I’ve heard this bullshit so many times…
What we call “morality” is simply put to words those behaviours that has made us a successful species. We are a communal species, one of our greatest strengths being the delegation and specialisation of tasks; all working together. Everything we’ve built, everything we’ve achieved, can be attributed to that feature of our species.
Now, imagine how far we’d get if every individual in our species acted “amorally”.
Morality is a product of evolution.
It doesn’t serve us well to murder our own communities. It doesn’t serve us well to cause conflict and strife among ourselves when external circumstances are tough enough.
Living on the steppe or on the savannah would have been extremely tough, and I believe that pragmatism would have naturally lead to a sort of morality – don’t steal from, harm, kill, antagonise other people in your group or you’re putting the entire group at risk.
It doesn’t have to be spiritual or religious!
It doesn’t have to be spiritual or religious!
But historically, according to all available evidence, it was spiritualism and religion that promoted these behaviors in a more widespread way leading to larger groups of people coexisting.
The behavior you are referencing is seen in other species and known as “premoral behavior”. I do not deny that those behaviors benefit the group, what I am saying is it is not a demonstration of morality. It is however the first step into developing morality.
Thanks for the response :) it’s an interesting question you’ve raised, and I haven’t looked into it enough really.
I think I’ve keyed into your phrasing, particularly “precursor”, in my answer. If “premoral behaviour” is a step in developing morality, does that make it a precursor?
What happens between premoral behaviour and morality that develops it? I would have assumed that reward/punishment behaviours between humans socially based on those “premoral” behaviours I described would have led to more nuanced moral systems that would have then been written into religious and spiritual practices.
What do you think happens between premorality and morality? What role does spirituality or religion play – does a higher power give us our morals?
I think I’ve keyed into your phrasing, particularly “precursor”, in my answer. If “premoral behaviour” is a step in developing morality, does that make it a precursor?
Yes.
What happens between premoral behaviour and morality that develops it?
Mysticism and spirituality is what is between “premoral behavior” and “morality”.
I would have assumed that reward/punishment behaviours between humans socially based on those “premoral” behaviours I described would have led to more nuanced moral systems that would have then been written into religious and spiritual practices.
What do you think happens between premorality and morality?
We had spiritual practices before written word. These were kept through oral histories.
I see the path to the idea of morality like this:
Once a species begins to show “premoral behaviors” (Things like demonstration of altruism to other members of the species) overtime these behaviors ingrain into that specific population of the species. However, these animals will still go against those behaviors and will require as you said a “reward/punishment” system. This helps to reinforce those behaviors within that specific group.
This will work for a few dozen people, but even then there would be dissent and disagreement over what is and isn’t acceptable leading to violations of rules in place. The consequence is violence.
What I believe was needed to get past this point and have larger groups of humans work together was an idea that being “good” was “bigger than us”. Spirituality is that step from “rules” to “morally correct”. Without the idea of something bigger making the rules and declaring actions “good”, we are simply making rules that other agree and disagree with that require enforcement through violence.
Which isn’t to say that Religion isn’t a history of violence and disagreement, but there is a difference between “Rule enforced by Man” and “Rule enforced by an all powerful being” when trying to get a group of people to act “appropriately” in precivilization humans. “I can kill you if I disagree, but this “God” thing sounds like I don’t want a piece of that”.
does a higher power give us our morals?
No. All evidence suggest there is no God, no afterlife, and nothing special about our species beyond becoming smart enough to kill ourselves.
I honestly still just feel like we’re agreeing on the order of things here though. Premoral behaviours develop naturally, become ingrained, and then get written into religions or spirituality to give them even more weight – sort of like how a lot of myths about evil water spirits supposedly being warnings to children to not play near water cos they’ll drown.
Just to clarify, when I say “written into” I’m not necessarily meaning physically written down. I mean more like “built into”.
I don’t think we’re disagreeing here, right?
