Morality and religion
It is common for religions to have value frameworks regarding personal behavior meant to guide adherents in determining between right and wrong.
[4][page needed] According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics, religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other.
[4][need quotation to verify] Religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism generally draw from some of the broadest canons of religious works.
[9] Researchers have shown interest in the relationship between religion and crime and other behavior that does not adhere to contemporary laws and social norms in various countries.
[16] Barbara Stoler Miller points out a further disparity between the morals of religious traditions, stating that in Hinduism, "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life.
For modern Westerners, who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism, this relativity of values and obligations is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult to understand.
[5]: 400 Richard Paula and Linda Elder of the Foundation for Critical Thinking assert that, "Most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, and the law."
[22] According to Thomas Dixon, "Many today ... argue that religious beliefs are necessary to provide moral guidance and standards of virtuous conduct in an otherwise corrupt, materialistic, and degenerate world.
[25] Sometimes religious and state authorities work well in tandem to police morals, as in the case of god-kings, in medieval Europe or in colonial Massachusetts.
But priesthoods may become dependent on secular authorities (a form of Caesaropapism) to promulgate and punish; or priests may come to concentrate on important ritual or ceremony and leave open the way for external preachers of moral revival - such as prophets in Judaism,[26] Muhammad in Arabia,[27] or Puritans and non-conformists in England.
[28] Priesthoods may over time develop traditional or geographical inconsistencies in their moral teaching - with the possibility of religious innovators becoming heresiarchs and splitting off into various sects.
[33] According to global research done by Gallup on people from 145 countries, adherents of all the major world religions who attended religious services in the past week reported higher rates of generosity such as donating money, volunteering, and helping a stranger than do their coreligionists who did not attend services (non-attenders).
Religious people were less inclined when it came to seeing how much compassion motivated participants to be charitable in other ways, such as in giving money or food to a homeless person and to non-believers.
[40] Some scientific studies show that the degree of religiosity is generally associated with higher ethical attitudes[41][42][43][44]—for example, surveys suggesting a positive connection between faith and altruism.
[46]: 3–21 However, in his books about the materialism in America's Evangelical Churches Ron Sider accuses fellow Christians of failing to do better than their secular counterparts in the percentage adhering to widely held moral standards (e.g., lying, theft and sexual infidelity).
[55] A Georgia State University study published in the academic journal Theoretical Criminology suggests that religion helps criminals to justify their crimes and might "encourage" it.
[58] In regard to Christianity, he states that the "Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women".
[59] He provides examples such as the phrase in Exodus 22:18 that has "helped to burn alive tens or hundreds of thousands of women in Europe and America": "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and notes that the Old Testament God apparently has "no problems with a slave-owning society", considers birth control a crime punishable by death, and "is keen on child abuse".
[61] Philosopher David Hume stated that, "The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.
[64] According to Paul Copan, Jewish laws in the Bible show an evolution of moral standards towards protecting the vulnerable, imposing a death penalty on those pursuing forced slavery and identifying slaves as persons and not property.
"[66] He cites an example of a clergyman who was warned by a physician that his wife would die if she had another (her tenth) child, but impregnated her regardless, which resulted in her death.
"[67] Russell further states that, "The sense of sin which dominates many children and young people and often lasts on into later life is a misery and a source of distortion that serves no useful purpose of any sort or kind.
Yet, there have been opposing views about the ability of both religious and secular moral frameworks to provide useful guides to right and wrong actions.
For example, popular atheist Richard Dawkins, writing in The God Delusion, has stated that religious people have committed a wide variety of acts and held certain beliefs through history that we now consider morally repugnant.
