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Will we lose morality without religions

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Morality can be thought of as a concept of right or wrong. The right or wrong can come from a rational point of view or can come from an imaginary point of view. People may say it is immoral to hurt others. It might be because hurting others result in fighting which results in a lack of cooperation among individuals. It is bad for any group and might affect the survival of the group members negatively. Such things come from a rational point of view. People may consider it a bad behavior to empty a cup of tea offered to them or receive a gift with the right hand etc. These come from an imaginary point of view. Whatever we consider to be right or wrong can be traced to something which increase or decrease our cooperation, blessings etc, which in turn affects our chances of survival and propagation or wellbeing for real or in an imaginary way.

Morality can come from individual survival needs, group survival demands or from imagination. We may have our reservations about repeatedly helping someone who will not return the favor, even when our parents or society tell us to help others regardless of the result. It happen due to the feelings of unfairness or neglect about our needs and us placing our needs above the needs of the society for cooperation, stability etc. It shows individual survival needs. Some people die fighting for their group, it shows group survival demands. There are people who believe if somebody from another group, who they consider to be inferior, touches them they will become impure. This comes from imagination rather than from anything rational.

A sense of right or wrong is present in some other organisms too. We can see it and we might have seen hens defending chicks when somebody gets too close to them. Even though hens don't form big societies like we do, they too feel for their kids, they too have emotions, as we can find them calm, violent etc. Hens believe that it is wrong if somebody threaten its chicks and if that happens, we usually see it to be ready to teach them a lesson in morals. So morality is not exclusive to humans. Some other organisms have it, and so do our closest primate relatives. We have got it from our primate ancestors, in a sense that genes lay the foundation, emotion, empathy etc. So we shouldn't be saying, we alone have morals which shows we are better than the rest of the organisms, god loves us etc and tell that it is proof that god exists.

Some organisms adapted to live in groups and we are one among them. When they group together, individuals will have to behave in a commonly agreed upon way. It limits freedom but improves their chances of survival and propagation. Morals can form out of this setting. But when the living conditions or the social situations change, morals also change. Each society differ in its social situation or the living condition of its people. It is why different societies develop different set of morals. There are certain rules like don't hurt anybody unnecessarily, love your parents or similar ones. Such rules can be commonly found in many societies. These rules develop because the formation of groups and its stability requires cooperation and wellbeing of its members and such rules are the basic ones which form out of the basics of a society. Due of this religions have some commonalities and appear to have the same intentions. But there are other rules specific to a society or a region. These are rules like don't eat meat, kiss the feet of the dead etc. These are formed according to the specific conditions through which societies develop. It reflects in religions and hence the difference in rules between different religions.

We are probably told it is wrong to hurt others and there are punishments for people who violate it. There is such a rule because the more stable a group, the better the chances of survival and wellbeing of its individuals. But if somebody tries to kill you and while defending, the other person died, instead of punishment you might be praised for your bravery. That rule doesn't apply in this case because the person who tried to kill you violated the rule and what you did by defending is that you upheld the rule, good for the group and you saved yourself, good for you. There can also be exceptions if you kill somebody who is attacking your land or is a threat to it. But if you are living in a group which believe, killing somebody even if they violate the social rules in big ways, is extreme, you may be punished. Outcomes in such cases differ because of the way societies deal with situations. It shows that culture has a part to play in determining what is good, bad, appropriate or inappropriate. 

There is no absolute right or wrong. Rules of a society is not something set in stone, it take shape and gets reshaped when societies change. Humans always had rules by which they lived. It doesn't require a religion, it forms when people come together and cooperate. Because of differences in our social settings, we have different rules compared to our ancestors, other than maybe the basic ones regarding community living, happiness etc. When a religion form in a society, it codifies the existing laws, modify it or make its own laws and then call it god's laws. By doing so it lock these laws to a point in time and imagination, taking away its true nature and making improvement difficult. Religions also invent its own moral laws. But it doesn’t make it the true source of morality, we, our society and our imagination is the real source of it. By subtracting religion, imagination etc from it, we can be clear as to why these laws exist and evaluate what is good about it, what is bad about it or when it is applicable. We follow certain moral laws, but sometimes forget we made them and why we made them. So there is no valid reason to believe our societies would collapse without religions.