Morality is a product of religion

And you're basing that argument against insects and other beings on what...? Promising research has been conducted and astonishing results have been shown. You are clearly not familiar with the research done by Nicholas Strausfeld, Holldobler, E. Wilson, D.M. Gordon, P.W. Sherman and many, many others who have researched the consciousness and morality of animals. But alright, if you wish me to drop that argument, I will. It is by far not destroyed. This comes from proper research and biological examination. I have yet to see any scientific evidence that opposes it. I stated that morality is an evolutionary imperative essential to our survival. If you acknowledge that, my argument would again prove totally valid. Lets get to the point then: Morals have two essential sources, those include nature and nurture. The natural urges and restraints that we all have born within us and the psychological condition achieved through personal experiences. The main part of our morality comes from our Darwinian heritage as kind of a misfired byproduct of our Darwinian past, when we lived in small villages which meant that we were surrounded by close kin, and that as you know is one good prerequisite for the evolution of altruism. The rules of thumb that applied to the small groups and villages in the past are playing themselves out under the alien conditions of modern society. Those rules included ""be nice to everyone, because they are likely to be family and/or someone you will meet again"". Nowadays this rule is a byproduct of evolution. We still use it although it isn"t needed anymore. Being nice to others is a lust. Just like sexual lust, the one difference is that we now use contraceptives so we do not actually create offspring. This is the Darwinian origin, of course it has been modified and refined by culture, civilization and society. Sources: The selfish gene - Richard Dawkins The ancestors tale - Richard Dawkins The argument that our morality today is like it is because of religion is absurd. The absolute morality that a religious person might profess would include what? Stoning people for adultery?(Bukhari 6:60:79) Death for blasphemy?(Leviticus 24:13-16) Punishment for breaking the Sabbath?( Exodus 31:14) Those are all things which are religiously based absolute moralities. I don"t think we want an absolute morality. I think we want a morality that is thought out, reasoned, discussed, argued and base upon (no pun intended) intelligent design. If you actually look at the moralities that are accepted among modern people, 21st century people; we do not believe in slavery anymore, we believe in equality of women, we believe in being kind to animals. These are all things which are entirely recent. They have very little basis in biblical or quranic scripture. They are things that have developed over historical time through a combination of reasoning, sober discussion, argument, legal theory, political and moral philosophy. These do not come from religion, to the extent that you can find the good bits in religion, but you have to cherry pick. People search their way through the bible or the quran and find the occasional verse that is an acceptable profession of morality, and they say ""look! Look at that, that"s religion!"" and they leave out all the horrible bits. When asked they say ""oh, we don"t believe that anymore. We"ve grown out of that"". Well of course they"ve grown out of it! They have grown out of it because of secular, moral philosophy and rational discussion.