“‘Without religion, how would you stop yourself from raping and killing all you want?’ I already do all the raping and killing I want. That number is ZERO because I don’t want to rape or kill!” - Penn Gillette.
With or without Religion we seem to, as a species, not inherently think raping and killing is wrong considering all of the raping and killing that goes on.
My point is all documented human groups had a spiritual belief structure so evidence suggests that belief structure was required for a consistent, easy to communicate, “moral code” that exists today.
Go back 10,000 years if you want to see what “inherent human morals” look like.
Incorrect
I am open to hearing your point of view, and answering questions about mine.
Naw, we don’t do sea lioning around here.
Way to victim blame people trying to defend themselves
What is sea lioning?
Not at all what I am doing, thanks for being helpful.
People who are only moral because they fear going to hell scare the piss out of me.
I agree.
I also disagree. All you need is to say “I don’t want/like that” and to understand that something could be lost or suffered to yourself or others, given a particular scenario. That can then be used to create a system of morality where the majority are in agreement with each aspect.
Oh and empathy. That’s pretty critical!
I’d say that spirituality and religion is then formed off the back of and alongside general or universal moral beliefs and that many aspects cannot exist without morals in the first place.
Where did you learn your moral code from and how far back in your history do I have to go to find a religious believer?
Do you have an example of a documented civilization that did not have some form of Religious or spiritual belief structure that guided their moral codes?
Some came from religious teaching, but mostly I got my moral code from my peers and personal experience. I very much start with treating others as I’d be happy/like to be treated. If you follow that principal to start with then most other morals fall into place.
Not sure what you’re getting at about how far back you have to go but perhaps I can head off that discussion by saying that most morals can exist in the absence of religion and spirituality.
Re your second question. No. And I doubt anyone has, but that’s because morals form a part of religious beliefs. As I discussed, morals first then religion based morals after.
Religion or spirituality of some form or another has existed for as long as we have any detailed information on any societies. The main problem with this discussion is that spiritual, religious and plain moral beliefs long predate any written language system so we can’t refer to any solid evidence.
If you start with “I don’t like that” as a simplistic moral, then that predates any language as well and therefore spirtuality or religion.
Some came from religious teaching, but mostly I got my moral code from my peers and personal experience. I very much start with treating others as I’d be happy/like to be treated. If you follow that principal to start with then most other morals fall into place.
My point is your peers, the books you have read, your parents, grand parents, etc have all been influenced in some way by Religious moral codes. One does not require it in modern times, but there was a point where it was necessary to define “morality” and unify the population under an exact moral code, and spirituality and Religion were necessary to spread and encode that morality in the greater population.
This is why all Evidence we have suggests humans have always been inclined to be spiritual or Religious through out history.
Not sure what you’re getting at about how far back you have to go but perhaps I can head off that discussion by saying that most morals can exist in the absence of religion and spirituality.
Morals can now exist in the absence of Religion and spirituality, my point is that wasn’t always the case, and all evidence we have suggests spiritual practices are a driving factor in our ability to form larger groups because all the information we have suggests spiritual belief in those populations.
Religion or spirituality of some form or another has existed for as long as we have any detailed information on any societies. The main problem with this discussion is that spiritual, religious and plain moral beliefs long predate any written language system so we can’t refer to any solid evidence.
The verbal histories we have intact also demonstrate longstanding spiritual beliefs. If all evidence suggests that some form of spirituality was required for our species to agree on “morality” and form larger groups than I see no point arguing about things we don’t have evidence for.
If you start with “I don’t like that” as a simplistic moral, then that predates any language as well and therefore spirtuality or religion.
“Like” is subjective, and if I cannot communicate with you whether or not I like something we have no way of moving forward. When we can communicate, and we disagree, then what?
Morality is subjective at the end of the day. Not everyone believes the same things are wrong that you do. If this is the case now, imagine what “debate” was like before communication and what would be required to instill consistency in the morality of the population.
