WHY do religions teach morals?

[charles brough]

Its either a moral code or a moral doctrine, but all religions propose some moral system.

Is it necessary or not? Are we innately moral because we evolved as social beings? Do women teach and protect their children because of religion? Do men protect the group because of religion? This is the normal way we humans behave.

Even so, moral teachings of religion are important because they define and shape our moral nature so we better agree on what is right and wrong.

Marriage, for example . . . we evolved as polygamous creatures but we establish monogamy to build a more functional society. When society breaks down, so does monogamy and people become more polygamous. . .

[kayky]

Morals are innate. Religion tries to teach morals to validate itself.

Don't you think you take your argument too far? Studies of feral children show that morals are hardly "innate." Children must be socialized. Religion can play a role in this. But family and culture are important influences too.

[PREEST]

If we didn't know that theft, murder and rape etc were not kosher then we would not have made it this far as a species. Yet somehow, without religion, we found a way to live harmoniously together, and look where we are! It's an insult to humanity to credit all the knowledge we have won for ourselves and all the advancements we have made to a god that remains unproven.

Morals are innate.

[Dantalion]

If we didn't know that theft, murder and rape etc were not kosher then we would not have made it this far as a species. Yet somehow, without religion, we found a way to live harmoniously together, and look where we are! It's an insult to humanity to credit all the knowledge we have won for ourselves and all the advancements we have made to a god that remains unproven.

Morals are innate.

No they are not.
And nobody said anything about morals coming directly from God.
We are talking about religion as a social institute ( the reason why they teach morals) and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy.
There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread.

And I'm sorry but morals are not innate.
Morals can be passed down however, and become 'innate' to a culture or civilisation, but nobody is born with a set of morals, we have lots of studies proving this.

A social group that wants to continue living will soon figure out that murder is wrong, aka counterproductive to the whole surviving idea, but this is not an insight that is innate upon the birth of the individuals of that group. Very simply put, nobody knew murder was wrong until they started to see members of their own social group getting murdered, thereby diminishing the chance of survival of said social group.

[PREEST]

If we didn't know that theft, murder and rape etc were not kosher then we would not have made it this far as a species. Yet somehow, without religion, we found a way to live harmoniously together, and look where we are! It's an insult to humanity to credit all the knowledge we have won for ourselves and all the advancements we have made to a god that remains unproven.

Morals are innate.

No they are not.
And nobody said anything about morals coming directly from God.
We are talking about religion as a social institute ( the reason why they teach morals) and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy.
There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread.

And I'm sorry but morals are not innate.
Morals can be passed down however, and become 'innate' to a culture or civilisation, but nobody is born with a set of morals, we have lots of studies proving this.

A social group that wants to continue living will soon figure out that murder is wrong, aka counterproductive to the whole surviving idea, but this is not an insight that is innate upon the birth of the individuals of that group. Very simply put, nobody knew murder was wrong until they started to see members of their own social group getting murdered, thereby diminishing the chance of survival of said social group.

Obviously you have not read the works of the wonderful Noam Chomsky? Nor have you heard of Marc Hauser, an evoluntionary biologist who asserts morals are innate? I did a major in Japanese and linguistics, and Chomsky's work absolutely inspired me. Now, Chomsky says that morals ARE in fact innate. It is similar to language in which we are born with an innate aptitude to learn a language. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Chomsky;

"the fact of the matter is that we're constantly making moral judgments in new situations, and over a substantial range we do it in a convergent fashion--we don't differ randomly and wildly from one another. Furthermore, young children do it, very quickly, and they also converge. Of course, there are cultural and social and historical effects, but even for those to operate, they must be operating on something. If you look at this range of phenomena, there are only two possibilities: one is, it's a miracle, and the other is, it's rooted in our nature. It's rooted in our nature in the same sense in which language is, or for that matter, having arms and legs is. And it takes different forms depending on the circumstances, just as arms and legs depend on nutrition, and language depends on my not having heard Swedish when I was six months old and so on. But basically, it must be something that flows out of our nature, or otherwise we'd never use it in any systematic way, except just repeating what happened before. So, it's got to be there"

To add to this, people treat others the way they want to be treated. A child does not murder because they do not want to be harmed or murdered themselves. This is an innate instinct. Obviously, this can be negatively altered and influenced when a child has abusive parents or parents who have neglected them or some other kind of unfavourable situation.

