Why do religions try and take credit for morals?

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And why does their god have the right to decide what is good and what is evil?
The supposedly "good book", Christian bible, has a passage in which god tells his people to rape the little girls of Babylon. Is this the same creature that allows people who do these "moral" things to live eternity of bliss?

Religions are about control. People who may not want to think for themselves can always just look in their religious text to see what to do. Personal spirituality and belief is one thing. The religious structure with it's rules and dopgma is another thing.

I think if God were to ever write a book, it would be one to two pages.

You haven't thought this through very clearly. Show me this passage where God encourages rape and I'll tell you that the writers of scripture sometimes put words in the mouth of God.

the bible is a fucked up thing.. if there is a God, it is seperate. There is truth in the bible because the great conscience was present when writing it. But as a literal thing, it is not real.. but yes I do believe there is truth in it..

Religion provides the carrot (Heaven) and the stick (Hell) to enforce a basic form of morality.

Religion, as we know it today, probably evolved out of the spiritual/supernaturalist aspects of ancient civic life. Gods were associated with the land, the ancestors, etc. They added some authority to political affairs.

no, that is the soul reason for religion

The sole reason? Nope. Instead of asking a book about this, ask a person.

I made a pun.. like it?


But anyways.. I have no beef with christians such as yourself.. and I need not ask anybody, I was christian at one point myself, and keep a bible for reference (even though its a sh***y version) .. I am fairly mutual on the subject, because I know many christians have good intentions in store, but that doesn't make the origin of their religion proper.. I've debated against evolutionists using Christian creationism and I realized that it's stupid.. you're debating against something false using something false as a backup.. I think the truth is out there, but the true origin of where we come from is terribly secret.. perhaps someone is hiding the truth, or perhaps we truly were designed, or perhaps we thought ourselves into existence <--- which is a popular belief among myself.

The bottom line is, christianity plays a bigger role in politics then good it does in the world.. and that is sad but true.. christians as individuals still possess the ability to tap into truth using their emotions, but there is a loss to this method.. you lose a bit of truth going this way.. you are not completely wrong, just misguided. There is still a force in the universe and we are part of it, and our thoughts are the most important thing about a man.

If you control what someone thinks, then you control the man. That is true for religion, politics, media... come on. See the light. There is one.. I dont wish anyone to abandon christianity completely, like i say, but it is a good reference and made with a conscience.. but a tool nonetheless.

Most mainstream christians such as myself, orwell, slowmutant, and several others out there tend to interpret the Creation story as allegory. For starters, the term "day" is not a quantitative term, and could mean any different amounts of time. The theory of evolution is not incompatible with any interpretation of the creation story aside from literal interpretation (and given that allegory and parable are used extensively in the Bible, literal interpretation is likely incorrect),


I don't think of it as much as losing the truth. It is regrettable, but pure logic cannot explain the entire nature of the universe. Every question answered by a scientific discovery raises more questions in the process. If Occam's Razor truly held, Newtonian physics would be able to explain everything, even at what we now consider to be relativistic speeds. Alas, it does not. That's why I have a bit of a religious bent...though I don't let my religious nature interfere with my ethical standards (which are separate and take priority over my religion)


I don't tend to approve people who blindly follow the faith either. Having a truly active faith (as opposed to a passive one where a person would only receive information), debating the theology rather than absorbing it like mindless drones, etc, tends to strengthen the faith over time rather than diminish it.

It gets rather annoying when religious people use their "moral" senses, as read in ancient texts, as an argument against "immoral" evolutionists.
Anybody who has spoken to small town American atheists about the death threats and hate speech they get daily should know that as solid example of such.

slowmutant, your comment on "writers putting words into gods mouth" struck me as odd.
One would think, given some of your other arguments on gods capabilities, he should surely have power enough over the writers?

Why must you have prophets, saints and doctrine?
Please, please, can't one of you religious conclude these things independent of such?
Granted, you'd still be wrong, but YOU would be wrong!
Less dishonourable than merely following another who is wrong.

Well, let me ask you a question:

What is the basis of morality without religion? Where does the concept come from? With religion it comes from the divine commands of God, but how can morality exist without something that transcends human reason? I mean, I think the most reasonable argument is that morality doesn't exist, not that religions pervert it or anything like that.

awesomelyglorius, moral sense was developed through social interactions and pack evolution over uncountable generations. Even bonobos and chimps show some primitive morality to their groups. Morals have existed for so long as humans have; it's a naturally occuring thing.
But, it varies through cultures - "greater morals" are the cultural ones. For some reason, the religious like to express greater morals as encompassing lesser and global morals - more significantly, they only acknowledge the greater morals of their culture.

Is this some kind of trick question?

The moral intuition was evolved, but morality is not the moral intuition. They are completely different. To say that something is moral is to make a transcendent claim, and that is how morals are traditionally understood. Thus, your claim is an alteration of the traditional term "morality". The reason why religions do that, is because your notion of morality is not their usage of the term at all, and frankly, it is an unsatisfactory account of the human relationship to morality. We can make a distinction between "moral" behavior and morality if necessary, but if morality is biological, on what basis can we call a person evil, or immoral? If we cannot make use of either term, then how can we have a satisfactory account of morality?

twoshots, no, not a "trick question". Why do they feel their own, personal, NOT MY GOD, "god", has anything like rights to dictate morals to anybody?

And, awesomelyglorius, if you look closer you may find I've already answered that - but, in other terms, a satisfactory account of morality would be the individual cultural moralities alongside inherent moralities without the blanket-concept of cultural morality dominating the global moralities. Morality comes from broad source; not this perverse concept of dependence and significant origin.