Haha, I thought you’d say that! Well no, given how widspread and old religion and spiritually is that’s not possible for anyone but a child raised by wolves to say it hasn’t been an influence!
My centre point of discussion is to look back before, wayyyy before any of these ideas could be cultivated. I feel that you are starting somewhere at a point where these morals are in the process of being developed and refined, if in early days, so your arguments are somewhat self supporting (happy to be corrected, just the impression I’m getting).
You say there’s no point in discussing what cannot be proven with evidence…well that makes this whole discussion somewhat defunct then unfortunately!! I’d already written the below so I’ll leave it should you wish to discuss further despite this :)
You say it was necessary for formation of larger social groups etc but…I go back to my basic starting point of “I don’t like…” As you say there needs to be discussion, development and unity of belief for it to become a recognisable, repeatable, lasting moral system. But that just demonstrates my point that basic, individualistic morals came first then once complex language started to develop then shared likes and dislikes become more prevalent. Imagine what it was like before? Just take a look at chimpanzees.
The developement of shared beliefs, religious or otherwise, will no doubt have occurred simultaneously. Overlapping, replacing and morphing over millions of generations. Some ideas being discarded/diminished as other new ones arose - e.g. that great 1 in 1000 year volcano eruption replacing the end of the 20 year flood occurance, to use my natural disaster example again.
But “I don’t like…” is still the starting point for pretty much any discussion about morals as far as I believe.
But “I don’t like…” is still the starting point for pretty much any discussion about morals as far as I believe.
I think we agree but we are misaligned on the wording.
Would you agree with the following statement:
The Human species can use the basic idea of “like and dislike” to form rudimentary “premoral behavior”, but require the ability to communicate that information efficiently with a large group of humans and historically with the evidence we have this was done through spiritual and religious belief structures.
Quite possibly, I’m a devout athiest so don’t even begin to think in any religious or spiritual terms (could you tell?!)
But yes, I certainly agree with that statement without argument. Thanks for the discussion :)
Quite possibly, I’m a devout athiest so don’t even begin to think in any religious or spiritual terms (could you tell?!)
I don’t believe in Spiritual things. I know they are made up, and I know there is no argument or evidence to support the belief that any “God” exists. If something “Supernatural” exists (It doesn’t, but Gorillas were once a “cryptid” like big foot until we finally got one. haha), it is just a natural event we can now explain. So I would say we agree. haha
Other than the “Atheist” thing only because I don’t want to label myself something that theists came up with, even if by definition one could argue I am one. haha
But yes, I certainly agree with that statement without argument. Thanks for the discussion :)
Awesome! Thanks for the great discussion! :)
What informed the creation of religions and spirituality?
The need for a consistent moral code that is enforceable through fear of God instead of fear of force.
It’s basic survival evolution. You don’t leave dangerous things around for fear of harm which goes against basic survival instinct. Everything that doesn’t evolve to survive goes extinct. All of our “morality” is to improve our chance of survival. Long ago we evolved to seek food and reproduce, it all stems from that. If you want to pin that basic life programming on some sort of source, I can get behind that to a degree, beyond that you cannot prove any interaction of religious entity. It’s our pattern recognition brains filling in the gaps with our own unique stuffing based on individual surroundings and oral/written tradition. Once again it’s all survival instincts because fear of the unknown can create anxiety, stress and ill health. When a child asks why, we have to alleviate their fear even if we don’t actually know the answers, hence fairy tales and religion, otherwise known as lies. You lie the same lie enough and you start to believe it yourself as true.
beyond that you cannot prove any interaction of religious entity.
My statement does not argue for a religious entity existing. I do not believe in a “God” because all evidence we have suggests there isn’t one.
My point is that all the evidence we have suggests that humans, including pre-civilization humans, had distinct spiritual practices including burial. Without evidence suggesting otherwise, I think it is safe to assume that spirituality was a required catalyst in order for a unified moral code to exist and human group populations to grow.