So before you patronize me with comments like 'And I'm sorry but morals are not innate' maybe consider some arguments against your position, because you state your opinion as if it is fact.

You then said; "...and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy. There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread." Ok, if morals are not innate then where did they come from? If not from humans, then where? God? The two issues are very much related to this topic. Religions teach morals because they think the come from god. I, like Chomsky and many others think that they don't.

I believe that religion teaches morals to validate it's self. Why religion shouldn't teach morals is because we already know for ourself the difference from right and wrong. Therefore, I am positing that religion doesn't need to teach morals, which is an answer to 'Why does religion teach morals?'

I used to be a christian and did believe my moral coding came from god. When I emancipated myself from christianity I realised this could not be the case, because non-religious folk also had morals and ethics true to them.


Why does religion teach morals if morals are innate without us?

[Dantalion]

If we didn't know that theft, murder and rape etc were not kosher then we would not have made it this far as a species. Yet somehow, without religion, we found a way to live harmoniously together, and look where we are! It's an insult to humanity to credit all the knowledge we have won for ourselves and all the advancements we have made to a god that remains unproven.

Morals are innate.

No they are not.
And nobody said anything about morals coming directly from God.
We are talking about religion as a social institute ( the reason why they teach morals) and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy.
There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread.

And I'm sorry but morals are not innate.
Morals can be passed down however, and become 'innate' to a culture or civilisation, but nobody is born with a set of morals, we have lots of studies proving this.

A social group that wants to continue living will soon figure out that murder is wrong, aka counterproductive to the whole surviving idea, but this is not an insight that is innate upon the birth of the individuals of that group. Very simply put, nobody knew murder was wrong until they started to see members of their own social group getting murdered, thereby diminishing the chance of survival of said social group.

Obviously you have not read the works of the wonderful Noam Chomsky? Nor have you heard of Marc Hauser, an evoluntionary biologist who asserts morals are innate? I did a major in Japanese and linguistics, and Chomsky's work absolutely inspired me. Now, Chomsky says that morals ARE in fact innate. It is similar to language in which we are born with an innate aptitude to learn a language. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Chomsky;

"the fact of the matter is that we're constantly making moral judgments in new situations, and over a substantial range we do it in a convergent fashion--we don't differ randomly and wildly from one another. Furthermore, young children do it, very quickly, and they also converge. Of course, there are cultural and social and historical effects, but even for those to operate, they must be operating on something. If you look at this range of phenomena, there are only two possibilities: one is, it's a miracle, and the other is, it's rooted in our nature. It's rooted in our nature in the same sense in which language is, or for that matter, having arms and legs is. And it takes different forms depending on the circumstances, just as arms and legs depend on nutrition, and language depends on my not having heard Swedish when I was six months old and so on. But basically, it must be something that flows out of our nature, or otherwise we'd never use it in any systematic way, except just repeating what happened before. So, it's got to be there"

To add to this, people treat others the way they want to be treated. A child does not murder because they do not want to be harmed or murdered themselves. This is an innate instinct. Obviously, this can be negatively altered and influenced when a child has abusive parents or parents who have neglected them or some other kind of unfavourable situation.

So before you patronize me with comments like 'And I'm sorry but morals are not innate' maybe consider some arguments against your position, because you state your opinion as if it is fact.

You then said; "...and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy. There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread." Ok, if morals are not innate then where did they come from? If not from humans, then where? God? The two issues are very much related to this topic. Religions teach morals because they think the come from god. I, like Chomsky and many others think that they don't.

