[c312]

Originally Posted by ninty

not so much change but how their defined I guess. People say the bible is critical to being a moral person. actually i mean religion in general. people will say there needs to be some sort of guidelines for you to follow. and I did for 13 years of my school life at a catholic school. however now i've become to realize you don't need guidelines or a book or religion or fear of a higher power to be a good person.

I think there is a good argument that morals are naturally built into a person's consciousness, I think religion only provides a written structure for some of those morals, but mostly people know right vs wrong no matter how they were brought up.

You should read CS Lewis' "The Case for Christianity" it's only like 50 pages and you should check it out. You can ignore the parts that are evangelistic, but the beginning talks a lot about the basis of morals that humans recognize, and as I said, it's very short, especially if you only read that beginning part.

[Tripper]

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you....

While that is a quote from the bible, I think that sort of thinking is how people have an innate sense of morals...Thats why people who don't recognise feelings in other people are generally the ones who commit violent crimes without thinking they're really doing anything wrong or without any remorse or empathy...

I agree you don't need religion to figure out a set of morals to that degree - but religion does take it a few steps further, IMO.