Ethical Monotheism (morals, experience, atheist, morals, God)

[Radio Frequency X]

Is ethical Monotheism the most developed theological concept? If we look at the history of religion we see that it appears to have begun with animism, then moved to polytheism, and then to ethical monotheism. Most of us take for granted that morality and religion seem inseparable, but it was not always so.

What, in your opinion, is the role of morality in religious life/experience and does morality come from the will of a single God?

[Seyorni]

The Buddhists seem to be an impressively pacific community, with their concpt of ethical atheism.

[Anti-World]

Interesting topic.

To ask the question if morality came from a single God one would have to know whether the God exists or not. That just can't be done. Not all people are moral, however. Take the Aztecs human sacrifices, for instance. To me, it's pretty obvious that morals aren't ingrained in us, but taught to us.

Role of morality in religion? That all depends on the religion. In monotheism, morals are usually a way of life that the god wants to see us do but, like in any religion, it's taught to us by ordinary people.

[michel]

Originally Posted by Radio Frequency X

Is ethical Monotheism the most developed theological concept? If we look at the history of religion we see that it appears to have begun with animism, then moved to polytheism, and then to ethical monotheism. Most of us take for granted that morality and religion seem inseparable, but it was not always so.

What, in your opinion, is the role of morality in religious life/experience and does morality come from the will of a single God?

I don't believe for a moment that morality comes from God (put it this way, it need not).

If that were so, all atheists would be immoral.

[mohamedhassan]

I believe otherwise. I believe that morality DOES come from god but humans lose it slowly. Meaning children are pure and have great morality, but its their parents and thier society that slowly steal it from them. for instance show a child a dead body and he'll be disgusted pretty fast, while a person whose seen many dead bodies wown't. Why? because the man has lost his sense of morality towards the dead bodies while the child hasn't. Even if morality was taught to us it would have some bases. And because we find most cultures in the world shared similar morals its safe to say that morality is based on relgion. Even for cultures like the Aztecs who did practise human sacriface, they still DID NOT encourage murder or rape!!
Also, animism wasn't the first religion but according to wikipedia, most religions are based on animism. And polythesim didn't come before monothesim contrary to popular blief. Why? in order to prove that someone dead was a polytheist you find them buried with an idol. But to prove that someone dead was a monothiest you have to find the body with NO idols. By using this logic i think its more reasonable to find more people buried with no idols then WITH idols.

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Radio Frequency X

Is ethical Monotheism the most developed theological concept? If we look at the history of religion we see that it appears to have begun with animism, then moved to polytheism, and then to ethical monotheism. Most of us take for granted that morality and religion seem inseparable, but it was not always so.

What, in your opinion, is the role of morality in religious life/experience and does morality come from the will of a single God?

IMO process panentheism is the most developed theological concept. But then I am biased.

I do believe that morality comes from God. But I do not believe that belief in God is necessary to possess that morality.

[Sunstone]

I think it was a fairly serious mistake to combine morality and religion. Doing so distracts from both religion and morality.

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

I think it was a fairly serious mistake to combine morality and religion. Doing so distracts from both religion and morality.

I don't see how you can seperate morality from religion.

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by lilithu

I don't see how you can seperate morality from religion.

Why not? I seem to do it all the time.