Morality Not Necessary Linked to Religion

Essay by jemaremuCollege, UndergraduateB+, June 2013

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Morality Not Necessary Linked to Religion

Through human history religion has played a big role to define what is the right and wrong way to act. Even in actual days people relay on what religious texts, such as the Bible or The Quran,and its authorities, God, say in order to find out what is morally right - defined as a system of ideas of right and wrong behavior. The Divine Command Theory defends that in fact God commands what is morally right and forbids what is morally wrong. But is there really a connection between what is moral right and what those authorities command is morally right? Is rape wrong because God commands it or because there is a rational reason why it is wrong? Plato argues that The Command Theory is false whit his Euthyphro Argument, which rises a tiny dilemma: "Is an action morally right because God commands it, or does God command an action because it is right?" (The Ethical Life, Shafer, 2012, pp.

63). I claim that Plato argument is right, that in fact God is not the creator of morality.

The Divine Command Theory is a kind of moral relativism: what is right or wrong is what the divine authority, God says is. Even if God commands are complete irrational, if God says that rape is good, then going trough the streets raping people will morally right, even when we know the act causes psychological and physical damage on the victim, in other words we know there are reasons why rape is not morally right. Or if God said that two plus two is equal to eight, which is completely false since two units united with other two are four regardless of what God says. This makes all the commands of God arbitrary...