This is a fun conversation FYI. So all living creatures have a spirituality construct that is required for them to survive millions of years. There are many social creatures on this planet, are you suggesting they all have a shared spirituality guiding their morals in order to survive. If so interesting thought, if not why are we required to have one but not them. My opinion is spirituality is a by product not a necessity.
I agree, which is what I was hoping for. haha
My point is it isn’t found in all group species. Our species is obviously, and clearly, different.
That being said, other species have been observed doing what appear to be spiritual practices. These species usually exist in larger groups than other animals.
Take Elephants as an example. They stop in the spots that their matriarchs died in and pay tribute. They have been seen bowing at specific trees and landmarks along their migration paths. Is it elephant Religion? I don’t know because I am not an Elephant. But it looks spiritual to me.
Ants are also interesting in this conversation, as they seem to operate in a “God king” like society. Power is obviously centralized, they have agriculture, territory and borders, take slaves and have wars over resources. I have seen studies on observations on strange behavior some ants have exhibited that seem “cultural” or “spiritual” in nature.
Then look at wolves. Family units, small packs, exhibit high levels of intelligence but don’t seem to exhibit “spiritual” behaviors.
Considering our example as the biggest species on the planet currently, and the fact that spirituality and Religion have always been a part of our societies, it seems to me that some idea of “bigger than me” is required to truly unify a species and allow for larger groups.
I believe we are now at the point where both Religion and Spirituality have become redundant because the debates have been had, the evidence is in, and all of it suggests we made that shit up. It served its purpose, and now we need to move on.
We can still learn from all of that debate and history though. A lot of “Answered questions” are interesting to ponder in their own right.
Your initial post said religion and spirituality so I made some assumptions on your meaning.
People are incredibly intolerant of anyone who they believe to have “spiritual” or “religious” beliefs, so I get it.
I’d disagree with that as well. I believe that “why did that storm happen?” “Why did drought kill everyone?” Etc - “the spirits and gods are angry!” As an answer in the absence of the level of scientific knowledge to expain it is the starting point.
Bear in mind that these questions will have existed before complex language developed. And you can’t develop a widespread religion without consistant communication. You can’t form the concept of a spirit or god without generations of discussion.
I’d disagree with that as well. I believe that “why did that storm happen?” “Why did drought kill everyone?” Etc - “the spirits and gods are angry!” As an answer in the absence of the level of scientific knowledge to expain it is the starting point.
Bear in mind that these questions will have existed before complex language developed. And you can’t develop a widespread religion without consistant communication. You can’t form the concept of a spirit or god without generations of discussion.
My point is you cannot form a consistent “morality” in a species without first developing spirituality and religion through generations of very small groups of people making shit up to explain the world around them, and all evidence we have suggests that all early humans had spiritual practices and the unifying of those practices caused our population to grow with a “universal morality”.
I would argue that morality came before religion or spirituality, and therefore does not require either of them to exist.
Feel free to argue that whenever you are ready.
They just did.
I see no need to do this.
Then I don’t see why you are wasting your time and mine.
Never a waste of time to speak truth.
I would argue that morality came before religion or spirituality, and therefore does not require either of them to exist.
My argument is that a “unified morality” can only be the result of a Spiritual or Religious belief structure due to the subjective nature of morality, the need for it to be easily communicated and enforced, and the need for a “bigger than me” idea to connect the species to in order to follow.
I support this by the fact that the evidence we have of Human civilization, and precivilization humans, demonstrates a spiritual belief structure in all documented groups.
This is not to say that morality in the modern age requires either Spirituality or Religion, because it doesn’t due to the thousands of years of “debate”, but that the formation of these things were necessary to bring our species together into larger groups because there is no inherent moral code in humans, and we are simply animals who need to be taught everything to survive by our elders and peers.
