Rod Kelvin C.

Oriel

Assignment in Ethics

1. Does one have to be religious in order to be moral?

Secular morality is the aspect of philosophy that deals with morality outside of religious
traditions. Modern examples include humanism, freethinking, and most versions of
consequentialism. Additional philosophies with ancient roots include those such as skepticism
and virtue ethics. Greg M. Epstein also states that, "much of ancient Far Eastern thought is
deeply concerned with human goodness without placing much if any stock in the importance
of gods or spirits." An example is the non-denominational Kural text of Valluvar, an ancient
Indian theistic poet-philosopher whose work remains secular. Other philosophers have
proposed various ideas about how to determine right and wrong actions. An example is
Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative.
A variety of positions are apparent regarding the relationship between religion and
morality. Some believe that religion is necessary as a guide to a moral life. According to some,
this idea has been with us for nearly 2,000 years. Others suggest this idea goes back at least
2,600 years as exemplified in Psalm 14 of the Hebrew Bible. According to others, the idea goes
back as far as 4,000 years, with the ancient Egyptians' 42 Principles of Ma'at.
Others eschew the idea that religion is required to provide a guide to right and wrong
behavior. The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics however states that religion and
morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other".
Some believe that religions provide poor guides to moral behavior. Various commentators,
such as Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Sam Harris (The End of Faith) and Christopher
Hitchens (God Is Not Great) are among those who have asserted this view.

2. Research on the following:

a. Islam
Islam is a universalizing Abrahamic monotheistic religion teaching that there is
only one God (Allah) and that Muhammad is a messenger of God. It is the world's
second-largest religion and the fastest-growing major religion in the world, with over
1.8 billion followers or 24.1% of the global population, known as Muslims. Muslims
make up a majority of the population in 50 countries. Islam teaches that God is merciful,
all-powerful, unique and has guided mankind through prophets, revealed scriptures
and natural signs. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as
the verbatim word of God, and the teachings and normative example (called the
sunnah, composed of accounts called hadith) of Muhammad (c. 570–8 June 632 CE).

Muslims believe that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial
faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Abraham,
Moses and Jesus. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered and final
revelation of God. Like other Abrahamic religions, Islam also teaches a final judgment
with the righteous rewarded paradise and unrighteous punished in hell. Religious
concepts and practices include the Five Pillars of Islam, which are obligatory acts of
worship, and following Islamic law, which touches on virtually every aspect of life and
society, from banking and welfare to women and the environment. The cities of Mecca,
Medina and Jerusalem are home to the three holiest sites in Islam.
 Aside from the theological viewpoint, Islam is historically believed to have
originated in the early 7th century CE in Mecca, and by the 8th century the Umayyad
Islamic caliphate extended from Iberia in the west to the Indus River in the east. The
Islamic Golden Age refers to the period traditionally dated from the 8th century to the
13th century, during the Abbasid Caliphate, when much of the historically Islamic world
was experiencing a scientific, economic and cultural flourishing. The expansion of the
Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders and conversion to Islam
by missionary activities (dawah).

Most Muslims are of one of two denominations: Sunni (75–90%) or Shia (10–
20%). About 13% of Muslims live in Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country, 31%
in South Asia, the largest population of Muslims in the world, 23% in the Middle East-
North Africa, where it is the dominant religion and 15% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sizeable
Muslim communities are also found in the Americas, the Caucasus, Central Asia, China,
Europe, Mainland Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Russia.

b. Baptist
Baptists are Christians distinguished by baptizing professing believers only
(believer's baptism, as opposed to infant baptism), and doing so by complete immersion
(as opposed to affusion or sprinkling). Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the
tenets of soul competency/liberty, salvation through faith alone, scripture alone as the
rule of faith and practice, and the autonomy of the local congregation. Baptists
generally recognize two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's supper, and two ministerial
offices, pastor and deacon. Baptist churches are widely considered to be Protestant,
though some Baptists disavow this identity.

Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today differ widely
from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other
Christians, and their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship.

Historians trace the earliest church labeled "Baptist" back to 1609 in Amsterdam,
Dutch Republic with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor. In accordance with his
reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism
only of believing adults. Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists
considered Christ's atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists
believed that it extended only to the elect. Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively
Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that
individuals might have freedom of religion. Helwys died in prison as a consequence of
the religious persecution of English dissenters under King James I. In 1638, Roger
Williams established the first Baptist congregation in the North American colonies. In
the 18th and 19th centuries, the First and Second Great Awakening increased church
membership in the United States. Baptist missionaries have spread their faith to every
continent.

The largest Baptist denomination is the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), with
the membership of associated churches totaling more than 15 million. Some Baptists
cooperate through the Baptist World Alliance.
c. Catholic Religion
Catholicism (from Greek katholikismos, "universal doctrine") is a concept that
encompasses the beliefs and practices of numerous Christian denominations, most
notably those that describe themselves as Catholic in accordance with the Four Marks
of the Church, as expressed in the Nicene Creed of the First Council of Constantinople
in 381: "[I believe] in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

While catholicism is most commonly associated with the faith and practices of
the Catholic Church led by the Pope in Rome, the traits of catholicity, and thus the term
catholic, are also claimed and possessed by other denominations such as the Eastern
Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church of the East. It also
occurs in Anglicanism and some Protestant denominations, as well as Independent
Catholicism. While traits used to define catholicity, as well as recognition of these traits
in other denominations, vary among these groups, such attributes include formal
sacraments, an episcopal polity, apostolic succession, highly structured liturgical
worship, and other shared Ecclesiology. The Catholic Church is also known as the Roman
Catholic Church; the term Roman Catholic is used especially in ecumenical contexts and
in countries where other churches use the term Catholic, to distinguish it from broader
meanings of the term.

Among Protestant and related traditions, catholic is used in the sense of

indicating a self-understanding of continuity of continuity of faith and practice from
Early Christianity as delineated in the Nicene Creed. Among Methodist Lutheran,
Moravian, and Reformed denominations the term "catholic" is used in the in claiming
to be "heirs of the apostolic faith", These denominations consider themselves to be
catholic, teaching that the term "designates the historic, orthodox mainstream of
Christianity whose doctrine was defined by the ecumenical councils and creeds" and as
such, most Reformers "appealed to this catholic tradition and believed they were in
continuity with it."

d. Chinese Religion
China has long been a cradle and host to a variety of the most enduring religio-
philosophical traditions of the world. Confucianism and Taoism, later joined by
Buddhism, constitute the "three teachings" that have shaped Chinese culture. There
are no clear boundaries between these intertwined religious systems, which do not
claim to be exclusive, and elements of each enrich popular or folk religion. The
emperors of China claimed the Mandate of Heaven and participated in Chinese religious
practices. In the early 20th century, reform-minded officials and intellectuals attacked
all religions as "superstitious", and since 1949, China has been governed by the
Communist Party of China, an atheist institution that prohibits party members from
practising religion while in office. In the culmination of a series of campaigns against
religion, the Cultural Revolution campaign against old habits, ideas, customs and culture
in 1966 and 1967 destroyed or forced them underground. Under following leaders,
religious organisations were given more autonomy. The government formally
recognises five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism
(though the Chinese Catholic Church is independent of the Catholic Church in Rome). In
 the early twenty-first century there has been increasing official recognition of
Confucianism and Chinese folk religion as part of China's cultural inheritance.

