieve a better one. And even if God is just an imaginary figure, he is an imaginary figure that brings hope and goodness to our lives, which we can never discount.
Of the two choices a person can make, there are four possible outcomes that could happen to a person as a result of the choice they made. The first possible outcome is that a person chooses to believe in God and God does exist. If this is true then the believer will suffer some harm in this life, but they will be rewarded with salvation in the afterlife. The second possible outcome is that a person chooses to believe in God and God does not exist. If this true then the believer will suffer some harm in this life and they will not be rewarded with anything when they die, but they will not be punished either.
What if he/she doesn’t believe in God or in his attributes? If we were to follow Descartes reasoning we could say that if we don’t have any clear and distinct idea of God then he must not exist. Secondly, how can we guarantee that this “God” isn’t merely a figment of our imagination. Descartes mentions that we have such a powerful mind that sometimes it is hard to demarcate dreams from real life? What if we are just dreaming? We can’t see or physically touch God so how can we even know he exists? Thirdly, one could argue that if God was so benevolent and omniscient why would he give us the faculty of will. If God knows everything then why does he give us the free will to make incorrect choices? Additionally, God is seen as someone who is perfect and the epitome of Goodness then why is he letting all this bloodshed and war continue in the world? Fourthly, Descartes’ second proof is also based of the ideology that existence is perfection. How can existence be a perfection? I exist but I am not a perfect human being. Correspondingly, in the second proof Descartes is basically saying that existence is a property of a thing or object. But existence can’t be a property, existence has to be an idea presupposed to the thing. We should already know it exists. Thus, the idea that God exists cannot be considered a quality in the same way as omniscience and
What is morality? Merriam-Webster dictionary states that morality is/are the beliefs about what right behavior is and what wrong behavior is
Modern debates over religion, more specifically God, focus primarily on whether or not sufficient evidence exists to either prove or disprove the existence of a God. Disbelievers such as biologist Richard Hawkins tend to point to the indisputable facts of evolution and the abundance of scientific evidence which seem to contradict many aspects of religion. Conversely, believers such as Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith describe the controversial aspects of science, and how the only possible solution to everything is a supreme being. However, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal refused to make either type of argument; he believed that it was impossible to determine God’s existence for certainty through reason. Instead, he suggested that rational individuals should wager as though God does indeed exist, because doing so offers these individuals everything to gain, and nothing to lose. Unfortunately, Pascal’s Wager contains numerous fallacies, and in-depth analysis of each one of his arguments proves that Pascal’s Wager is incorrect.
of the arguments in favor of God, or a so-called "higher power" are based on
God is the source of evil. He created natural evil, and gave humans the ability to do moral evil by giving them a free will. However, had he not given people free will, then their actions would not be good or evil; nor could God reward or punish man for his actions since they had no choice in what to do. Therefore, by giving humans choice and free will, God allowed humanity to decide whether to reward themselves with temporary physical goods, and suffer in the long run from unhappiness, or forsake bodily pleasures for eternal happiness.
...hrough certainty. Personally I would have to agree with Pascal. There is simply a huge fault in the logic of Descart. His logic jumps to God exists without actually proving it. To say that we cannot conceive God without existence, and so we cannot exist without God is lacking any real logical basis. This leads to the Cartesian Tragedy and this destroys all further credibility to all further assumptions contained in his logical process. Pascal I can agree with a little more. He is straightforward in saying that we just have to follow our heart. He shows how proving through reason whether God exists would be difficult one way or another, which it
...e a firm belief in God to apply to everyone, this same argument may be tweaked just a bit to fit an atheists point of view on free will, thus making it more accessible to everyone. Reading through Augustine's argument has only made my own belief's on free will stronger.
Morals are having principles or habits with respect to right or wrong conduct (“Morals”). Having morals is something that people can have or lack. In religion, believing in a god with morals is a necessity. In Ancient Greece, however, Greek religion believed in gods and goddesses with immoral behaviors.
As the American Heritage Dictionary plainly states, morality is "a system of ideas of right and wrong conduct" (American Heritage Dictionary 2000). People have been researching the development of this sense of morality for centuries. There is great debate over how a person’s morality is formed and then how to categorize one person’s level of morality compared to others. Most researchers believe that people reach different stages of morality within their lifetimes. The tougher issue is determining what comprises the various stages of morality, which is dependent on what a person’s ideas of right or wrong are to begin with. Therefore in order to establish a set of moral stages, one must clarify what exactly is thought of as right or wrong to a group of people.
The first reason focuses on the belief of faith. The following passage is taken from the Bible. It has excellent meaning because it shows that everyone has faith. Having faith is the first sign that shows everyone believes in a religion. There are two good definitions of religion. The first is belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe. The second is a personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship. The passage shows that everyone has an institutionalized system that has belief. The passage is as follows, ?Everyone believes in something. No one can endure the stress and cares of life without faith in God. Atheists cannot prove there is no God. Pantheists cannot prove that everything is God. Pragmatists cannot prove that what will count for them in the future is what works for them now. Nor can agnostics prove that it is impossible to know one way or the other. Faith is unavoidable, even if we chose to believe only in ourselves. What is to be decided is what evidence we think is pertinent, how we are going to interpret that evidence, and who or what we are willing to believe in.? (Luke 16:16)(4) The passage is great proof that there is a God. It shows that everyone has faith. Faith is a big aspect in religion. With every religion, there is likely to be a single holy being, a god.
Now, I personally believe that people absolutely should be moral for several reasons. The main one being. I believe that it 's natural for people to want to do the right thing and that deep down they want to do the right thing, but through circumstances, the understanding of