Secular Morality and Religious Morality Inadvertently Influenced One Another

Even in matters of outwardly secular morality, religion plays such a hegemonic role that, in many instances, secular morality is inadvertently influenced by religious morality. It could even be said that religious morality is greatly influenced by secular morals and not the other way around. While it would be difficult to assess the genealogy of morality it would be safe to say that morality has a very strong connection with religious morality. Moreover, to evade the almost omnipresent influence of religious morality would be nearly impossible; this allows for the almost constant melding of the two making them almost indistinguishable. While certainly not all morality is based on religion, it has become such a force that morality can scarcely be discussed without religion in mind. So, in what aspect does religious morality and secular morality intersect to create this dimension?

It is said that “[e]very society needs the stability provided by a sense of sacred order” (Fasching and Dechant 16). This has been the prevailing thought since the dawn of man. The role of religion in shaping morality cannot be ignored because it has formed the ideas of right and wrong since man first created a mythology of creation; ever since it has been argued that morality could not even exist without religion to act as a basis. While this could be disputed it illustrates the point that religion and morality are almost inseparable even when discussing “secular morality”. “Secular morality” can very well be greatly influenced by “religious morality”, hence, creating a dimension that is inherently both at the same time. It is difficult to distinguish where the line between the two begins and ends because religion, in a large number of cu...

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...erms of end goals. They are only dissimilar in how the conclusion is reached.

Secular morality cannot but help have elements of religious morality built into its very structure due to a multitude of factors. The two are very closely connected not only because of how the United States was formed but because of the largely religious population and how hegemonic Christianity is in terms of influence. This argument also depends on an almost unanswerable question of if morality is dependent on religion or if it only depends on human logic to dictate it. While it would seem that morality is independent of a religious foundation it does borrow liberally from its traditions but it is almost impossible to tell which begat which. Regardless, the two distinctly different moralities feed into one another, creating an exceptional type of morality that is uniquely both.