I believe that religion teaches morals to validate it's self. Why religion shouldn't teach morals is because we already know for ourself the difference from right and wrong. Therefore, I am positing that religion doesn't need to teach morals, which is an answer to 'Why does religion teach morals?'

I used to be a christian and did believe my moral coding came from god. When I emancipated myself from christianity I realised this could not be the case, because non-religious folk also had morals and ethics true to them.


Why does religion teach morals if morals are innate without us?

I'm sure that you can see Chomsky is talking about the ability to make moral judgments, not what the morals themselves are.
So once again, morals are not innate.
This is not an opinion, it is fact.
Nobody gets born with an innate sense of morality that stealing is wrong.

Religion is a social structure and all social structures have a moral system.
the question of 'should religion teach morals' is superfluous.
(Personally, I don't care about the morals of any religion, the ones I dabbled into all proved to be flawed and vastly inferior, which is why religion just is a really, really bad place to get morals from)

If it is a social structure, it will teach morals.
morals are not innate, but experienced/learned/established/adopted and passed down.
This really IS a fact, stating a Chomsky quote about the ability to make moral judgments doesn't change that. Of course that ability would be innate, it's one of the things that make us 'human'.

But like I said, take a newborn child, and don't expose them to any kind of social structure whatsoever, that child will NOT have any morals.

[PREEST]

If we didn't know that theft, murder and rape etc were not kosher then we would not have made it this far as a species. Yet somehow, without religion, we found a way to live harmoniously together, and look where we are! It's an insult to humanity to credit all the knowledge we have won for ourselves and all the advancements we have made to a god that remains unproven.

Morals are innate.

No they are not.
And nobody said anything about morals coming directly from God.
We are talking about religion as a social institute ( the reason why they teach morals) and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy.
There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread.

And I'm sorry but morals are not innate.
Morals can be passed down however, and become 'innate' to a culture or civilisation, but nobody is born with a set of morals, we have lots of studies proving this.

A social group that wants to continue living will soon figure out that murder is wrong, aka counterproductive to the whole surviving idea, but this is not an insight that is innate upon the birth of the individuals of that group. Very simply put, nobody knew murder was wrong until they started to see members of their own social group getting murdered, thereby diminishing the chance of survival of said social group.

Obviously you have not read the works of the wonderful Noam Chomsky? Nor have you heard of Marc Hauser, an evoluntionary biologist who asserts morals are innate? I did a major in Japanese and linguistics, and Chomsky's work absolutely inspired me. Now, Chomsky says that morals ARE in fact innate. It is similar to language in which we are born with an innate aptitude to learn a language. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Chomsky;

"the fact of the matter is that we're constantly making moral judgments in new situations, and over a substantial range we do it in a convergent fashion--we don't differ randomly and wildly from one another. Furthermore, young children do it, very quickly, and they also converge. Of course, there are cultural and social and historical effects, but even for those to operate, they must be operating on something. If you look at this range of phenomena, there are only two possibilities: one is, it's a miracle, and the other is, it's rooted in our nature. It's rooted in our nature in the same sense in which language is, or for that matter, having arms and legs is. And it takes different forms depending on the circumstances, just as arms and legs depend on nutrition, and language depends on my not having heard Swedish when I was six months old and so on. But basically, it must be something that flows out of our nature, or otherwise we'd never use it in any systematic way, except just repeating what happened before. So, it's got to be there"

To add to this, people treat others the way they want to be treated. A child does not murder because they do not want to be harmed or murdered themselves. This is an innate instinct. Obviously, this can be negatively altered and influenced when a child has abusive parents or parents who have neglected them or some other kind of unfavourable situation.

So before you patronize me with comments like 'And I'm sorry but morals are not innate' maybe consider some arguments against your position, because you state your opinion as if it is fact.

