Topic of the day: Is morality universal?
Here is a video of Pr Jordan Peterson talking about morality, ethics and religion.
It is entitled "The problem with Atheism", which is just too catchy. His point is mainly to say, as people, religious or not, our moral codes and ethics are shaped buy our history, culture, and national religion. That is to say, what religion shaped the nation. He talks about Western countries here, heavily shaped by Christianism of course, but also older traditions like Greek mythology.
This is something I find very interesting. The way we are raised has a very big impact on who we are. You see this in the way suicide is treated in Western countries, and in countries like Japan. While there are still people who will believe the idea that people who commit suicide go to Hell, and will therefore refrain for killing themselves, or (try to) discourage others from it, most people, believers or not, will easily accept the notion that suicide is a terrible thing to do and everything should be done to prevent it.
In Japan however, the religious tradition has never painted suicide as a bad thing. As a result, suicide rates are much higher here. This is seen as a terrible thing by Western countries of course, because of their own moral views, but here it is not.
Suicide is just an example of course, but it is very interesting to see how much of an impact centuries of a certain religion can have on shaping a country and its culture, in every part of society.