I was listening to a Jordan Peterson interview yesterday and he was going on about his personal belief that science is great at telling facts but terrible at providing moral instructions, and that Religion is the one to go for that. And I realized.... this is a false dichotomy: The premise that Religion and Science are the only possible sources to create a moral code and create moral decisions.
For example: You meet someone and over the course of time, you are in a relationship with that person. All of a sudden, a whole set of moral rules have to be established: Rules about how to live with each other and what things not to do. Things related to cheating and even flirting. Some couples allow flirting and even sex in the case of open relationships. In other couples, more strict rules are applied.
The point is, chances are in a lot of these cases, neither person had to recur to either science nor religion (I know I didn't) These are just rules that were decided based on a negotiation: On how much each side is willing to give in. Sure, some couples are of religious nature, and their moral rules (Such as infidelity) are also mirrored in their religion. But even in the case of a Christian couple, a lot of the rules are more or less arbitrary (don't leave the toilet seat up) and don't necessarily appear in the scripture of their religious texts.
So this discussion about whether morality should come from either science or religion, seems to me more and more like a false dichotomy.
In the end, this is what I think: While it is possible to obtain information that will influence moral decisions from both Science and Religion, neither of the two is essential to create a moral code.
For example: You meet someone and over the course of time, you are in a relationship with that person. All of a sudden, a whole set of moral rules have to be established: Rules about how to live with each other and what things not to do. Things related to cheating and even flirting. Some couples allow flirting and even sex in the case of open relationships. In other couples, more strict rules are applied.
The point is, chances are in a lot of these cases, neither person had to recur to either science nor religion (I know I didn't) These are just rules that were decided based on a negotiation: On how much each side is willing to give in. Sure, some couples are of religious nature, and their moral rules (Such as infidelity) are also mirrored in their religion. But even in the case of a Christian couple, a lot of the rules are more or less arbitrary (don't leave the toilet seat up) and don't necessarily appear in the scripture of their religious texts.
So this discussion about whether morality should come from either science or religion, seems to me more and more like a false dichotomy.
In the end, this is what I think: While it is possible to obtain information that will influence moral decisions from both Science and Religion, neither of the two is essential to create a moral code.
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