The Importance Of Morality And Religion

Albert Einstein once said, “A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs, no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.” (CITE) Could one argue that Einstein was immoral because he believed that there is no religious basis in relation to ethical behavior? The issues surrounding morality and religion have been a controversial topic for centuries. Theists believe that if you do not believe in God, then you have no intent to behave morally. Conversely, studies on world religious demographics indicate there are roughly around one billion people in the world who define themselves as nonreligious.

(CITE) With roughly one billion people in the world defined, as nonreligious one has to question do you need religion to be moral? Are those one billion people running around committed unlawful acts? Theists would argue, if nonreligious people were capable of possessing morals then where would their ethics come from, if not from God? I do not plan to argue against God’s existence, rather, I intend to defend that one does not need to have a religious basis to possess morals. The main argument that Theists propose is that if you do not believe in God, then you have no reason to behave morally. So without God, how do non believers know what good is? Can you be good without God? In the book, Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, by Greg M. Epstein he focuses on defending these questions through his beliefs in

Human flourishing is best depicted as living up to our innate potential as human beings. We are supposed to live a life of happiness, attained through becoming virtuous. What makes a person virtuous? Do we initially know how to behave morally? One can argue that humans naturally possess moral instincts, such as empathy, compassion, and shame. Therefore, if by nature human beings have morals then how can it be justified that you have to have religion in order to be a moral member to society? Our core instincts and emotions have been engrained in ‘evolutionary adaptations.’ Ara Norenzayan supports this assertion in Does Religion Make People Moral? Human beings capability to yearn for kinships identifies natural instinct of compassion and empathy. We also have inherent instincts of guilt, anger, shame, and pride. Theists and Non-Theists, both, display this natural instinct. Norenzayan proposes, “religiosity and feelings of compassion were statistically unrelated; and for nonbelievers, the greater the feelings of compassion were, the more prosocial their behavior was; however, among believers, feelings of compassion were unrelated to prosocial behavior.” (CITE) This proposal helps to strengthen the argument against needing religion for morality by establishing that theists and non-theists remain mutual on prosociality. If believers and non-believers both possess characteristics concerning the overall welfare of others, then it could be argued