Folk or popular religion, the most widespread system of beliefs and practices, has
evolved and adapted since at least the Shang and Zhou dynasties in the second
millennium BCE. Fundamental elements of a theology and spiritual explanation for the
nature of the universe harken back to this period and were further elaborated in the
Axial Age. Basically, Chinese religion involves allegiance to the shen, often translated as
"spirits", but actually a broad category that includes a variety of gods and immortals.
These may be deities of the natural environment or ancestral principles of human
groups, concepts of civility, culture heroes, many of whom feature in Chinese
mythology and history. Confucian philosophy and religious practice began their long
evolution during the later Zhou; Taoist institutionalised religions developed by the Han
dynasty; Chinese Buddhism became widely popular by the Tang dynasty, and in
response Confucian thinkers developed Neo-Confucian philosophies; and popular
movements of salvation and local cults thrived.

Christianity and Islam arrived in China in the 7th century. Christianity did not take
root until it was reintroduced in the 16th century by Jesuit missionaries. In the early
20th century Christian communities grew, but after 1949, foreign missionaries were
expelled, and churches brought under government-controlled institutions. After the
late 1970s, religious freedoms for Christians improved and new Chinese groups
emerged.:508, 532 China is also often considered a home to humanist and secularist,
this-worldly thought beginning in the time of Confucius.

Because many, perhaps most, Han Chinese do not consider their spiritual beliefs
and practices to be a "religion" and in any case do not feel that they must practise any
one of them exclusively, it is difficult to gather clear and reliable statistics. National
surveys conducted in the early 21st century estimated that some 80% of the population
of China, that is more than a billion people, practise some kind of Chinese folk religion
or Taoism; 10–16% are Buddhists; 2–3% are Christians; and 1–2% are Muslims. Folk
religious movements of salvation constitute 2–3% to 13% of the population, while many
in the intellectual class adhere to Confucianism as a religious identity. In addition, ethnic
minority groups practise distinctive religions, including Tibetan Buddhism, and Islam
among the Hui and Uyghur peoples.

e. Protestant
Protestantism is the second largest form of Christianity with collectively more
than 900 million adherents worldwide or nearly 40% of all Christians It originated with
the Reformation, a movement against what its followers considered to be errors in the
Roman Catholic Church. Ever since, Protestants reject the Roman Catholic doctrine of
papal supremacy and sacraments, but disagree among themselves regarding the real
presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They emphasize the priesthood of all believers,
justification by faith alone (sola fide) rather than by good works, and the highest
authority of the Bible alone (rather than with sacred tradition) in faith and morals (sola
scriptura). The "Five solae" summarize basic theological differences in opposition to the
Roman Catholic Church.
 Protestantism is popularly considered to have begun in Germany in 1517 when
Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses as a reaction against abuses in the sale
of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church, which purported to offer remission of sin
to their purchasers. However, the term derives from the letter of protestation from
German Lutheran princes in 1529 against an edict of the Diet of Speyer condemning the
teachings of Martin Luther as heretical. Although there were earlier breaks and
attempts to reform of the Roman Catholic Church — notably by Peter Waldo, John
Wycliffe, and Jan Hus — only Luther succeeded in sparking a wider, lasting, and modern
movement. In the 16th century, Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark,
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Iceland. Reformed (or Calvinist)
denominations spread in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland
and France by reformers such as John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Knox. The
political separation of the Church of England from the pope under King Henry VIII began
Anglicanism, bringing England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement.

Protestants developed their own culture, with major contributions in education,

the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts,
and many other fields.

Protestantism is diverse, being more divided theologically and ecclesiastically

than either the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, or Oriental
Orthodoxy. Without structural unity or central human authority, Protestants developed
the concept of an invisible church, in contrast to the Roman Catholic view of the
Catholic Church as the visible one true Church founded by Jesus Christ. Some
denominations do have a worldwide scope and distribution of membership, while
others are confined to a single country. A majority of Protestants are members of a
handful of Protestant denominational families: Adventists, Anabaptists, Anglicans,
Baptists, Reformed, Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals. Nondenominational,
evangelical, charismatic, independent and other churches are on the rise, and
constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity. Proponents of the branch theory
consider Protestantism one of the three major divisions of Christendom, together with
the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental).