Religion and Virtue
Often religion is thought to a way to get people to lead virtuous lives. Clearly in the case of religious extremists this is not the case. On the other hand there are a fair number of individuals who have done a number of admirable things in the name of religion. This alone leads me to believe that virtue is an individual tendency and that no one group the formula to being virtuous. But, is it possible that religion could help to steer people in the direction of virtue? If so, are some religions more likely to guide someone towards a virtuous life than others.
Socrates would be upset with me for asking this without defining virtue, but whatever I'll live.
To the extent that no major religion is a perfectly coherent body of practices or ideas (for evidence, look to the different schisms and sects that every major religion has spawned), unless we accept divine inspiration as a criterion for virtue then it will be possible to interpret each religious text as advocating for practices that are both virtuous and undesirable.
ReplyDeleteIf there is a single objective criterion for virtue, then probably there are some religions that bring the individual closer to virtue than others. But here we run up against the lack of a definition, where the objective criteria could easily include umbrella concepts common to all religions.
I feel like a lot of the time people start to get less virtuous with religion once they start picking apart little pieces of text rather than absorbing their meaning as a whole. For example, the overarching themes in the Bible are love your fellow man, love God, and extend forgiveness. You still get sects of people that try and pick out specific lines to advance their own agenda while ignoring the real advice and the fact that the text they're reading had been translated and rewritten over and over again by many different people.
ReplyDeleteIn the same manner, I don't think most religions teach a similar theme of love and acceptance but specific members cherry pick lines to advance their agenda.