Comments on: Overjustification Effect Explains Away Religious Morality

By: DAgutierrez.com » Consistency.

DAgutierrez.com » Consistency. — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:12:21 +0000

[...] back to my theories, up first Internal vs. External motivation: I recently read an article which referenced a study done on the human motivation system. From the article: “In 1976, [...]

By: Someone concerned

Someone concerned — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:00:28 +0000

Hitler may have proclaimed to be a devout Christian or a Catholic, but he showed no signs of actually being so. True Christianity acknowledges respect for all people and does not do anything against or showing mal intent (much less genocide) for Jewish peoples.

I think the author has some good points, but I think it should be fairly obvious that humans are selfish creatures who do what is in their best interest. We may feel urged to do good, but it is only because of society’s conditioning. At our core, humans are selfish creatures, we are not essentially “Good.”

‘Tis all.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 19:21:25 +0000

Religion does not equal the external threat of a kinky torture chamber if you do not follow rule X. If you believe in good, like it or not, you are religious. You believe in something more than the here and now, past your own existence. Tyrants hate religion because it shows people something more important than the here and now, more important than the tyrant. People that are truly without religion, those who attack belief period, those who do not believe in anything beyond the end of their own nose, they are lost. You are failing to differentiate between religion as threat and belief itself. If you attack both, you are the problem.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 19:39:31 +0000

I do agree to this, good point =)
As I belive in God I do not have all my morality dictated by Heaven or Hell. I think like many, belivers or not, I get my rewards and punishments through everyday life. And rather comfort and tranquility in my belife.
I see people faces can light up for me doing a good thing, and I see dissapointment in the same faces when I do “something wrong”.
What is that if not a punishment or reward?

If you are not to extreem(meaning an extreem religous), I would think people and effects of your own actions are just as much a reward for belivers as non belivers.
And that is what truly dictats “moral”, if btw someone could give a good deffinition of moral =)

Things are not as easy as they seem.
But true, from time after Pavlov and his dogs, the power of giving rewards and punishments have been questioned much about their effect. But how can we sepperate rewards that is “not seen as such” (happiness in others) and direct reward (choclate for doing homework). As there is much inbetween those two rewards mentioned =)

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 08:52:55 +0000

Um u may be forgetting the crusades or the Inquisition or maybe perhaps witch hunts. 2 thousand years of killing heretics and non believes in the name of the lord. repent and ur death shall be quick and painless or we will torture the lord into u methodologies.

p.s. do i really have to bring up Priest having sex with children…. yeah religious people are definitely moral.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 05:13:49 +0000

I feel that it is not realistic to divide up the amount of wrongdoing or hurtfulness in the world, try to ascertain which people are responsible for what percentage of it, and then try and correlate these people with one variable, especially with a variable as broad as “religion”, or “religiously founded morality.” The idea is interesting but in the complexity of the world I don’t believe it would come out in the wash. A few notes on the complexity: 1. People who are not “religious” are not by default “athiests.” There’s a large category of people who believe in God (for lack of a better word) but are not active in an institutional religion. 2. People who are religious choose to be so for many different reasons, and there are many more reasons for being religious than the external motivator of “fire and brimstone.” “Hell” is one of the more primitive reasons for religion. Many religions do not even have a concept of hell, or even of a system of externally-originating punishment. There are many internally motivating forces for following a religion or a morality system.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 02:18:06 +0000

Excuse me. Statistically, %4 percent of americans are atheists, %85 are christians. %85 of felony criminals are christian, %.02 are atheists. Statistically.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 22:23:20 +0000

Thirded. It’s almost creepy how little some people know about religion yet how much they have to say about it.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 18:15:44 +0000

Good ideas, solid research, and the like doesn’t age like a cheese burger. They age more like wine–their flavor improving with each year, with additional research (both for and against), and greater reflection. To suggest that a paper/research has little value in the present because it is no longer en vogue is ridiculous. Newer doesn’t necessarily mean better. If anything, what is most recent has built on what proceeded it.

I can’t believe you think 40-years is a big deal. Aristotle still has a lot to say to current generations and his work is FAR older than that.

-Abe

By: anonymous

anonymous — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 18:10:22 +0000

Well, that was a helpful comment. Idiot. Such a comment has one intention: to stop an author from writing more of anything, anytime, anywhere. How rude. If you are Christian and don’t have the intellectual capacity to formulate a specific critical thought then please restrict your “reading” to more suitable material; like US magazine, or Teen People Magazine…something with lots of pictures, and no comment boxes. If you’re an atheist then my suggestion applies to you as well. There is no room for such bullshit as your utterly worthless comment, in a place of thought and discussion.

OUT.

-Abe