Can morality exist without religion?
- Thread starter Jazzy
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That really depends on what counts as "morality" and what counts as "religion".
It's perfectly possible to adopt a personal moral code without believing in any deities that impose that code. It's just that it becomes very hard to determine any absolute moral codes without reference to some kind of greater power. We might create secular laws to protect the fabric of society (outlawing murder, rape, theft etc) but it's impossible to say whether such laws are moral or not without an external point of reference.
The question about the definition of religion is because if something along the lines of "preserve and protect human life and wellbeing" is considered the ultimate objective that alone provides an external validation for standards such as not raping and killing, although whether it counts as religion is debatable