Moral values; Developed or a Religious Inheritance ?

AlexOland

The answer is none of the above. Religion is not the only source for moral views. Most of our moral views come from our evolutionary history. It was not beneficial for us to kill or harm our own species so we feel like that is a wrong thing to do. 

 Whether you are an atheist or not, I think we can both agree that people who believed that volcanoes, the sun, the moon and other sorts of things are gods were wrong and those gods were created by humans. These religions have moral views to them, someone who believes in the almighty volcano might find giving a sacrifice to the volcano moral. Notice that it was humans who created that religion so all the moral views in the religion belonged to humans. But that religion also served as a source on moral views because of the people in the other generations who grew up with that religion. 

 If you ask my personal opinion on the subject, I think a list of moral rules to follow is absurd. Morality is not objective. The best we can do at the moment is to find the most believed subjective moral views and try to satisfy those views(we discard all of the contradictary views of course.). That is what law is. A list of commonly believed uncontradictory and subjective moral views. Do I think that the law is perfect and no two law is contradictory? No. But that is different topic alltogether.

GonFrecess

@AlexOland That was an amazing response thank you!!!

with_all_humility

@AlexOland

"Most of our moral views come from our evolutionary history."  

This is the typical answer for human behavior that is explained in the Bible but not by science.  Please provide the evolutionary evidence for morality or than saying it is.  There are studies showing babies a young as three months old can tell the difference between good and evil.  Now the bible explains this as God's natural law that He gave to all people. However, I've never heard of any evolutionary evidence other than being a phycologist saying we "believe" this to be an evolutionary trait.  

Only the ignorance of man worships the creation and not the Creator.  You state "morality is not objective" and agree.  The only way morality is not objective is if it has not come from mankind.  If morality is a derivative of mankind, then morality is subjective.  Who then becomes the moral authority, this is one of the problems with existentialism; one person's morality is just as good as another person's and who's to say otherwise.  However, if morality is not derived from man, but from God, then there is no argument over the authority of morality.  This is why our forefathers use Jewdeo/Christian precepts in developing the Bill of Rights and our Constitution.  

AlexOland

@with_all_humility If you accept evolution, then the source of our morals become clear. What do you think would have happened if there was a species that killed its own kind? Guess. Yes, it would go extinct. So by simple logic, we can conclude that our morals came from evolutionary history. Did you notice that animals don't usually kill their own kind? Do you think that is because some random wish of god? No, it is an expected result of evolution.

 Yes, a baby shows signs of being a human that do not kill his own species. This happens in animals as well. I really do not get the point here? It makes perfect sense that babies show some sort of morals. Although, that baby does not have all of his morals naturally. If you teach that baby that the almighty volcano deserves sacrifices, he will believe it and his moral views will change according to that.

 "The only way morality is not objective is if it has not come from mankind.  If morality is a derivative of mankind, then morality is subjective." I think you mistyped something? Because your first sentence and second sentence seem to contradict. 
First sentence: Morality is subjective if it has not come from mankind.
Second sentence: Morality is subjectice if it is a derivative of mankind.

 By the way, I only said "morality is subjective" because that is my opinion. We could debate on that but that is not the question here.