Religion encourages morality

Most religions prescribe followers with a specific moral code, dictating an acceptable way to act and treat others. Though these definitions of morality vary from religion to religion, many have the same basic principles. For example, most promote ideals like compassion, kindness, altruism, faith, peace, and love. Needless to say, people who internalize and replicate these virtues will become model members of society, functioning well in the schoolroom, the workplace, and their personal lives. Thus, religion becomes a way to create morally upstanding-and thus, productive-members of society. On a broader scale, once religion becomes a key component in a given culture, its values will inculcate the social institutions of the society, from education to politics to the economy. In this way, even people who do not practice their culture’s dominant religion will likely internalize at least some of the moral code it promotes. This effect can be seen especially in America, where Christianity is the most common religion, and its unique conceptions of morality, sexuality, and the family have permeated the country as a whole, allowing it to work as a constituent whole following roughly the same moral guidelines. Evidently, religious morality, regardless of the faith it comes from, has a unifying effect on societies, allowing them to work together to improve.