I do not believe in a “God” and I am not arguing that one is required for morality to exist, but I am saying that spirituality is the precursor to the idea of “morality” and required for “morality” to form in the first place.
Never a waste of time to speak truth.
The arrogance on you is absurd. Last chance to make a point month old account.
I believe someone else used the term ‘sealioning’. It fits, in your case. This is why I don’t see any point in having a debate with you. Waste your time with someone else.
I’d say morality came first and people invented religion to justify the moral frameworks they already had. Cultures invented gods and ascribed their culture’s shared moral views to their gods
Even animals have some kind of morality
“Without the precursor of gender roles, there can be no morality.”
“Without the precursor of tradition there can be no morality.”
“Without the precursor of >insert social structure< there can be no morality.”
Some of our social structures have things to say about morality. Sometimes they’re saying"love your neighbor as yourself," and sometimes they’re saying “burn that city to the ground and keep all of the preteen girls as sex slaves.” Just because religion and spirituality have things to say about morality doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re worth listening too, and it doesn’t mean we couldn’t have developed a system of morality in their absence.
Without religion and spirituality, we may have developed a better, more universal system of morality, rather than the patchwork of haphazard and contradictory traditions we currently enjoy. We’ll never know, because religion was created early in our history, and for the rest of eternity, we get to listen to asinine armchair theologians tell us “without religion, there would be no real morality.”
and it doesn’t mean we couldn’t have developed a system of morality in their absence.
The fact is we have no evidence to suggest our species has ever developed a system of morality without spirituality. Just because we may have been able to, evidence clearly demonstrates a trend of that either not working or not being an idea for precivilization humans.
Without religion and spirituality, we may have developed a better, more universal system of morality, rather than the patchwork of haphazard and contradictory traditions we currently enjoy. We’ll never know, because religion was created early in our history, and for the rest of eternity, we get to listen to asinine armchair theologians tell us “without religion, there would be no real morality.”
I am not arguing that religion is good. I am saying it was a means to an end, and we can point to all evidence we have and see that. Regardless of how you feel about it, not a single culture developed a moral system without first developing a spiritual one that we have evidence of.
Ethical frameworks exist that don’t rely on religion or spirituality. Utilitarianism, kantism, etc…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality
Here you go. Or if you prefer more specific:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality
Have a pleasant read.
Thank you for the reading material.
Much of it already informs my idea, and supports it.
Assuming that we evolved to what we are now at one point we would need to exhibit “Pre-moral behaviors” like the other animals, including our closest relatives, before developing “morality”. This means that we need something to bring that from “behavior” to “believes to be morally right”.
Spirituality is documented in our species as far back as we can go with recorded history, and the pictures remaining from the earliest humans as far as I know. This implies to me that it was required for a widespread and unified “moral code” needed in order to bring more than a few dozens humans together at a time.
Glad you took the time to read this. The paragraph “Religion likely evolved by building on morality, introducing supernatural agents to encourage cooperation and restrain selfishness, which enhanced group survival. Additionally, emotions like disgust play a key evolutionary role in moral judgments by helping to avoid threats to health, reproduction, and social cohesion.” Describes much of what I’ve discussed so far. Though my thoughts re disasters is omitted. I think that they are very significant if you look at e.g. Roman and Greek gods.
You say that it’s required to bring together larger populations, but plant cultivation - the beginnings of farming will be far more significant.
As a slightly sideways thought, take a look at e.g. African tribal social structures - relatively small population groups (villages) may exists with low/intermittent positive interaction (not fighting over resources), but can still share similar or near identical spiritual beliefs and moral codes. I.e. one does not automatically determine the other. They can develop side by side or independently.
Glad you took the time to read this.
I live to learn. haha
The paragraph “Religion likely evolved by building on morality, introducing supernatural agents to encourage cooperation and restrain selfishness, which enhanced group survival. Additionally, emotions like disgust play a key evolutionary role in moral judgments by helping to avoid threats to health, reproduction, and social cohesion.”
