Is morality possible without religion?Here is my perspective
The priest and athiest :
In a small town, there lived two well-known people:
A priest, who taught people about God and morality.
An atheist doctor, who did not believe in God but treated the sick for free.
The priest preached kindness but secretly took bribes and mistreated the poor.
The atheist doctor, on the other hand, spent his time saving lives, helping the homeless, and showing kindness to strangers simply because he believed it was the right thing to do as a human.
One day, someone asked the priest, “If you preach goodness but act badly, and the doctor doesn’t believe in God but helps people, who is truly moral?”
The question left the town thinking deeply:
Is it better to follow religious rules but be selfish? Or not believe in God, but still act kindly and help others?
My stance on this perspective
I believe humans have the ability to reason about morality, but history shows that human reason alone has never produced complete moral agreement. Thinkers like Immanuel Kant argued that reason helps us identify moral duties, but even Kant acknowledged that a "moral law within" points toward a higher order. Similarly, Thomas Aquinas believed that human reason can discover good, but its ultimate source is divine law.
Across different societies, we find some universal moral values such as justice, compassion, and respect that suggest a common source beyond human opinion. Take the example of premarital sex: two consenting people may feel happy, yet nearly all religious traditions and many cultures warn against it. Why? Because happiness alone doesn’t define morality. As C.S. Lewis argued in Mere Christianity, such universal moral rules point to a Lawgiver beyond human desires.
Therefore, even if an atheist lives morally and a religious person fails, the deeper source of what we call “right” and “wrong” is, I believe, rooted in divine guidance, not merely human thought.
I have to disagree here. I used to think this way, but I think you can ground morality in the well-being of conscious life. As such, if there are right and wrong answers to to questions of well-being, there is an objective morality
Thank you for your thoughtful post. I agree with your points, especially that morality is not just about what makes us happy.
I believe God gave all human beings a natural sense of right and wrong. As Kant said, there is a “moral law within,” and I believe God placed it in us.
Even people who do not follow any religion still know that things like stealing, scamming, and murder are wrong. This shows that some moral truths are the same for everyone. So morality is part of human nature, not only religion.
I also believe religion is important because it gives structure and support to these values. It helps people stay on the right path. But religion does not create morality. It explains it, protects it, and gives it meaning.
Religion doesn't make us moral. It is morality that gives religious ethics their true flavor.