Do Atheists Borrow Religion's Morality?
Does morality come from religion or is it merely "the language games of one's time"? Are the most basic moral boundaries we evolved that make life easier and less chaotic a reflection of the character of God? If there is no God, or if He doesn't care about us, then our common morality is still the result of practical, reality-based needs, which also "teach" that a good life depends on the "Do unto others..." ethic.
Richard Dawkins calls himself a "cultural Christian," which for him is an unusually frank acknowledgment of the fact that the "viral infection" of religion may be comforting. Indeed, as the BBC reported in December 2007:
Prof. Dawkins, who has frequently spoken out against creationism and religious fundamentalism, [said], "I'm not one of those who wants to stop Christian traditions. This is historically a Christian country. I'm a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims. So, yes, I like singing carols along with everybody else. I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history."
As I discuss in my forthcoming book-- Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism) -- ew atheists are willing to admit that they're borrowing ethical and aesthetic cultural traditions from religion while others, like atheist philosopher Richard Rorty and ethicist Peter Singer, have tried to avoid all assumptions of religious moral norms in their writing. Most atheists cop out, as did Sam Harris in his 2004 bestseller The End of Faith, topping his slam on religion with a helping of sophomoric, religious-sounding whine. To paraphrase: I know we all need meaning. So hey, how about we embrace a sort of secularized Eastern mysticism to help get us through the night, you know, being that hard-edged secular Truth is, well, absolutely true and all, but it hurts our feelings, being as it's sort of like, you know, depressing.
What Harris doesn't do is reexamine his atheistic ideas based on the fact that if he's right (and in a raw, pure and absolutist form atheism is unpalatable to most people), then that might be an indication that there is something to all this "religion stuff" besides the temporary emotional analgesic he describes. Maybe, if wanting meaning is the way people are, and we are part of nature, then those feelings--however they express themselves--might indicate something true about the reality of nature and the way it actually is, rather than just signaling an emotional need for religious therapy.
Or, as author and brilliant writer on evolutionary psychology Robert Wright puts it in his new book The Evolution of God, "If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe -- conceivably -- the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity."
The Problem with an "Invented Vocabulary" of Morality
As I said, one atheist who tried to bite the bullet in a way that Harris lacked the testicular fortitude to do was Richard Rorty. Rorty argued that we make up morality. He believed that bright people are "ironists" who understand that we know nothing except our own "vocabularies." He said that morality is merely "the language games of one's time."
Rorty was the grandson of Walter Rauschenbusch, a theologian, Baptist minister, and leader in what was called the Social Gospel movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. So Rorty's nihilism is nihilism with a twist of religious awareness. Rorty is clear about his legacy from the Social Gospel/theological liberalism of his grandfather. Maybe that's why he brings a bare-knuckle honesty to his work that, by comparison, makes Harris seem positively wimpy. In Rorty and his Critics, Rorty writes:
The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire "American liberal establishment" is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point... [W]e do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. We assign first-person accounts of growing up homosexual to our homophobic students for the same reasons that German schoolteachers in the postwar period assigned The Diary of Anne Frank... So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. I am just as provincial as the Nazi teachers who made their students read Der Stürmer; the only difference is that I serve a better cause.
Rorty was honest enough to admit that he had problems with selling his idea of an individually invented moral vocabulary because no society raises children "to make them continually dubious," as he said. So he wrote that "ironists" like himself should keep their views secret or at least separate their "public and private vocabularies." In other words, Rorty admitted that his ideas had to be lied about in order to succeed, because the way people actually are does not correspond to his stark atheist philosophy.
Then there is Princeton professor, atheist, and bioethicist Peter Singer. Singer also tried to invent an ethic with no nostalgic nod to religion, especially not toward Judaism or Christianity's sanctity-of-life beliefs. He has said that some defective children should be destroyed during a trial period after their births. Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues in his Practical Ethics, (2nd edition, 1993) that newborns lack the characteristics of personhood ("rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness") and that therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living." In Germany, his positions have been compared to the Nazis, and his lectures have been disrupted all over the world by groups representing the handicapped.
According to my friend Angela Creager (one of Singer's colleagues and a professor of the history of science at Princeton), Singer is a kind man moved by compassion. Nevertheless, he seems not to understand how his ideas strike others; for instance, as evidenced by his protesters, people with disabilities. Singer gets upset when commentators compare his proposals to Nazism, because his family lost people in the Holocaust. Singer's objections don't seem reasonable to me.
As Michael Burleigh, a leading historian of the Third Reich, has pointed out in a commentary on Singer's work, eliminating defectives in pre-Nazi Germany was exactly what opened the door to the Holocaust. In his book Confronting the Nazi Past, Burleigh writes, "Singer omits to mention that one of the essential elements of [Nazi] propaganda was the denial of personality to their victims." He adds that Singer is "displaying remarkable naiveté" when he suggests that the choices that would have to be made in evaluating a prospective defective for elimination would be in trustworthy hands if doctors were in charge. Burleigh notes that the Nazi euthanasia program was led by scientists and psychiatrists, people drawn from the best-educated and most "civilized" ranks of a sophisticated secular medical class not too different from the academic class Singer himself belongs to.
Atheists say that morality isn't derived only from religion. I think they're right. But they seem to have problems when deciding the limits of what is permissible under the rules of their "invented vocabulary" of morality à la Rorty and Singer. Maybe the point is that religion is derived from morality.
I'm guessing that morality predates religion. We all act as if that's the case. We don't have long theological debates about, say, incest or wife abuse as though the jury is still out on what is wrong or that our sense of the matter depends on Bible verses. We evolved ideas that make life easier and less chaotic, as in: I don't want to be clubbed in my sleep so let's all agree that clubbing people in their sleep is wrong! Those ideas, including parents not taking kindly to "experts" telling them what they should do about their "defective" child, might be a reflection of the character of God. If there is no God, or if He doesn't care about us, then our common morality is still the result of practical, reality-based needs, which also "teach" that a good life depends on the "Do unto others..." ethic. Either way, morality is a lot more than an individual's invented vocabulary, and Singer's ethic seems monstrous to many people for the same reason that George W. Bush's torturing prisoners in the name of national security was a threat to us all.
I Want My Attorney and My Wife to Believe in God
How individuals are treated affects everyone. Ideas such as Singer's and George W. Bush's have consequences. There may indeed be babies born who'd be "better off" killed, or prisoners who "deserve" to be waterboarded or punched and exposed to hunger, cold, and snarling dogs. But the rest of us aren't better off when morality becomes a function of expediency, be that in the name of national security or of "sensibly" getting rid of the need for all those expensive ramps for the disabled by getting rid of the disabled themselves at birth.
Who decides who's next? Do you trust an academic ethicist like Singer to make life-and-death judgments when he's so far removed from reality that he gets hurt feelings when his seminars are picketed by people in wheelchairs (the very sorts of human beings that Singer says might have been better off being killed at birth)? Should a Darth Vader figure like former Vice President Dick Cheney be kept handy to decide when torture is "okay"? Is national security worth preserving if it entails turning our country into a police state?
Do atheists really believe that morality doesn't exist just because it can't be put under a microscope? Do any atheists claim that (and, far more tellingly, live as though) moral propositions have no objective value? If Singer finds himself on a planet where disabled people are the norm and he is a minority of one, will he gladly entrust himself to a panel of experts to decide his fate as, in that context, an "abnormal" person? If Rorty had not been paid the royalties generated by the sale of his books, would he have failed to take his publishers to court had his editor argued that in the "invented moral vocabulary" of publishing, they'd just changed the rules of accounting? For that matter, when Singer gets his feelings hurt by outraged disabled people who compare him to the Nazis, isn't that a tacit admission that there is a right way and a wrong way to treat people, including Australian ethicist/Princeton professors who feel that their benign intentions are being misrepresented?
And what if the New Atheist agenda succeeded beyond Dawkins and his followers' wildest dreams? Would everything work out perfectly? For instance, what would happen to the environmentalist movement? The appeal of the environmentalist movement is handily compatible with the idea of stewardship. Maybe that appeal works because a sense of stewardship and a sense of the sacred in Nature are intrinsic to our natures, a part of the divine revelation we are gradually developing a capacity to experience. Watch any TV program on the wonders of life on Earth. Even if there is no religious content, the tone is reverential and a sense of the sacred permeates the hushed narration. Why?
A lot more motivation can be inspired by maintaining that one may do God's will by conserving the earth than by telling people that their lives mean nothing in an ultimate sense, that they are slaves to their genes, conditioning, and evolutionary quirks -- but, oh, by the way, they should sacrifice their comforts to save the planet for equally meaningless and deluded future gene rations that they'll never meet. Or, as atheist apologist, Princeton University professor, and molecular biologist Lee M. Silver writes (in Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontier of Life) about the question of life having meaning and therefore a point: "I have yet to hear a good answer, other than there is no point."
Now that will really fire people up to make sacrifices!
It seems to me the New Atheists have it wrong. If you deprive people of the solace of faith in a moral system of meaningful connection with something bigger than themselves, and bigger than mere connection to many other "meaningless" people, you aren't just stripping away window dressing, but demolishing the supporting structure of a happy life. As I said, I think that Harris tacitly admits this by appending his squishy ending to his otherwise hard-nosed book. Atheists, too, depend on some form of spirituality for happiness. Why else do you think that Dawkins' zeal can only be described as religious, and his followers as disciples? Maybe it's because the need for meaning won't be denied, even by people who gather to do just that.
Even one of the most church-hating fathers of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, to whom Christianity was an "infamy," found the influence of faith, and of Christianity in particular, useful: "I want my attorney, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to believe in God," he wrote, because "then I shall be robbed and cuckolded less often."
My beef with the New Atheists and with religious fundamentalists is that their ideas just don't seem aesthetically pleasing or imbued with the poetry that I experience in real life. Ideas about life are too small. Life trumps description, just as what some severely disabled people actually grow up to do and be trumps sage theories on whose life is "worthy to be lived."
Is Dawkins correct when he says religious people appeal to mystery as a cop-out? Are unnamed things meaningless? Do we have to understand something in order to experience it? I don't think so.
This essay first appeared on Religion Dispatches. Sign up for the free RD newsletter here
Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back and the forthcoming Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism)
Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer
After writing a bestselling atheist "consciousness-raiser," is it at all surprising that Dawkins now finds his evolution book being prominently linked to atheism in the media mind?
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Substitute the word "placebo" or "hallucinogenic drug" for "religion" in this article, and it could be an argument for either of those pacifiers. Mr Schaeffer is arguing that religion is a necessary security blanket for the majority of humanity who are intellectionally and emotionally still children. I agree. But surely those that have reached intellectual adulthood - ie, atheists - can still continue to encourage others to "grow up". Isn't that what responsible parents, teachers, and mentors do?
Markus7, You seem to confuse "motivation" and "context."
No well-educated Western person can possibly escape pervasive Judeo-Christian morality. Anymore than a fish can take itself out of water. Ironically, those who opposed it weren't able to transcend it.
certainly not atheist communists (whom I support ) with ideas of communist paradise.
Indeed, most of the arguments on this thread display deeply enculturated Judeo-Christian morality.
I became aware of this phenomenon after a few years of studying Eastern philosophy . Only there one can encounter moral precepts removed from the Jud.-Chr. paradigm.
Do not delude yourself to think that by rejecting religious dogmas you are able to escape life-long immersion into its morality.
Does studying Eastern philosophy help you the Westerner see un-Judeo-Christian enculturated morality, or does it give you the illusion you can see it?
It is pointless to argue with people blissfully unaware of Eastern way but aren't intelligent honest enough to acknowledge it. Study then come back in a few years, JimReed.
Not sure, JimnReed. But it can help me to recognize an ignorant comment when I see it.
Moderntimes1, You seem focused on differences in moralities around the world. I am focused on the remarkable similarities. By understanding the source of those similarities it turns out the differences can be understood also.
In talking about morality with well educated people who definitely did not grow up in Judeo-Christian environments (in Taiwan, India, Africa, and Iran) it has been hard to find moral judgments we disagreed about. While it is a favorite claim of the religious right that morality is based in Judeo-Christian religion, I see little evidence that is true even for people who grow up with it.
I think there is some truth to the old saying, "Good men will do good, and bad men will to evil. But for a good man to do evil takes religion." (As for the 911 bombers) I have never seen much connection between religion and morality.
Markus, I am glad you can accept a possibility in difference in Western and Eastern approach to morality.
Now all you have to do in become acquitted with Eastern way. We can continue this conversation then. Good luck.
Right now we're the position best desribed but this old Zen hugget:
A Westerner went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about his views. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. Westerner stopped talkin and exclaimed;"Please stop! The cup is full and overflwoing.
"You are like this cup," the master replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup."
A soldier named Nobushige came to Hakuin, and asked:
"Is there really a paradise and a hell?"
"Who are you?" inquired Hakuin.
"I am a samurai," the warrior replied.
"You, a samurai? " exclaimed Hakuin. Your face looks like that of a beggar."
Nobushige became so angry that he began to draw his sword,
but Hakuin continued: "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably much too dull to cut off my head." As Nobushige drew his sword Hakuin remarked: "Here open the gates of hell!"
At these words the samurai, perceiving the master's discipline, sheathed his sword and bowed.
"Here open the gates of paradise," said Hakuin.
How do I explain the sensation of my soul bursting into song when I contemplate Jesus' commandment to love my enemy? How do I explain the instantaneous recognition as a child that "Love your enemy" is the highest moral principal of human existence?
Is "Love your enemy" a value that served an economic or survival purpose during the hundred or so thousand years that our species has walked the planet? I should hardly think so though the advent of the atomic bomb and other weapons of mass destruction may alter this.
I rather think that "Love your enemy" is a product of an aesthetic sense. As such, it does not predate religion; it inheres in the poetry of Christian love.
So you consider " Love thy enemy" a uniquely Christian propositon?!
Here's an quote from Buddhist writings that predates Christianity.
"Love your enemies and friends equally and impartially. Do not seek faults in others, but examine those of your own...Do not think of your own virtue, but think of the virtue of others. Respect and serve all beings. "
So much for uniquely Christian virtue.
Did I say "Love your enemy" was unique, ModernTimes1? Thanks for the quote but your lecturing tone presumes a great deal.
In fact the "Golden Rule" predates Christianity by centuries.
Oops, you did say "religion"
Yep, it is in the Hebrew Bible word for word. And I am sure it is older than that in the oral traditions of the ancients.
Clarification: "Love your neighbor" is explicit in the Hebrew Bible.
Many say that "Love your enemy" represents a New Testament improvement on the morality of the Hebrew Bible but I think that the idea is implicit in the story of Jonah.
The earliest written version of the Golden Rule I am aware of was 3500 years ago in Egypt. Someone called the Eloquent Peasant said what has been translated as:
"Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do."
While I am little dubious about the translation because it rhymes, its an 'eloquently' stated heuristic for initiating reciprocal altruism and even supplies the reason it will be to your long term benefit: "that you may cause him thus to do" . There is no religion required to understand this is a good beginning for a guide to living. Game theory has shown that it can be improved 1) by doing as you would like done to you even to people who can't reciprocate (as does the New Testament version) - which initiates indirect and network cooperation which can greatly increase cooperation, and 2) as mentioned earlier, by being provokable when you are treated unfairly. Again, no religion required.
Versions of the Golden rule are found in virtually all cultures that have moved beyond lives that are nasty, brutish, and short.
Hello kjsjohn,
“Is "Love your enemy" a value that served an economic or survival purpose during the hundred or so thousand years that our species has walked the planet?”
“Love your enemy” seems very unlikely to have served an economic or survival purpose. It is still explainable as a product of cultural evolution due to the psychological benefit you mention: “the sensation of my soul bursting into song”. Such feelings could easily motivate some people to adopt it, enjoy its psychological benefits, and attempt to convince other people to do the same.
But on its own it is poor morality. For instance, if in response to Hitler starting World War II, the Allies' response was limited to showing love for him and his invading armies, at least I would view the most likely results as disastrous.
A better moral standard for dealing with enemies might be something like “When your enemy attempts to harm you, be provokable to action that is most likely to increase future benefits of cooperation”. While he worked from a very different perspective, Gandhi could be viewed as successfully applying this idea by using the strategy of non violent resistance against the British occupation of India. But against Hitler’s armies, I expect the action that would be most likely to increase future benefits of cooperation would involve at least initially a huge amount of violence and very little love (which I am glad to say was the response).
