Posted on 11/06/2017 6:42:17 PM PST by marshmallow
Most U.S. adults now say it is not necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values (56%), up from about half (49%) who expressed this view in 2011. This increase reflects the continued growth in the share of the population that has no religious affiliation, but it also is the result of changing attitudes among those who do identify with a religion, including white evangelical Protestants.
Surveys have long shown that religious “nones” – those who describe themselves religiously as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – are more likely than those who identify with a religion to say that belief in God is not a prerequisite for good values and morality. So the public’s increased rejection of the idea that belief in God is necessary for morality is due, in large part, to the spike in the share of Americans who are religious “nones.”
Indeed, the growth in the share of Americans who say belief in God is unnecessary for morality tracks closely with the growth in the share of the population that is religiously unaffiliated. In the 2011 Pew Research Center survey that included the question about God and morality, religious “nones” constituted 18% of the sample. By 2017, the share of “nones” stood at 25%.
But the continued growth of the “nones” is only part of the story. Attitudes about the necessity of belief in God for morality have also changed among those who do identify with a religion. Among all religiously affiliated adults, the share who say belief in God is unnecessary for morality ticked up modestly, from 42% in 2011 to 45% in 2017.
(Excerpt) Read more at pewresearch.org ...
C.A.I.R. - Anaheim, 31 Mar 2007
"This is what people like Aslan and Greenwald, both of whom are allied with Islamic supremacists and jihadists in so many ways (see here and here for some details), and their friends and allies in groups like the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) do to anyone and everyone who speaks the truth about jihad terror. "
If there wasn’t a God, where does the desire to be moral come from?
Considering today’s “morality,” of course not.
>>> ‘Morality must be re-defined in order to consider a Godless man “moral”.’
}}} please indicate what ‘re-definitions’ are necessary...please be specific...
Most of your definitions out there are inherently linked to law. Most of mankind’s basic “laws” are derived from religious sources... i.e. GOD’s Commands.
Therefore you would have to re-write the definition of morality so that it avoids references to both law and religion.
you would only be left with vague synonyms such as “good” and “righteous”, or “upstanding”... which of course are words which are completely relative and NOT definitive because there would be no common frame of reference or authoritative source.
Feel free to give me an example of a moral code (in use within a respectable society) which is not related or derived from a belief in God.
Otoh, society’s standards keep sinking, so you have to live higher and higher above those standards, to be decent.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.