People Are Divided By Politics And Religion Analysis

As the year of 2016 concludes, we approach what is one of the greatest contests in American history: the presidential campaign. This competition repeats itself in a four year cycle, and every election year one of the either Democratic or Republican candidate defeats the other. Eventually, this person becomes the president of the United States and is able to influence all of the laws and regulations. Why do Americans seem to be divided along moral lines? What makes somebody pro-life or pro-choice? What makes religious values different from secular ones? Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, mentions the six moral foundations of a human being. Differences in basic morals cause differences in human tendencies which have evolved to form a mixture of opinions over secularism and religion as well as within politics. Despite these differences, one basic idea of working together has kept all of humanity together. …show more content…
For example, the people in ancient India were far different from the people in ancient Greece or Rome. However, the basic morals of people remained the same because, for the most part, they were based on religion. People regard religion highly, and because most of the major world religions and philosophies, such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc., involved doing good deeds to others, humans held a certain set of rules and values that they followed in accordance with these religions. This led to the eventual creation of the theory of the six moral foundations of humans, made by Jonathan Haidt, the “care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty foundations”(Haidt