Criticism of Religion - Harm To Society - Morality

Morality

See also: Human sacrifice, Honor killing, Morality and religion, and Religious intolerance

Albert 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:

    There is no morality by instinct.... There is no social salvation—in the end—without taking thought; without mastery of logic and application of logic to human experience.
    Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)

    There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No people exists whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically imply it.
    Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)

    What is shocking and wrong is not [Lord Devlin’s] idea that the community’s morality counts, but his idea of what counts as the community’s morality.
    Ronald Dworkin (b. 1931)