Religions and Walled Gardens

A common observation in religions that rely on scriptures is that they provide a walled garden of safety. Unlike physical walls, the walls of the religion impose laws on the followers of the religion.

Morality under religion

As a society, we need a sense of stability to live peacefully. That is to say, one should not harm the autonomy of another living being, even though he has the full freedom to do so. If that is to happen, the individual's peace will be destroyed. If one person's life in the world is not peaceful, we cannot say that the world is a peaceful place to live, because no fault of their own, a random person's peace was destroyed.

This sense of stability comes from a general understanding of nature and life, which should be easy and innate because the world is full of wonders and has allowed us to exist, and choose peace. But nature does have it's fair share of wild behaviours, such as the food chain. But we do not think of this as evil, for example when a lion eats a deer, and instead we view it as natural - because hunger and desire for survival are also opposing natural sensations.

However, as thinking beings, we are capable of much more, and we are capable of identifying with one another as a team, so that we can live peacefully for ourselves by sharing our food and water, and protecting each other from threats. But this also means that as we share the same characteristics as the other animals, which is hunger, desire for survival and in addition desire for enjoyment, sometimes our established way of cooperation is not enough, and some people may feel marginalised and rebel, upsetting the established order. This is seen as an act of evil, because peace is universally desirable, and a few members have destroyed the peace of others, for no apparent reason. What happens is that the other people either do not know of their problems that caused them to resort to this, or they believe their feelings were unrelatable or based on wrong information, or they know they are right but do not see a peaceful solution to their problem and hence decide to fight. Standing against one set of people is not something that all members of the group has to agree upon. Societies are formed by people grouping together and choosing an authority to speak for everyone. When people's opinions differ, the right decision is decided by the authority of the chosen leadership. And in badly developed societies, if someone expresses an opinion in favour of people objecting the authority, it is viewed as siding with the enemy to upset the peace of our people, and is punished.

So, the innate sense of understanding of doing the right things is called morality. But the morality of a person is based on their feelings, and is limited to their understanding of the world, shaped by their experiences. But as diverse people located in different frames of the world, one may not have the entire understanding of the aspects of the world that the other person has seen. In any case, generally we do not know everything that has ever happened, and we only know a part of the whole. For this reason,