Morality and Religion

Morality is in no way synonymous with a religious belief system.

There are few things more insulting than being told that people would not behave in an acceptable way without religion to give them a moral framework. In other words you can’t possibly be a good person unless you are religious. This is particularly bad to take in the light of the GROSSLY IMMORAL behaviour of the priesthood being reported in the press. In the more distant past before investigative journalism who knows what they got up to.

AlbertEinstein
“A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”.

Doing something because you know it to be right, without any thought for reward or punishment is so much more worthy.

Goodness is not a purely religious concept, nor is evil.

To demonstrate my point I have constructed a tentative model for a morality system devoid of any reference to religion or any other supernatural concept. The rationale I adopted was that consistent with survival of the species (or Individual genes or gene groups), cultural values and thoughts/ideas (memes) and a generally comfortable lifestyle consistent with low conflict and mutually beneficial behaviours.