Do we need God for morality? It is a question that many of us in America are wondering and sometimes arguing about. Personally I think people who have belief in a deity(Judeo-Christian, Islamic, or Buddha) do tend to be more moral. But sometimes even the most religious person can do the most Immoral things like the Salem Witch Trials, The Crusades, 9/11, and even Slavery. The view that God creates the moral law is often called the "Divine Command Theory
of Ethics." According to this view, what makes an action right is that God wills it
to be done. I question this because if God did something like wipe out an entire people despite saying he is a loving and peaceful god, would he still be considered the source of morality? I never asked a question like this in Church because I'm afraid of being called a heretic. So to all the people on Vizzed what is your opinion on this matter? 

I love God, but I'm not so sure that we need God, just to be moral. I mean anyone can do the right thing if they tried. And don't ever tell me "The Devil made me do it!" Then ask yourself what would Jesus do? What would maybe God do? You can't blame Satan or a Divine Spirit for wrong doings, that's all your fault. Now, maybe God can help you with morality if you ask him for a better understanding of it, etc. But I wouldn't say he is necessary in obtaining morality, one should have a good sense of morals, as a kid. And keep them as they grow older, maybe it's not the kids sometimes, and maybe this can be up to God and it's the parents fault the kid has no sense of morals. You can ask Him for what ever you need, God will give it to you if you accept and love him, just never betray him. And if you ask for morality, you will get it. You can ask him in a prayer or in church, with rosary beads, it doesn't matter, just pray with him The Lord, as you need guidance and morality.

To give you a simple answer, Yes and No. That is something everyone must decide on their own, I don't think there is a straight up answer for this kind of thing, you have to find the answer within yourself.

Sorry I had to get a little, overboard, maybe with the religion thing.

JonXMasterZZMan : do you honestly believe that the people who did those things that you listed were actually following the religion they professed to believe?

I would say that answer to your question is yes but there are conditions. I believe people who have a belief in God and follow the rules/codes of conduct/etc of the religion they follow tend to be more moral than those who have no religion. If you can be more moral than someone else....

In my own personal experience I have found that the worst people are those who claim to be religious/spiritual but aren't. However, I also find the best people are those that claim to be religious/spiritual and live up to what they profess to believe.

That doesn't preclude that someone who is not religious can't choose to follow the same rules/codes of conduct/etc. that a Christian/Buddhist/Jew/Muslim/etc. choose to follow but without the purely religious components.

No.
Those who hold no religious faith are statisticaly less likely to end up in the cop shop

No, and I've never seen anyone with the ability to substantiate the claim that those who adhere to a religion are somehow more moral. Of course, if you were to cherry pick which religious people are truly religious based on their morality, then maybe it's true. But that kind of defeats the entire purpose the question.

I know first hand that a lack of a religion doesn't lead to immorality.  From my youth untill I was an adult my knowledge of the Bible was extremely limited, yet I was a 'good child'. I never got into any trouble -- I never fought, lied, stole and generally had respect for everyone. So obviously the Bible or a God isn't any sort of moral compass that believers make it out to be.

If we got our morals from the Bible, then we would be doing all the immoral things that God commanded. Children would be killed by their parents if the child dishonored them, women would have next to no rights, slavery would be promoted .... the list goes on and on. What Christians will often say when reciting immoral parts of the Bible are things like "That is from the Old Testament" or "They lived differently in that time period". Both statements are true but have no bearing on the argument of taking morals from the Bible. If you (or your pastor/preacher) are picking and choosing what is morally right in the Bible than it is your morals and not some godly inspired moral.

geeogree : " do you honestly believe that the people who did those things that you listed were actually following the religion they professed to believe?"

I don't want to answer for Jon, but yes I do believe those people believed the things they claimed to believe. 

smotpoker86 : you didn't actually answer my question...

I didn't ask if they believed it, I asked if they were following it. If you read what Jesus himself taught it goes against most of what people do as "Christians" and the same goes for many of the other religions. They focus more on what people aren't allowed to do rather than focusing on the good things that people should do for each other.

I don't think that people actually need God to be moral. Are all atheists without morals? Also, I have seen time and time again very immoral things done in the name of religion. Though not all religious people hate homosexuals, for example, I have seen priests say the most demoralizing things to their faces practically saying they don't have souls and aren't even people. They treated them as such. If you look at Fred Phelps, he takes what he interprets from scripture to fuel his quest of hatred, and that is because it is what he believes God wants. Really, morality is in the eye of the beholder. When people do things we see as evil aren't necessarily from a lack of morals, but having morals different from ours (completely opposite even). So really, people can have morals based on their belief in God or their own personal feelings. 

geeogree : I absolutely agree with your statement about people focusing more on what not to do. However doing something wrong or sinning doesn't exclude you from being considered a follower.  In Christianity you are allowed to sin, as Jesus was sent to cleanse people of sin, but only if you believe in him. All the atrocious things done in the name of Christianity are forgiven just as long as they believed Jesus is a saviour. 

