Religion and morality

I had a really good discussion with an old friend yesterday and she posed a very interesting question. I believe it was somewhere along the lines of "religion also does good, shouldn't it be kept around for that reason".

what she meant was that, although religion does have its downsides, there is some good that comes out of it and that cannot be ignored just because there is some bad.

what it all comes down to, in essence is morality. Common understanding, especially with theists is that their religion promotes good moral values and that without religion, the human species would fall under chaos, with no moral values whatsoever. These moral values then indirectly spawn all other 'good' qualities.

For this I reference some work from both richard dawkins and christopher hitchens.

The first issue is whether or not we get our moral values from religion. The answer is a very simple no. Humankind is a remarkable species, capable of thought processing and reasoning. Human populations lived for decades without murdering every single other person they found. There's no denying that our moral values are very different now from what they were 300 years ago, or 2000 years ago, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with religion. In fact, religion changes to fit our moral values when it is pressured.

When looking through our own evolution of moral values, it is clear that religion has changed itself, evolved to fit our understanding of moral values, not the other way around.

Crusades, inquisitions, slave trades, genital mutilation, gender and sexual discrimination, religious oppression.

These have all been condoned by religion at some point and some, such as gender and sexual discrimination, are still practiced by religion today. But as humans we have developed our own moral sense. I have gay and lesbian friends, I love them and there isn't a part of me that believes they do not deserve the same rights as I have. Religion continues to discriminate against them. The pope himself announced that homosexuality is a "moral evil" and in many Islamic countries, homosexuality is punishable by execution.

As soon as we come to the understanding that we are responsible for our own moral values, the sooner we'l realize that we do not the the enticement of heaven or the fear of hell to influence our decision.

As for whether or not religion should be kept around just because there is a possibility of some good coming out of it, if a murderer was on trial, would you sentence him for the lives that he has taken, or you would grant him a free pass because he helps out at an old-folks home and donates half his annual salary to charity?

We are responsible for the moral values we hold today, it is through our reasoning that we have come this far. there will come a point in time where Christianity will apologize for all the sexual crimes and for its discrimination against homosexuality, just like it has recently apologized for the slave trade, the torture of Galileo and the crusades. There may even come a time where Islam apologizes for inciting violence and discrimination.

One has to think, where would we be today without religion? Would the Hindu-Islam riots in India still be around? Or the oppression of the Palestinians by the Israelis? How about the conflicts between the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, or the clashes between Muslims rebels and the government in Thailand.

The point we take from that, again is that Religion does not shape our moral values and it certainly isn't the main force of all that is good and pure in the world, rather it is the opposite and we cannot let it take the credit it obviously has no claim to. And if you truly believe that the only thing that keeps you in line, the only reason you do good, is the prospect of heaven and the fear of hell, then I highly suggest you do some self-reflection.