morality

Entries Tagged as 'morality'

Morality without God, Buddhism as Religion, and Christian Empire

August 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Axial Age Religions, Classifications of Religion, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Definitions of Religion, History of Religions, Hunter-Gatherers and Religion, Morality and Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Power and Religion

Incredibly, there are three articles over at HuffPo Religion that I have recently bookmarked for brief discussion here. There are of course about ten others which reflect the liberal, progressive, ecumenical, and mystical view of religion adhered to by a tiny minority of people, and which will be of interest mostly to the highly educated [...]

Professor Condemns Homosexuality on Basis of “Natural Moral Law”

July 11th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Axial Age Religions, Ecology of Religion, Evolution and Selection, History of Religions, Hunter-Gatherers and Religion, Morality and Religion, Philosophy of Religion

Over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers discusses the case of a professor — teaching at a public university — who presented his Catholic views, disguised as philosophy, on homosexuality to his students. One student complained to the administration, calling the professor’s position “hate speech.” PZ Myers disagrees and calls it “stupid speech.” Myers then proceeds to [...]

Return of the Sacred — Ringing Daniel Bell

June 10th, 2010 · No Comments · Atheism and Religion, Axial Age Religions, Cultural Evolution of Religion, Economy and Religion, Globalization and Religion, History of Religions, Morality and Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Power and Religion

On rare occasion, one encounters a thinker and writer of extraordinary talent; the author, intellectual, and sociologist Daniel Bell is one such person. Bell is perhaps most famous for his 1976 book, Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. It was with great interest, therefore, that I read his 1977 Hobhouse Memorial Lecture, “The Return of the Sacred? [...]

The Earliest Moral-Ethical Precepts Were Not Religious

May 16th, 2010 · No Comments · Axial Age Religions, Cultural Evolution of Religion, History of Religions, Hunter-Gatherers and Religion, Morality and Religion

Because most modern religions are constructed around — and concern themselves with — moral or ethical behavior, the common (and mistaken) assumption is that morality and religion are inextricably linked and have always been linked. This simply is not the case. As I discussed in this post, there are many societies — past and present [...]

“Religion Functions to Sustain the Moral Order” — Starkly Wrong

April 29th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Axial Age Religions, Cultural Evolution of Religion, History of Religions, Morality and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Shamans and Shamanism

Many of the recent books and articles about the evolutionary origins of religion claim that natural selection targeted “moral” behaviors and that these behaviors coalesced into “religion.” This is a story told primarily by group level selectionists (who have the bad habit of confusing biological evolution with something they call “cultural evolution”) and evolutionary psychologists [...]

Morality Manipulated by Magnets and Impaired by Brain Injuries

April 2nd, 2010 · No Comments · Cognition and Religion, Morality and Religion, Religion as Evolutionary Adaptation, Religion as Evolutionary Byproduct

Evidence keeps pouring in that humans have an in-built sense of morality or fairness and that specific regions of the brain are responsible. Over at Neurophilosophy, Mo reports on two new studies — the first involving the use of magnets to impair peoples’ moral intuitions, and the second involving people with brain damage that impairs [...]

The God-Dog Anadrome and Evolution of Morality

March 30th, 2010 · No Comments · Evolution and Selection, Morality and Religion

According to a Pew Forum poll from 2007, 57% of Americans think it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. Research, however, does not support the belief that religious people are more “moral” than non-religious people. As Mark Chaves (2010:5) recently noted:
Decades of psychological research looking for behavioral consequences in intrinsic religiosity has [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:canines·ethics·morality·prosocial

“The Evolution of Fairness” — New Study Generates Media Attention

March 23rd, 2010 · 1 Comment · Cultural Evolution of Religion, Economy and Religion, Morality and Religion

In the March 19, 2010 issue of Science, a group of anthropologists, economists and psychologists published a study titled “Markets, Religion, Community Size, and the Evolution of Fairness and Punishment.” If the title is any indication, this study covers some large topics with many potential variables.
The study has already garnered much attention. The New York [...]

Why “Morality and Religion”?

February 12th, 2010 · No Comments · Morality and Religion

While there is little doubt that many historically recent religions (i.e., those that have appeared in the last 2,000 years) are heavily invested in morality, it does not follow that earlier forms of religion — which might be called proto-religions – were grounded in morality. This is a logical and historical fallacy that afflicts much [...]

Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion