Morals in the context of "Religious practice"

Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, ethics, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. It is an essentially contested concept. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.

The origin of religious belief is an open question, with possible explanations including awareness of individual death, a sense of community, and dreams. Religions have sacred histories, narratives, and mythologies, preserved in oral traditions, sacred texts, symbols, and holy places, that may attempt to explain the origin of life, the universe, and other phenomena. Religious practice may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, matrimonial and funerary services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, or public service.

The intersections of morality and religion involve the relationship between religious views and morals. It is common for religions to have value frameworks regarding personal behavior meant to guide adherents in determining between right and wrong. These include the Triple Gems of Jainism, Islam's Sharia, Catholicism's Catechism, Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path, and Zoroastrianism's "good thoughts, good words, and good deeds" concept, among others. Various sources - such as holy books, oral and written traditions, and religious leaders - may outline and interpret these frameworks. Some religious systems share tenets with secular value-frameworks such as consequentialism, freethought, and utilitarianism.

Religion and morality are not synonymous. Though religion may depend on morality,and even develop alongside morality,morality does not necessarily depend upon religion, despite some making "an almost automatic assumption" to this effect. According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics, religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and a religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides." In the views of some, morality and religion can overlap.One definition sees morality as an active process which is, "at the very least, the effort to guide one's conduct by reason, that is, doing what there are the best reasons for doing, while giving equal consideration to the interests of all those affected by what one does."

A military chaplain ministers to military personnel and, in most cases, their families and civilians working for the military. In some cases, they will also work with local civilians within a military area of operations.

Although the term chaplain originally had Christian roots, it is generally used today in military organizations to describe all professionals specially trained to serve any spiritual need, regardless of religious, world philosophy or status. In addition to offering pastoral care to individuals and supporting their religious rights and needs, military chaplains may also advise their chain of command on issues of religion, ethics, morale, and morals as affected by religion, world philosophy or status. They may also liaise with local religious leaders in an effort to understand the role of religion as a factor both in hostility and war and in reconciliation and peace.