Ethics and Religion

DescriptionDescription The secularization of modern culture has to a large extent divorced ethics from religion. However, without a spiritual view of life, individual and collective morality are not steady and collective life itself becomes jeopardized. This booklet deals with such questions as: How can the moral, religious, and spiritual life be distinguished?; What makes one immoral?; Is doing good the same as being good?; What is the difference between the empirical and the transcendental self?; Where do ethics and religion meet?; How can one go beyond the do’s and don’ts of moral laws? It was originally presented as a paper before the St. Louis Philosophy Association.ContentsContentsDedication Foreword Prefatory Note Ethics and Religion: True Meaning of Ethics and Religion Relation between Morality and Spirituality Divorce of Ethics from Religion Common Background of Religions World Understanding through Religion What Makes Man Immoral? Moral Sense in Man: How It Originates and Functions Dawn of Spiritual Consciousness Distinction of Moral, Religious, and Spiritual Life Moral Life of a Spiritual Aspirant Action and Contemplation Work as Worship Meaning of Renunciation The Mystic as a Recluse Does Religion Make a Man Egocentric? Self-Expansion through Self-Knowledge Ego and Soul Are Not Identical The Social Ego Hardly Makes for Self-Expansion Foundation of Ethics Metaphysical Background of Ethics according to Vedanta Views of Schopenhauer and Paul Deussen From the Spiritual Standpoint Self-Sacrifice is but Self-Realization Need of the Spiritual Outlook for Social Solidarity: Hindu Method No Right Scale of Values without a Supreme Spiritual Ideal Hindu Ethical Standard Doing Good and Being Good Inner Purity the Supreme Need of Life Is Religion Life Negating? True Function of Religion Social Life Must Conform to the Spiritual Ideal Religious Ideal, Eastern or Western, Is Neither Life Affirming Nor Life Negating Practical Value of Religion: Way to Attain It Fourfold Values in the Hindu Scheme of Life Social Work No Solvent for Life’s Problems Spiritual Perfection Is beyond the Moral Plane Two Types of Illumined Souls Characteristics of Illumined Workers Consummation of Ethical and Religious IdealsExcerpt For without spiritual consciousness, morality, the mere doing good to others, becomes a constant struggle to overcome selfish impulses and rarely attains to creative goodness. Without this insight, says our author, …you will open clinics but not solve the problem of disease; extend relief measures but not solve the problem of misery; develop machinery but not solve the problem of want; make laws but not solve the problem of crime; conclude peace treaties but not solve the problem of war. And the reason is obvious. For without that insight into the unity of the finite self with all other finite selves (through the Infinite, which is the soul of each and all) we are constantly thinking of what we can get out of our association with others, not of what we can do for them.—Professor L.P. Chambers, from the Preface