Religion
Religion and morality (or ethics) have traditionally been closely connected. This is particularly true in the case of Judaism which is often understood as an ethical
system as much as it is a religion. And yet this relationship is not obvious. For example, I surely do not need to be told by God that stealing is a bad idea. I am
quite capable of figuring that out by myself. But if the connection between religions and morality is not one of morality consisting of God’s commandments, then what
is the connection? Does religion perhaps provide the motivation? Or does religion play a role because of rewards and punishments? But if that were the case then what
kind of morality would I have if I avoided the wrong not because it was wrong but because I wanted to avoid punishment? This is particularly true in the case of
Judaism which insists, as the phrase goes, that
virtue is its own reward and vice its own punishment. So your topic here is: What is the connection between religion and morality?
Polytheistic religions (the belief in many gods) are pretty much dead. Almost everyone who believes in supernatural beings believes in (the) one God. Note that this
does not mean one supernatural being. There is still lots of belief in angels etc. But it does mean (the) one God. But the reason for this funeral is not
obvious (at least to me). Polytheistic religions worked well for a long time.
Smith says (p.275) that “to have more than one God is to live a life of divided loyalties.” But as a matter of historical practice this was simply false. People in
polytheistic religions knew perfectly well which god was appropriate for which situation. The problem of divided loyalties did not arise, at least in that way. So
what do you think happened? Why did polytheistic religions get laughed out of court while monotheistic religions (which in practice means the Abrahamic religions)
acquire such devout loyalty?
To find evidence of God’s existence and clues to his nature, we can look outside of ourselves. We can look only two places; nature (the physical universe) and history
(the way the human story has unfolded). Nature religions looked (not surprisingly) at nature. The Jews did that too, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the
firmament showeth his handiwork.” But they also looked to history as the nature religions did not, to discover more about God’s plan for humankind.
For the nature religions all of nature is sacred and spiritual. Is all of history sacred? If not, how do we figure out which parts are? Does history continue to show
God’s plan as the Jews were convinced that it once did? If you write on this topic, I recommend that you reread the section in the text (pp. 282 – 286)
carefully.
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