Hello kjsjohn,
“Is "Love your enemy" a value that served an economic or survival purpose during the hundred or so thousand years that our species has walked the planet?”
“Love your enemy” seems very unlikely to have served an economic or survival purpose. It is still explainable as a product of cultural evolution due to the psychological benefit you mention: “the sensation of my soul bursting into song”. Such feelings could easily motivate some people to adopt it, enjoy its psychological benefits, and attempt to convince other people to do the same.
But on its own it is poor morality. For instance, if in response to Germany starting World War II, the Allies’ response was limited to showing love for the invading armies, at least I would view the most likely results as disastrous.
A better moral standard for dealing with enemies might be something like “When your enemy attempts to harm you, be provokable to action that is most likely to increase future benefits of cooperation”. While he worked from a very different perspective, Gandhi could be viewed as successfully applying this idea by using the strategy of non violent resistance against the British occupation of India. But against Germany’s armies, I expect the action that would be most likely to increase future benefits of cooperation would involve at least initially a huge amount of violence and killing and very little love (which I am glad to say was the response).
If you are powerless in the face of your enemy, then love your enemy.
If your enemy is powerless in your face, then love your enemy.
re."I concur with others who pointed out to Frank that atheists don"t need to borrow morality from religion."
1.We, atheists don't "need" to dip into religious morality. But we do.
It is practically impossible to remove ourselves completely from the Judeo-Christian context our society has been steeped in for the last 3,000 years.
The majority of artistic and philosophical masterpieces are indebted to and/or founded upon Judeo-Christian principles And that includes Karl Marx, Freud, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Tolstoy, Kant, Nietzsche etc.
2. Cooperation is not the only evolutionarily beneficial behavior. Fierce competition is also one. As well as self-preservation. And random chance. And unforeseen accidents.
Let's not make evolution into some kind of liberal bourgeois morality tale, shall we.
Hello Moderntimes1,
1. The Golden Rule, equality under rule of law, elements of Confucianism, and many other sources are extraordinarily valuable heuristics (rules of thumb) for choosing moral actions. But the Enlightenment that proclaimed the morality of equality under the rule of law and so forth was, thankfully, based on reason - not religion. Does anyone really want to attempt to defend a human right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness as Christian ideas? Christianity says we are to give up these things and follow Christ.
2. It is true there are many other evolutionarily beneficial behaviors. The Seven Deadly sins are a good place to start a list which will include greed, lust without regard for the consequences for others, and using anger and violence to get what you want. Claiming morality evolved as a means to suppress these kind of gene based ‘sins’ (and therefore by definition behaviors that increased genetic fitness in the past and even sometimes in the present) in order to increase the synergistic benefits of cooperation seems straightforward. What do you see as the problem with that?
You're straining credulity by attempting to present political concepts such as liberty, rule of law as subsets of moral code.
"Does anyone really want to attempt to defend a human right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness as Christian ideas? "
And yet it is interesting that these concepts evolved out of Judeo-Christian traditions and no other. It is impossible to remove Montesquieu, Jefferson, Rousseau, Locke, Tolstoy out of the context of Judeo-Christian morality. Even Karl Marx' version of diluted dialectical materialism is heavily indebted to its traditions. He both tried to reject and at embrace its language.
Quotes:"Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed." Marx.
Note humorous reference to the Scripture.
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions
Oh, and please don't go to Confucianism on morality, Kung Fu Tzu was one of the most reactionary thinkers of history. Bordering on quasi fasc-ism in certain respects. Hint: Try Chuang Tzu if you want refreshing morality.
I concur with others who pointed out to Frank that atheists don’t need to borrow morality from religion since morality, (behavioral standards condemning selfish behaviors that threaten group survival), predates religion.
I’d like to add that rapid advances are being made in scientific understanding of moral behaviors as the products of evolutionary processes. I look forward to the day generally accepted science can explain not only why Jesus is quoted as saying the Golden Rule “sums up the law and prophets”, which I take to mean summarizes morality, but when that accepted science can explain how to improve the Golden Rule.
