Quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
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Summary
This quote suggests that without the guidance or grounding of religion, morality becomes subjective and arbitrary. Morality without religion is likened to dead reckoning, a method of navigation that relies solely on estimating one's position based on past movements, lacking any reference to external and objective markers like the stars. Similarly, morality without religion lacks a fixed and universally accepted standard, making it unstable and uncertain, as it is based solely on individual or societal interpretations.