STEVEN PINKER - Is religion necessary for a moral society?

[@rizmacadillac]

I don't know if there are secrets to religion, but I have never done religion well. My main interface with religion was always mother, and people keep telling me she's crazy. Just because you can attend church for free doesn't mean it's a good place to be. I mean they pray for our leaders and sound moral and stuff and I can't criticize general morality, but there have been some religions experiments that have failed because they did not allow men and women to reproduce or interact as one example. As I was leaving a family dinner this season my Uncle brought up another suggestion for a new church to try... but why? I think I need to graduate to earning rather than learning. And surely my community will respect a good worker with a decent work ethic.

[@bertramkundert8288]

For millennia philosophers have tried to come up with a non-religious moral system. The closest they have come is Stoicism but it has never been able to convince the general public to follow it. The only way the large majority of people in any culture has been persuaded to follow some moral code has been through religion, with both reward and punishment to reinforce its dictates. There is a basic level of both altruism and selfishness in all people, hard wired in our brains, and the only way to get the former to overcome the latter has been religion. Philosophic musings only appeal to the Intellectuals and has never had much appeal to the common man, nor is it ever to do so while humans are human.

[@george17perris]

Jesus Christ man! you got everything backwards. "The only way the large majority of people in any culture has been persuaded to follow some moral code has been through religion" that is obviously not true. Most people don't resort to religion to decide on a moral action. And it has been reason not religion that has made us overcome our less desirable instincts. Our prefrontal cortex enabled by reason and institutions has allowed us to overcome religion's barbaric morality. Philosophers and scientist have created a paradise if you compare it to the ethics of religion. Democracy, humanism, capitalism, medicine, poverty, hunger, etc.....

[@jimguenzel8013]

Your opinion is as valid as any.

[@bobbeckel5266]

This is a wonderful example of the Straw Man Argument. Very disappointing.

[@pancreasdragonheart9765]

Where is the straw Man? I don't find it :P

[@george17perris]

I don't think you know what a Straw Man Argument is. Point it out