Religion And Morality Analysis

A man is walking down the street past a jewelry store and sees a gorgeous watch in the window that he would like to give his wife, but he doesn’t have the money. He goes inside anyway, picks it up, looks at it, and when the clerk isn’t watching he sneaks it in his pocket and walks out. This man stole a watch, that action is considered morally wrong anywhere in the world. Since this man committed an immoral action, does that mean he doesn’t believe in God? Philosophers have debated this idea back and forth, so I will take a look at both sides. I am going to discuss the relationship between religion and morality, whether they go hand in hand or not as well as how Immanuel Kant and other philosophers contribute to the idea. First, the relationship …show more content…
Mavrodes’ disagrees with Bertrand Russell’s secular views on religion, as he emphasizes his lack of religion and disagreance with the idea of God. Russell claims that morality does not need religion in order to work because they don’t go hand in hand. George Mavrodes rejects Russsell’s ideas and says his views cannot “answer the question ‘Why should I be moral?’ because the common goods are often just those that we sacrifice in carrying out our moral obligations” (Mavrodes, 194). Mavrodes’ doesn’t think secular ethics is a good comparison to whether or not religion and morality go together. He makes a point that secularists have no right to comment on the relationship because their input is biased and “deep” in their eyes is “matter and energy, or perhaps natural law, chance or chaos” (Mavrodes, 194). Secular ethics doesn’t go deep enough into the idea of religion and morality to truly understand it, according to Mavrodes. Mavrodes’ opinion, is just that an opinion, where it is not constitituted as right or wrong, but gives an alternate view into the relationship between religion and …show more content…
I do not think these two topics go hand in hand or are related in any way. Of the three ideas I have discussed, I can agree most with Immanuel Kant’s independence thesis and how religion and morality are independent from one another. I believe there is a God, but I am not extremely religious, yet I am still capable of making morally good decisions. I also liked Kant’s idea of immorality, how we are not perfect so immorality is expecting from everyone at some point. I think that for some people religion is a huge part of their actions, whether they be good or bad, but personally religion and morality do not