Quote from: Cnut237 on October 03, 2019, 09:56:35 AM

My opinion is that no act committed in the name of religion can be morally "good".

What I mean is that if you follow a religion, then you obey the dictates of that religion without question, and you act according to the rules of that religion, again without question. If a religion tells you to be kind to strangers, then the reason you are kind to strangers is not because you think it is a morally good act, rather you are doing it because the religion tells you to do it.

I suppose there's a distinction in there in that if you choose to follow a religion specifically because of its moral code, then the point doesn't really apply. But generally that isn't the case, people tend to follow a religion because they have been born into it.

It's the 'question everything' approach really. If you do not constantly critique and evaluate your own behaviour, then you can't perform a morally good act. If you don't take responsibility for your own actions, and instead defer all meaning to your religion and your god, then any act isn't really 'your' act at all.

I'm kinda leaning on that view as well. Though some arguments indicate that without God, or the bible, or the quran, you won't have a basis as to what good or bad is. I kinda got confused with that argument but I'd be happy to try and understand it. I think you don't need to have any external basis. What's hurts you is not good, therefore you shouldn't bestow that upon other people. I think the many of the early humans understood that even before being introduced to any religion.