I’m still wondering about this question of what is “religious morality”? Most people seem to think it’s just plain morality that’s (partly or wholly) motivated or endorsed or decorated by religion.
I think that’s completely wrong. That’s not because I think nobody is really motivated by religion. It’s because that’s not enough to make morality religious.
I think morality is secular. I haven’t been able to think of any morality that isn’t secular – any moral content that is religious as opposed to secular.
Can you?
Religions have rules, but they’re not particularly moral. Rules about diet or what to wear or taking a day off to honor a god – those aren’t moral.
Morality applies to what people do to each other, and to animals, and perhaps to the planet. None of that has anything to do with a god or with another (different, non-material) world.
People try to go the other way around, and say the good is what pleases god and therefore morality is religious, but that falls afoul of the Euthyphro dilemma. What if what pleases god is parents dousing their daughters with acid? Then god would be bad! Therefore god would never do that. Ok but then you’re deciding what god is according to what you think is good, so it’s what you think is good that actually counts. See?
Is there anything we think is good that has nothing to do with the secular – nothing to do with humans and their needs or feelings, nothing to do with animals or the earth? If there is anything like that, maybe it’s religious, but I’ll be damned if I can think of anything.
Can you?