{"id":397,"date":"2014-09-27T07:37:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T07:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/09\/its-official-religion-doesnt-make-you-more-moral.html"},"modified":"2014-09-27T07:37:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T07:37:00","slug":"its-official-religion-doesnt-make-you-more-moral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/09\/its-official-religion-doesnt-make-you-more-moral.html","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Official: Religion Doesn\u2019t Make You More Moral"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Suppose you actually do have an angel over your shoulder telling you the right thing to do. That angel probably wouldn\u2019t tell you anything you didn\u2019t already know. A recent study in\u00a0Science<\/i>\u00a0aimed at uncovering how we experience morality in our everyday lives suggests that religious people are no more moral\u2014or immoral\u2014than non-religious people. Whether or not we believe that divine precepts give us guidance, our behavior is remarkably similar.<\/span><\/div>\n
The fact that atheists are apparently as moral as believers will be counterintuitive to some. In Fyodor Dostoevsky\u2019s\u00a0The Brothers Karamazov<\/i>, Dmitri Karamazov famously\u00a0worries<\/a>, \u201cBut what will become of men then\u2026without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
In late 2007, when Mitt Romney was still uncertain whether he could win the GOP presidential primary, he made a\u00a0speech<\/a>\u00a0on religion to reassure a leery electorate. His Mormon faith<\/a> was no reason to reject his candidacy, he argued. What really mattered was that he was\u00a0religious<\/i>, and thus had the same moral beliefs as other religious people. \u201cFreedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom,\u201d he said, insinuating that a free but godless people might form an unruly mob. Later in the speech, he added, \u201cWhether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
Yet Dmitri Karamazov and Mitt Romney are likely wrong. People who don\u2019t fear that justice will be meted out in an afterlife are apparently no more vicious, cruel, or licentious than a believer.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suppose you actually do have an angel over your shoulder telling you the right thing to do. That angel probably wouldn\u2019t tell you anything you didn\u2019t already know. A recent study in\u00a0Science\u00a0aimed at uncovering how we experience morality in our everyday lives suggests that religious people are no more moral\u2014or immoral\u2014than non-religious people. Whether or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIt\u2019s Official: Religion Doesn\u2019t Make You More Moral<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Suppose you actually do have an angel over your shoulder telling you the right thing to do. 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