You then said; "...and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy. There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread." Ok, if morals are not innate then where did they come from? If not from humans, then where? God? The two issues are very much related to this topic. Religions teach morals because they think the come from god. I, like Chomsky and many others think that they don't.

I believe that religion teaches morals to validate it's self. Why religion shouldn't teach morals is because we already know for ourself the difference from right and wrong. Therefore, I am positing that religion doesn't need to teach morals, which is an answer to 'Why does religion teach morals?'

I used to be a christian and did believe my moral coding came from god. When I emancipated myself from christianity I realised this could not be the case, because non-religious folk also had morals and ethics true to them.


Why does religion teach morals if morals are innate without us?

I'm sure that you can see Chomsky is talking about the ability to make moral judgments, not what the morals themselves are.
So once again, morals are not innate.
This is not an opinion, it is fact.
Nobody gets born with an innate sense of morality that stealing is wrong.

Religion is a social structure and all social structures have a moral system.
the question of 'should religion teach morals' is superfluous.
(Personally, I don't care about the morals of any religion, the ones I dabbled into all proved to be flawed and vastly inferior, which is why religion just is a really, really bad place to get morals from)

If it is a social structure, it will teach morals.
morals are not innate, but experienced/learned/established/adopted and passed down.
This really IS a fact, stating a Chomsky quote about the ability to make moral judgments doesn't change that. Of course that ability would be innate, it's one of the things that make us 'human'.

But like I said, take a newborn child, and don't expose them to any kind of social structure whatsoever, that child will NOT have any morals.

No you are wrong. Chomsky says that morality is the product of an innate and universal mental faculty. Marc Hauser, Christopher Hitchens, among many others believes the same. So again, morals are innate. And I'm sorry, if you read the excerpt properly, or any of chomsky's other work, you will note that this moral 'ability' is and innate mental faculty.

You don't actually know that if you don't expose a child to any kind of social structure that they WON'T have morals. Is it just a coincidence that we all happened to end up with some kind of moral standard and that we are not all running around raping and murdering? Our morals originally have to have derived from somewhere, if not from god, then from humanity. Social structure can actually be of detriment to our morality. Religion is one example. If we didn't no that murder, rape and theft was not okay then we would not made it this far as a species.

Let me put it this way. We learn morals in the same way we learn language. The ability to learn language is an innate ability, as is morality.

[Dantalion]

If we didn't know that theft, murder and rape etc were not kosher then we would not have made it this far as a species. Yet somehow, without religion, we found a way to live harmoniously together, and look where we are! It's an insult to humanity to credit all the knowledge we have won for ourselves and all the advancements we have made to a god that remains unproven.

Morals are innate.

No they are not.
And nobody said anything about morals coming directly from God.
We are talking about religion as a social institute ( the reason why they teach morals) and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy.
There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread.

And I'm sorry but morals are not innate.
Morals can be passed down however, and become 'innate' to a culture or civilisation, but nobody is born with a set of morals, we have lots of studies proving this.

A social group that wants to continue living will soon figure out that murder is wrong, aka counterproductive to the whole surviving idea, but this is not an insight that is innate upon the birth of the individuals of that group. Very simply put, nobody knew murder was wrong until they started to see members of their own social group getting murdered, thereby diminishing the chance of survival of said social group.

Obviously you have not read the works of the wonderful Noam Chomsky? Nor have you heard of Marc Hauser, an evoluntionary biologist who asserts morals are innate? I did a major in Japanese and linguistics, and Chomsky's work absolutely inspired me. Now, Chomsky says that morals ARE in fact innate. It is similar to language in which we are born with an innate aptitude to learn a language. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Chomsky;