What I don’t like about this argument is it must separate Humans from animals in order to make “Morality” and “Premoral behavior” different things, when it is clearly the same and we don’t call other species exhibiting those traits “moral”. It seems disingenuous when discussing precivilization humans living in small groups to not compare them to other animals in the same situation today and call what we had “premoral behavior” instead of calling it “morality”.
We are just a species of animal at the end of the day, and should study ourselves with that lens.
You say that it’s required to bring together larger populations, but plant cultivation - the beginnings of farming will be far more significant.
This is also very important, but without the ability to maintain larger groups, plant cultivation is a hard skill to maintain an oral history for.
As a slightly sideways thought, take a look at e.g. African tribal social structures - relatively small population groups (villages) may exists with low/intermittent positive interaction (not fighting over resources), but can still share similar or near identical spiritual beliefs and moral codes. I.e. one does not automatically determine the other. They can develop side by side or independently.
They do not exist in isolation, and do interact with one another peacefully as you said.
I would argue the shared beliefs result in that lasting peace between tribes, and likely was negotiated in blood before it was in language.
I have neither spirituality nor religion and I consider myself a rather moral person. Neither of those did anything for me and I do not look at any religiosity I may have been taught as a child as a reason for my morals. Live and let live works pretty well for me. Always has and I’m almost 60. So no, I don’t agree with your point.
I am not saying that you require either in modern times. I am saying that without both Spirituality and Religion in our civilizations history we wouldn’t have the moral codes that exist within our species.
Morality is inherent in mankind, even if many folks have the will to defy it or lack it altogether.
Religion emerged as a product of humanity’s profound drive for survival. The concept of death as a finite existence is inherently unacceptable to the brain’s survival mechanisms. Consequently, we developed religion and spirituality as coping mechanisms to address this existential dilemma.
I’m not sure if I understand the statement properly, but I appreciate the challenge here. Why precursor?
My argument is that a “unified morality” can only be the result of a Spiritual or Religious belief structure due to the subjective nature of morality, the need for it to be easily communicated and enforced, and the need for a “bigger than me” idea to connect the species to in order to follow.
I support this by the fact that the evidence we have of Human civilization, and precivilization humans, demonstrates a spiritual belief structure in all documented groups.
This is not to say that morality in the modern age requires either Spirituality or Religion, because it doesn’t due to the thousands of years of “debate”, but that the formation of these things were necessary to bring our species together into larger groups because there is no inherent moral code in humans, and we are simply animals who need to be taught everything to survive by our elders and peers.
I do not believe in a “God” and I am not arguing that one is required for morality to exist, but I am saying that spirituality is the precursor to the idea of “morality” and required for “morality” to form in the first place.
Wow, thanks for your thorough clarification!
I do agree somewhat, or at least to the extent that without spirituality the morality concept is weak. Things like compassion and altruism don’t necessarily need spirituality to exist, yet offer vague subjective guidelines for morality.
No problem!
I don’t believe we don’t have a compassion and altruism towards other members of our species. We most certainly aren’t the only species with those traits either, which is amazing and they do not need spirituality to exist. Those are “premoral behaviors”, as described in other animals, and that to me assumes they cannot be “morality” if we aren’t willing to call other animals “moral” who present them.
The problem with those traits is they must still be nurtured and taught, and we can barely get 2 people to agree on how to raise a child let alone a whole community or country, which is why I believe the solution was forming a morality through spirituality using those basic traits as a starting point.
I just don’t calls those traits “morality”, but they are what make us capable of being “moral” or defining what is “moral”. I honestly laugh at the idea of “Cause rock say” was likely the easiest thing to communicate for early humans to explain why you shouldn’t do something before we had super advance language, and it snowballed from there. haha
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Wish you well on your journey!
Thank you for listening and engaging! Also, Happy Cake day!
