Morality
See also: Human sacrifice, Honor killing, Morality and religion, and Religious intoleranceAlbert Einstein stated that no religious basis is needed in order to display ethical behavior. Nobel Peace laureate, Muslim, and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi has criticized dogmatic Islam as morally deficient, arguing that it elevates to moral status many ancient and ill-informed rules that may have been designed for reasons of hygiene, politics, or other reasons in a bygone era. An example of this would be the idea that women and men must be kept separate, or that women who do not cover themselves up modestly have tendencies for immorality, or are in some way responsible for sexual assault.
Dawkins contends that theistic religions devalue human compassion and morality. In his view, the Bible contains many injunctions against following one's conscience over scripture, and positive actions are supposed to originate not from compassion, but from the fear of punishment.
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of Religion, Harm To Society
Famous quotes containing the word morality:
“Where beauty is worshipped for beauty’s sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in. The lives of the aesthetes are the far from edifying commentary on the religion of beauty.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Blessed be the inventor of photography! I set him above even the inventor of chloroform! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything else that has “cast up” in my time or is like to—this art by which even the “poor” can possess themselves of tolerable likenesses of their absent dear ones. And mustn’t it be acting favourably on the morality of the country?”
—Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801–1866)