"the fact of the matter is that we're constantly making moral judgments in new situations, and over a substantial range we do it in a convergent fashion--we don't differ randomly and wildly from one another. Furthermore, young children do it, very quickly, and they also converge. Of course, there are cultural and social and historical effects, but even for those to operate, they must be operating on something. If you look at this range of phenomena, there are only two possibilities: one is, it's a miracle, and the other is, it's rooted in our nature. It's rooted in our nature in the same sense in which language is, or for that matter, having arms and legs is. And it takes different forms depending on the circumstances, just as arms and legs depend on nutrition, and language depends on my not having heard Swedish when I was six months old and so on. But basically, it must be something that flows out of our nature, or otherwise we'd never use it in any systematic way, except just repeating what happened before. So, it's got to be there"

To add to this, people treat others the way they want to be treated. A child does not murder because they do not want to be harmed or murdered themselves. This is an innate instinct. Obviously, this can be negatively altered and influenced when a child has abusive parents or parents who have neglected them or some other kind of unfavourable situation.

So before you patronize me with comments like 'And I'm sorry but morals are not innate' maybe consider some arguments against your position, because you state your opinion as if it is fact.

You then said; "...and this really doesn't have anything to do with a Sky Daddy. There are those who credit this to God yes, but that's not what is being discussed in this thread." Ok, if morals are not innate then where did they come from? If not from humans, then where? God? The two issues are very much related to this topic. Religions teach morals because they think the come from god. I, like Chomsky and many others think that they don't.

I believe that religion teaches morals to validate it's self. Why religion shouldn't teach morals is because we already know for ourself the difference from right and wrong. Therefore, I am positing that religion doesn't need to teach morals, which is an answer to 'Why does religion teach morals?'

I used to be a christian and did believe my moral coding came from god. When I emancipated myself from christianity I realised this could not be the case, because non-religious folk also had morals and ethics true to them.


Why does religion teach morals if morals are innate without us?

I'm sure that you can see Chomsky is talking about the ability to make moral judgments, not what the morals themselves are.
So once again, morals are not innate.
This is not an opinion, it is fact.
Nobody gets born with an innate sense of morality that stealing is wrong.

Religion is a social structure and all social structures have a moral system.
the question of 'should religion teach morals' is superfluous.
(Personally, I don't care about the morals of any religion, the ones I dabbled into all proved to be flawed and vastly inferior, which is why religion just is a really, really bad place to get morals from)

If it is a social structure, it will teach morals.
morals are not innate, but experienced/learned/established/adopted and passed down.
This really IS a fact, stating a Chomsky quote about the ability to make moral judgments doesn't change that. Of course that ability would be innate, it's one of the things that make us 'human'.

But like I said, take a newborn child, and don't expose them to any kind of social structure whatsoever, that child will NOT have any morals.

No you are wrong. Chomsky says that morality is the product of an innate and universal mental faculty. Marc Hauser, Christopher Hitchens, among many others believes the same. So again, morals are innate. And I'm sorry, if you read the excerpt properly, or any of chomsky's other work, you will note that this moral 'ability' is and innate mental faculty.

You don't actually know that if you don't expose a child to any kind of social structure that they WON'T have morals. Is it just a coincidence that we all happened to end up with some kind of moral standard and that we are not all running around raping and murdering? Our morals originally have to have derived from somewhere, if not from god, then from humanity. Social structure can actually be of detriment to our morality. Religion is one example. If we didn't no that murder, rape and theft was not okay then we would not made it this far as a species.

Let me put it this way. We learn morals in the same way we learn language. The ability to learn language is an innate ability, as is morality.

I will repeat my last post.
Yes, moral ability is innate, not the morals themselves.
like you own language example, the ability for language is innate, the actual language must be learned and is most certainly not innate.
Your own analogy proves my point quite nicely.

And yes, we actually DO know that a child not exposed with social structures will not have morals.
they don't lose the ability to learn morals, which is as repeated innate, but they don't have any morals themselves.
In fact, staying with your own analogy, these 'enfants sauvages' also have great trouble learning a language.

we all 'happen' to end up with morals because we're human, we interact with other humans. No social structures = no morals
the fact that religion can be detriment to our sense of morality doesn't change any of that.