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Morality without Religion?

Fr. Dwight Longenecker Morality without Religion?  Fr. Dwight Longenecker Can you be a moral person without religion? Yes and no. It all depends on what you mean by 'moral' and what you mean by 'religion'. What most people mean by 'moral' in our society is "Try to be a nice person. Be normal. Have relatively good manners. Don't do any of the big bad ones like killing someone or stealing or being a pervert. Be involved in a good cause of some sort--like the soup kitchen or saving the Amazonian rain forest." Morality for the post Christian masses doesn't really have anything to do with a set moral code or particular rules to follow. It is more a sense of 'feeling that you are a moral person'. Part of this feeling 'moral' is tolerance of everyone else and outrage at hypocritical Christian type people who try to force their version of 'morality' on others. So can you be 'moral' in this way without be...

Moral scepticism versus Sam Harris's moral realism - ABC Religion & Ethics - Opinion

"In recent years, Sam Harris has become a leading figure in the rational scrutiny of religions and religious cultures, earning himself a place as a prominent "New Atheist," along with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. In The Moral Landscape , he pushes his agenda a step further, examining the nature of morality from a secular viewpoint and offering prescriptions for change. In particular, he contests the moral credentials of religion, argues against popular understandings of free will, and savages moral relativism. Though The Moral Landscape contains much technical material from philosophy and neuroscience, Harris makes it accessible. He has an enviable gift for vivid phrasing and clear exposition of difficult concepts, and he undoubtedly has much to teach us. Many passages are timely and convincing. That said, however, morality is a tricky phenomenon, and I am left with reservations." To read the rest of the article, click ...