For instance, science may be able to tell us that the dominant selection force for the evolution of moral behavior was the synergistic benefits of cooperation. Then an improved version might be: “Follow the Golden Rule except, if you are treated unfairly, be provokable to retaliation that is limited to what is expected to most increase future benefits of cooperation”. Since game theory tells us that being provokable usually greatly increases the future benefits of cooperation, this should advocate actions that are more moral from a scientific standpoint. Of course, the proposed ‘improvement’ is nothing new; it is how most people in civilized societies behave now. But establishing it as a formal part of ethics could still be useful.
I also have hopes for “Treat other people with respect and kindness” as a moral standard that can be justified by science using the same criteria.
Science can only be relied upon as a source of morality until the time when it starts regarding itself as a source of morality.
Jim,
You are pointing out an old (and current) problem that may have a modern solution. It is certainly a logical impossibility for science, which is about what is, to say anything about what ought to be (as with regard to morality).
Science is completely silent about what ought to be. But if science’s version of what morality 'is' turns out to be the above improved version of the Golden Rule and “Treat people with respect and kindness” as its primary standards for day to day morality, then I think I’ll prefer it to any another moral system including hedonism. For anyone who prefers it, it is irrelevant that science can’t tell them they are obligated to conform to it.
There is a passage in Matthew 7:16-17 that I am surprised is not viewed in these modern times as an invitation to subject Christianity to more rigorous inquiry along the lines that you suggest.
"Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit"
Now, I realize there is a great deal of circularity and question-begging inherent in this inquiry but why not start, as you suggest, with a view of morality rooted in "the synergistic benefits of cooperation?" Or, we could just presume a moral good such as "world peace" or "healthcare justice" or "environmental stewardshi
Don't be surprised. If the know by the fruits concept is used to question Christianity, the question is always ignored.
Religious people who claim that other's need religion to have morality SCARE the ___ out of me.
They are saying that, without religion, people will just rob, rape and kill other people.
What they are really saying is, without religion, THEY would be robbing, raping or killing other people.
As an atheist, (who knows plenty of other atheists, all of whom happen to be incredibly moral people. Far beyond most others I've met....esp
Thanks.
Dishonest people in America would tend to not be atheists because they would tend to take the path of least resistance regarding something they don't care about, like religion. The few dishonest people who want to profit in this area would not be atheist because there is no money in it, and potentially good money in the religion game. So it is not so much atheists in America are moral as much as it is immoral people would have no use for atheism.
And I am an atheist, who is of the opinion that religion is silly, and can be dangerous.
But, I agree, if a religious person thinks that without their religion they would be robbing, raping or killing other people ... I hope they keep on believing!
It carries some risk, but I think we should at least make an attempt to save them. The salvation of society depends on it.
The author states that the matter of what is right or wrong is too important to be left to mere mortals. This completely dodges the point. By following religious proclamations of right and wrong, you are still letting a human being call the shots... because if there is a God, he isn't talking to us any more even if he once did. Bronze Age morality is largely irrelevant today. Our morality must be connected to our circumstances. And yes, the decision of what is right and what is wrong IS too important to be left to any one person. We have an institution for that; it's called democracy. The big questions should be decided in the open forum of public debate, not by The Man Behind The Curtain.
"I'm guessing that morality predates religion" Frank
Atheists don't borrow morality from anybody, because nobody "owns" right and wrong. Morality derives from common sense and empathy. Golden Rule, anybody? The religions seek to co-opt morality, convincing us that we can't do the right thing without its guidance — to create artificial dependence. It takes a lot of chicanery to sell nonverifiable ideas based on the rantings of illiterate Bronze Age shepherds.
Mr. Schaeffer writes,
"Burleigh notes that the Nazi euthanasia program was led by scientists and psychiatrists, people drawn from the best-educated and most "civilized" ranks of a sophisticated secular medical class not too different from the academic class Singer himself belongs to."
I think he is being too broad in his concept of "educated.
The "educated" Nazi doctors were of the wertrational sort; their reason and their training served irrational ends. To lump them together with those who are truly educated, even if autodidactoi, and determine the ends of their actions through their use of developed reasoning ability, is to do injustice to the latter.
