Cultural Relativism Ethics Essay: Religious Morality

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Is secular morality incompatible with religious morality? And how does that affect moral reasoning and impartiality?
Much has been said of the divide that exists between religious morality and secular morality. Debates exist between prominent atheists and religious individuals especially apologetic Christians. Each side claims that it is better than the other one and points out the different foundations that make them distinct. On the one hand, religious adherents define what is right or wrong based on the laws and rules set forth by the gods and as interpreted to them by the respective religious leaders. For the majority of the religious individuals, religion and morality are similar and inseparable. They term the religion as their morality, or that morality is part of their religion. On the contrary, secular morality deals with the aspect of morality outside of the religious traditions. Here, morality is derived from non-religious considerations such as humanism and freethinking.
According to (Rachels 29), morality involves the effort to guide peoples’ conduct by reason. It involves doing something with the best reasons for doing it while taking into consideration the interests of everyone affected by the action. Secular morality differs from religious morality hence the two are incompatible. The Divine Command Theory advocates that what is morally right is commanded by God while what is morally wrong is forbidden by God (Rachels 64). The major theist religions like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism ascribe to the view that God is the lawgiver and he has laid down rules for people to obey. Although God does not compel obedience to the rules, he will eventually punish the disobedient while rewarding the obedient. However, one of the challenges with the Divine Command Theory is that atheists do not agree with it because they do not believe that God exists in the first place.
The Theory of Natural Law recognizes that both law and morality are deeply connected. The theory rests upon the view that the world is a rational order and has values built in its very nature (Rachels 68). The theory was advocated by Aristotle around 350 B.C who said that everything in the world has a purpose. The Christian thinkers who came later found this view perfect, the problem was that it did not acknowledge God. The Christians, therefore, included God in the picture and restated that the world values are part of the nature of things because the world was created according to a divine plan. Including God in the Theory of Natural Law makes it incompatible with the secular ethicists. Atheists do not acknowledge the existence of God, and therefore they...