Do we need religion to teach us morality?

[Balkaar]

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

The character Smerdyakov from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov believed that 'if God is dead, everything is permissible', the implication being that without religious dogma to tell us which actions are permissible and which aren't, human beings would possess no moral compass and would do as they pleased. 

I'm not so sure of this. When even Nastiks can comprehend good and evil, can religion really be the arbiter of virtue? Even Darwinian evolution by natural selection, considered by many to be the antithesis of the world of the spiritual and the numinous, can account for basic human morality. If Homo sapiens were amoral, then left to their own devices they would surely have obliterated one another long ago. They would have been too selfish to consider the proliferation of their species, animated by their egoism alone. Thus human beings had to be moral or selfless to a degree if they ever stood a chance of evolving physically, intellectually and culturally, to the point where they currently are.

The Ten Commandments of the Jewish Pentateuch are cited as the originators of moral law by the Abrahamic faiths. But are we really expected to believe that the ancient Israelites, prior to receiving the Commandments which told them what wasn't allowed, wandered about the Sinai desert under the apprehension that murder, theft or deception were permissible? Everyone recognizes those basic norms of morality, one doesn't need to be told killing is wrong as if they don't already know it. 

If anything certain religions made matters much worse [I believe Sikhi is an exemption ] by attempting to arbitrate what was right and what was wrong. For instance, nobody ever considered mutilating the genitalia of their children before some prophet informed them that this was a mandate of God. No human sacrifice has ever been committed except to appease some blood-soaked deity. Nor was an animal needlessly bled to death with a prayer mumbled over its thrashing body before somebody claimed that this was what God demanded. 

I would be interested to hear any divergent points of view, or any which corroborate what I have said.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

 

Edited June 11, 2015 by Balkaar

[Mekhane'ch Jannat]

All Religion is a form of ignorance; to be coerced to behave in a particular way through some external force, that arbitrarily decides what is right and wrong, is ignorance. More accurately religion can be called a form of external morality, these are norms of behaviour for a certain time in a certain place, they change as the external society changes. This is what is seen as acceptable in our society, by our peers and elders. But as you pointed out not  only religion has a morality even naastiks have morality so external morality can be religious or non-religious, but its common element is that it is imposed from the outside.

I believe there to be an inner morality within an individual which can be called Conscience. This inner morality is the same for all Humanity regardless of caste or creed. The only problem is that the inner morality becomes covered up by a crust of imposed opinions and buried in the subconscious of the individual, where it languishes and has little opportunity to break into the light of waking consciousness.

[Balkaar]

I agree entirely. I find it somewhat disconcerting that religious dogma exerts such a retrograde influence over the mind as to be capable of blinding people to their own innate nature. It's like something out of Orwell. 

Edited June 12, 2015 by Balkaar

[Guest]

Cultural-Religion hinders people growth, also hinders congnitive intelligence(bibek) as they stuck in a pointer which promotes cultish notions as well cultural, dogmatic notions well politics mixed with religion provides dangerous mix, perfect recipe for disaster, extremist ideology only religious-spiritual is true representation of religion where there is place for transcendence and spiritual growth.

Many sikhs advertently/inadvertently mixed politics in religion by quoting miri-piri and hide their own egoic self righteousness behind it but thats gross misinterpertation of our divine miri-piri sidhant,

 

I provided some thoughts here on miri-piri