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Does Morality Depend on Religion?

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Does Morality Depend on Religion?
Does Morality Depend on Religion?

4.1 The Presumed Connection between Morality and Religion
• Separation of Church and State
– Roy Moore and the ACLU
• Priests and ministers as moral experts
• Belief that morality can only be understood through religion
• Religion associated with morals while atheism is not
– Bertrand Russell

4.2 The Divine Command Theory
• Implies that morality is arbitrary
• Act is obligatory if and only if, and because, it is commanded by God
• Honesty and humility is right
• Child abuse and murder is wrong
• Recognizing it and making it
• Does God make the moral truths true or does he merely recognize them

4.3 The Theory of Natural Law
• Everything in nature has a purpose
– Aristotle originated this theory
– Revised by Christian philosophers (Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas)
• How things are and how they ought to be
– When something is serving it's purpose it is right, when it is defecting from that purpose it is wrong
– Beneficence and Deviance
• How do we determine what is right and wrong
– Dictated by reason
– Believers and nonbelievers both have ability to reason
– Moral decision making based on reason does not necessarily involve religion at all
– "Believers and nonbelievers inhabit the same moral universe"

4.4 Religion and Particular Moral issues
• Do the moral positions of the church dictate the moral positions of the people
• Relevance of problems
• Disagreement between authorities
• Superimposing scripture
– On wealth (1 Chronicles 4:10 – Jabez)
– On Abortion (Jeremiah) (Exodus 21)
• Saint Thomas Aquinas
– Soul is not acquired till human is formed
– Council of Vienne 1312
– Church used scientific data that has been proved false
– Church and Western Law

• Religious authority and Moral Judgment
– Religious authorities have changed their stance on many issues
– Each generation has different stances on issues

Conclusion: Religion and Morality are independent!
• Religion doesn't make
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