Religion and Ethics: Which came first?

The question posited by the thread title seems to me overtly naive. Does anyone with a rational mind really believe religion and ethics are mutually exclusive, or further, even related whatsoever?
I find that particular theistic apologetic tactic (you can't be ethical without religion) to be both intellectually insulting and ironically comical given the historical track record of believers.

Doktor S wrote:

The question posited by the thread title seems to me overtly naive. Does anyone with a rational mind really believe religion and ethics are mutually exclusive, or further, even related whatsoever?
I find that particular theistic apologetic tactic (you can't be ethical without religion) to be both intellectually insulting and ironically comical given the historical track record of believers.

yea, that's why I posed that question in my post.

I have always supported ethics over morals.

Salmon Rushdie appeared on the newest Bill Moyers' television program just last week and had many interesting and provocative things to say.

Chief among them was Rushdie's own theory that man looked about and saw that he needed an ethical system in order to deal with the world and so invented religion.

This turns traditional assumptions (note: I did not use the word "thinking") on their sides.

I think Rushdie is on to something.

I have always felt that the right-wing/evangelical argument, "How can man do what is right without religion," was weak: a cop out.

I have stressed that if we do something because our forebears told us to do, without examing said instructions in light of reason and experience, we are not really doing what is right.

I have always supported ethics over morals.

What do you think?

The question posited by the thread title seems to me overtly naive. Does anyone with a rational mind really believe religion and ethics are mutually exclusive, or further, even related whatsoever?
I find that particular theistic apologetic tactic (you can't be ethical without religion) to be both intellectually insulting and ironically comical given the historical track record of believers.

joe -- I have stated many times -- and have been attacked many times -- that I feel morality is an inherited and unexamined set of beliefs, and my definition lines up with the one setanta supplied. On the other hand, I feel ethics is a tested and explored set of behavioural standards. Wow! has that definition brought hatchets down on my head.

I should explain--i'm here doing what frustrates me in others, assuming that you can follow my train of thought even though i've not articulated it. I consider the concept of morality to be inseparable from its Latin root. I consider that "universal" contentions about the nature of good and evil, of right and wrong, are for very obvious reasons subjective and arbitrary. I consider that all morality derives from statements of preference, and is customary in origin and usage--i don't accept the concept of moral absolutes, of truths which exist independently of the human constructs by which they are described.

plainoldme wrote:

joe -- I have stated many times -- and have been attacked many times -- that I feel morality is an inherited and unexamined set of beliefs, and my definition lines up with the one setanta supplied. On the other hand, I feel ethics is a tested and explored set of behavioural standards. Wow! has that definition brought hatchets down on my head.

I can understand why. No one, and I mean NO ONE, shares your definitions of "morality" and "ethics." Your idiosyncratic usage, therefore, is an impediment rather than an aid to understanding -- not something that we typically want from our definitions.

At best, your "morality" is the equivalent of "custom." But we don't need a different term for "custom," since "custom" works just fine. And even if "morality" is derived from the Latin term for "custom" (as Setanta points out), that is no reason to reject established usage and rely on the Latin root to provide the definition of "morality."

I think you have made an unwarranted assumption. You can not say with certainty -- in fact, you can not say at all -- that no one else shares my definitions.

On the other hand, as I have found myself arguing time and time again recently on this forum, the purpose of education and experience is to become an adult and the defining trait of adulthood is to think for oneself, to have intellectual, spiritual and other forms of independence.

For you to say that my ability to define terms for myself is an impediment to my understanding supposes you know what my understanding is and that you have the universal key to all understanding. Rather egotistic, n'est-ce pas?

As for my morality -- AND IT IS NOT MINE!!!! -- having derived from custom, well, consider that I derived it from the people who insist on moral actions and codes and family values. Furthermore, remember that American law is based on English common law, which is based on the customs of the country.