The very fact that people with the most divine authority ( popes and kings like King James) order the punishment and executions of non-Christians leads me to believe even further that morals are not inherited from old books. Who knows, maybe they actually did get their morals (or in this case immorality) from all the horrible things that God did in the Bible.

There is a fundamental flaw with the arguments people are making about athiests that they know being moral. First thing you have to take into consideration is that we have had monotheistic religion for thousands of years. With Abraham, moses and so on. Society has already beened conditioned with the morals of the religions of god. So this argument is redundant and pretty much will forever remain a farfetched theory as it would be close to impossible or inhumane to test it. Even then the findings arent too reliable.
The other main problem is defining morality. What is morality? If its given that God is a perfect being and you are his creation, who would know better you or him? Surely he would have all the answers. You have to take into account that as humans our brains are limited to a certain extent by our logic. If you believe God is omnipotent that means he can do/achieve anything. Including the logically impossible. So what we think is logically sound just because it doesn't harm anyone else, that doesnt mean its not still wrong. Aside from that human beings are flawed and imperfect so our logic may be at a threshold where we wouldnt come to the same conclusions without guidance.
This debate is pretty difficult to really come to a concrete conclusion though because its all going to stem back to the whole "There is/isnt a god" argument. However considering the wording of the question you would have to assume that god existing is definite for the purpose of the debate otherwise theres no point discussing. But in that case I would be able to say that no, you cannot be fully moral without gods input.

smotpoker86 : "In Christianity you are allowed to sin, as Jesus was sent to cleanse people of sin, but only if you believe in him."

Such wording could go so far as to mean, "I can rape, murder, steal, lie, etc, and it will not matter because God will forgive me. To put it into a simpler perspective, it is like saying, "I can drive 30 mph over the speed limit because I am a good driver." God abhors sin, and He abhors sinners --in a judicial way. Also, you can believe in Jesus without believing in who he really was --some say he was just a prophet, not the Son of God. The right understanding of who Jesus was matters greatly.

Back on the topic of this thread, I would have to say mookasaraus as asked the important question. "What is morality?" A better question to ask may be, "what is moral" or "What is right and what is wrong?" My answer, anyone can have a set of beliefs concerning right and wrong. However we cannot all be right about it.

AuraBlaze : That is pretty much exactly what I meant with the quote you selected. Maybe I should have added 'believe he is the saviour who died on the cross for our sins' to be more clear. Either way I wasn't talking about the Muslim version of Jesus (only a prophet) but was talking about the Christian version. As far as I know that is one of the only beliefs that all Christian sects have in common. I was just pointing out that Christians have and will continue to commit immoral actions, and such actions doesn't disqualify a person from being a Christian or a follower of Christ.

I have met people that said you are allowed to sin and you will be forgiven as long as you believe in Jesus the saviour. For example, I asked one man if he was going to hell because he committed adultery everyday of his life. He said no because he is a Christian. To be clear it was the biblical definition of adultery and not our modern legal term.

Morals come from culture, just like religion does... every culture has pretty much the same morals (don't kill, don't steal, etc)... and they have had them for thousands of years. Not all of those cultures have a god, so no, I don't think so. And like rcarter said, atheists have the same morals, they just follow them because it's the right thing to do, not because a supernatural being told them to in a book.

JonXMasterZZMan : Buddha isn't a god.

I guess at the end of the day, it all comes down to how strong your belief is in god. Yes, I do believe in god, but I believe that god created us to be kind of independent. I realize that many say that you can't do anything without god, but I sort of disagree. I think that's the whole reason why god created us; to be different and do things are own way. If we were all the same, then there would be just about no point of existing on this planet.

JonXMasterZZMan : I think morality comes from God, as I believe we were made in His image.

Doesn't anyone question the logic of God too? If God kills its out of Love?, If God lets you suffer it is to teach you a lesson?, If God sent a group of people to wipe out others who don't believe in him/her, then its showing love? I don't understand that logic. That is why I wonder if morality really comes from a god?

"Doesn't anyone question the logic of God too? If God kills its out of Love?"

Few situations like that would exist, but God is capable of killing out of wrath.

"If God lets you suffer it is to teach you a lesson?"

Sometimes, maybe-maybe not. The Book of Job teaches us that God's purposes aren't always clear.

"If God sent a group of people to wipe out others who don't believe in him/her, then its showing love?"

It's more likely to be showing wrath or demonstrating God's sovereign wisdom.

"I don't understand that logic. That is why I wonder if morality really comes from a god?"

I personally don't think those questions relate to whether morality comes from (a) God. It's more like you're asking if God is moral.