2y ago

Are Religious People more Moral than Atheists? Here are the Facts | Phil Zuckerman - Feddit

An overview of studies which investigate correlations between morality and religious vs. secular / atheist ideologies presented by Phil Zuckerman who is a professor of sociology and secular studies at the Claremont colleges in California, USA.

Summary: Atheists / secular people not only have morals but are even more moral than religious people.

Note: Of course moral is a matter of perspective. In this context we agree that compassion and empathy are our foundations of moral.

Atheism @lemmy.ml

Zacryon @feddit.de

2y ago

Are Religious People more Moral than Atheists? Here are the Facts | Phil Zuckerman - Feddit

feddit.de /post/6529593

56 comments

It's well established that Religious people are immoral and quite typically horrible people.
- With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.
  ― Steven Weinberg
  
  @FlyingSquid @YoBuckStopsHere
  Or patriotism.
  Tribalism is basically the problem.
  
  "Quotemining is a rigorous proof" -W.V.O. Quine probably
- Hey I do know a few truly compassionate and empathic religious people. In my own experience they are definitely more of an exception than the norm though.
- I have a friend who recently got caught cheating in school. At about 40, I'm headed back as well. The other day I mentioned that I needed to take a math placement test (I haven't taken any math classes in about 2 decades). She said that I should have my husband take them for me.
  No, I want to learn, and not struggle which I would if I was placed in a higher level math than I am currently capable of understanding
  It's obviously the wrong thing to do
  Guess what she originally majored in...
  Christian Theology
- Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot beg to differ. Even Hitler was irreligious.
  
  Hitler was not really irreligious. Some historians claim he remained a Christian, despite disliking the church. Others claim he was not a Christian in the traditional sense of the word, but did keep some level of reverence for Jesus.
  The most commonly held belief it seems is that Hitler was a deist, believing in some god that would protect the German people, though not necessarily the Judeo-Christian god. He did however remain a member of the Catholic church until his suicide.
  Regardless of his own beliefs, he did use religion as a tool to further his genocidal plans.
  
  They also had black hair
Between that and this, atheist cyclists be feeling real smug by now.
Nope.
- Yes.
"We agree that compassion and empathy are our foundations of moral"
So something that is widely rejected as irrelevant in moral philosophy.
By changing the definitions you can falsely equivocate anything, what an intelligent person...
- Since when is this rejected as irrelevant? Many moral frameworks have their roots in such emotions instead of dogmatic ideologies.
  I established that to avoid discussions like "ye, but which moral?", to make the setting clear.
  
  In which one do compassion and empathy make someone more moral?
  Morality is a judgement on someone’s actions. You can be empathetic and immoral, like a sadist. Sadists can score very high on empathy scales, because they want to create feelings in their targets, just bad ones.
  Not very moral.
  Now, compassion and empathy can be tools to help someone act in a more moral way, but they are not in and of themselves moral or good.
  
  "to make the setting clear"
  Which was that people are considered moral because they engage in behavior that is not intrinsically moral. You realised that directly claiming that atheists are more morally good requires them to engage in morally good behavior, but for some reason (probably because you are a individualistic moral relativist who wouldn't want to be caught arguing for following moral principles) you wanted to avoid claiming that and so searched for the closest thing that you thought would suffice.
The counter argument that I hear from other atheists that aren’t anti-religious is that religions makes stupid people more moral than they would be if they didn’t have the looming threat of angering their sky daddy.
- I have never heard that argument from an atheist. Only from religious people who claim there's no morality without their god.
  
  The dude who made the McDonald’s documentary had a show putting opposite people together. A Christian lived with a Muslim family. He said that if you don’t get your values from god, he couldn’t imagine where you got them. He couldn’t imagine empathy.
  
  That’s a completely different argument, and one I’ve had with many religious people, but that’s not what I’m referring to.
  Empathy and logic require intelligence, yet many people are too stupid to be empathetic or logical, and religion provides them with a much simpler reason to do the right thing when no one is looking.
- Pff no. They just find a way to use the religion to justify what they're doing
  
  Some will, but I’d posit that’s not the dumb people that I’m referring to that are responsible for that. It’s more the smart immoral people that are using religion to manipulate other less intelligent and less logical faithful people into doing evil in the name of religion.
- No. It just gives them an excuse. They can be “forgiven”.
  
  This.
  “No matter what I do, it’s ok because sky daddy forgives me! I can be as shitty as I want to people and just feel bad and confess later, and everything is ok!”
  Ever wonder why religions are incredibly popular among criminals?
- “Moral”
  Religion is the opiate of the masses, for certain
  The problem is that the “moral” things they induce people to do are many times anything but

56 comments