In Wednesday's class, we discussed the necessity (or lack thereof) of religion in providing moral guidelines for people. By my view, religion is not necessary for morality. This is because, due to the process of evolution, any traits which are severely detrimental to the survival of the species will have been, if not entirely eliminated, at least weeded out to the point that they are quite uncommon. Alternately, if one does believe in the existence of a divine being, moral guidelines are present already in humanity due to a 'divine spark', and defying these guidelines is a conscious action one must take. Thus, whether one believes that God is a deity or just a name for certain elements of one's own psyche, the fact remains that (most) people are aware of what actions are 'morally correct', regardless of their religious views.
This is not to say that people do not defy those guidelines, whether due to a flaw in their inherited sense of morality, exceptional circumstances, or 'unnatural' (in this case meaning not present when evolution initially produced these innate moral guidelines) situations such as huge communities (countries, for example), and it is there that I think religion can have a viable use (not to say that religion is not a valid choice otherwise; the mistake only comes when one believes that it is necessary to live morally). By appealing to the selfish side of human nature through use of the concept of heaven and hell, or of some other reward/punishment system, one can head off 'morally incorrect' actions (which people typically take because of that very side of their natures).
However, religion also comes with a large load of problems, such as antiquated traditions and guidelines which are not applicable after time has passed but continue to be applied because they become enshrined, elements which may not apply equally to everyone in any situation, and bias towards those who choose not to follow the same faith. By gaining moral guidelines from one's own mind, having faith in oneself rather than a deity, so to speak, one can gain the same results without the negative features inherent in dogmatic religious belief. Unfortunately, in any situation where there is a large concentration of humans, it seems that at least one person (again, due to some psychological issue or exceptional circumstance) will defy their innate morality, and in doing so cause harm to others. While religion can help prevent this, there is another alternative which, although still not ideal, may currently be the most practical system to provide the most benefit to those utilizing it.
This alternative is government. Not all governments are equal, however. In order to achieve its purpose, a government must provide moral guidelines to those who defy their own innate sense of morality. This renders systems like free-market capitalism virtually useless, as the system just mentioned relies on humanity's innate morality to produce the most benefit for all concerned. In this way, it might as well not be there at all. Other systems, particularly moderate forms of socialism, seem more practical to me. Ideally, of course, humanity will eventually develop to the point where no government at all is necessary. Unfortunately, I do not think that we are even close to achieving that eventual goal at this time.
P.S. I apologize for the ridiculous length of this post; I was on a roll here. I shall attempt to limit future posts to a more reasonable size.
Fascinating post.
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