This conceptual lacuna leads Mr. Schaeffer to conclude that "education" (as underanalyzed by him) is inadequate as a source of morality. Yet, he holds up technical training as an example of "education," and thus falsifies, albeit unintentionally, his point. If his point is that education is no guard against corruption, I would agree with him, but then I would point out, neither is religion, the history of which abounds with corruption.
So the question looms, How can we guard against corruption, how can we insure morality?
And to that, I would say we can't. Not very satisfying or reassuring, but isn't the essence of morality freedom? If one does something because one is forced to do it, is it really a moral action? But if one does it because one chooses to do it, it may be a moral action if it meets the other criteria for being a moral action. So we can't force someone to be moral--encourage, cajole, etc., but not force.
If force is contrary to morality, then the amount of force a society uses to coerce its citizens is inversely proportionate to the morality of that society. The more laws, police, prisons, and punishments, the less moral the society. In fact, force may even "de-moralize" a society, and cause it to become increasingly lawless as individuals assume less responsibility for their morality, as the only crime becomes getting caught.
Perhaps morality is an individual thing, and has nothing to do with the morality or lack of morality of a group or society as a whole.
If religion had never come into existence, atheists wouldn't have to impersonate religious nuts.
I can believe in having a soul, but religious dogma leaves me befuddled. I see this life as an opportunity to take a side: will I lead a life of service to others, or will I serve myself? I think most religions see this question as critical., but they obfuscate its importance with other dogma. But "service to others" is the Christian Golden Rule as well as the Law of Karma. Religion tries to tie itself to morality, but irrespective of religion the fundamental meaning of life is to find our soul's orientation.
For me, service to others is morality simply put. Service to oneself strikes me as the nut of selfish and immoral. I realize that we are complex creatures and have moments of both, but if we are primarily oriented to serving others, we are developing a moral ground, and if we are primarily serving ourselves at the expense of others, we are being evil.
In religious terms, God does not help those who help themselves. God helps those who help each other.
I understand your befuddlement about dogma. I am Christian but I view all of its narratives as myth. Many posters believe that this characterization is derisive but I do not mean it in this sense at all. The narratives of Christianity (including its dogmas) are constantly evolving interpretive constructs through which I filter my perceptions and ideas about good and evil, right and wrong. The myths are deeply embedded in my thinking but I do not regard these myths as hitorical or scientific "truth."
My concern about Christianity is that some of its narratives seem to predispose its adherents to ways of thinking that are demonstrably destructive. These narratives need to be modified, in my opinion.
Jim Reed made a fascinating post on another thread a couple of weeks ago. He said, "This opens up a new question, why has science been so successful in explaining the development of the universe and everything in it including life and humanity, and leading the way to such a wide range of incredible technological advances, and religion always stagnates locked in obsolete thinking patterns until the advance of civilization slowly forces it to make small changes? Perhaps that experimental verification is the key. If religion could stop assuming they already have the answers, and allow some questioning and verification, and apperciate the value to be found outside of the religion, they might start making advances as science has been doing in recent centuries.
The scientific progress on religion will come from better understanding the minds that invented it and its gods.
I've read Christian philosophers and sophists from Reinhold Niebuhr(ph
"Once there were brook trouts in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
))))))))))))))))) INDEED ((((((((((((((((
I thought this was absolutely ridiculous, too:
"And what if the New Atheist agenda succeeded beyond Dawkins and his followers' wildest dreams? ..... what would happen to the environmentalist movement?
It has been the religious (mainly rapture watchers), who have been the biggest feet draggers on environmental issues. Keeping your eye on an imagined afterlife in another place, isn't much of a motivator to watch out for the place you know exists in reality.
Yes!! It's all we have and god ain't gonna fix it.
Christianity is a mixed bag when it comes to respect for the environment.
The spiritual sensibilities of many Christians extend to nature--something that I think is true of atheists as well. On the other hand, the Christian belief in an afterlife and the anticipation of Armageddon have the opposite effect and devalue the physical world.
I suppose my upbringing as a Mormon influenced my morality--I have never smoked or drank alcohol. But it came at the price of a stultifying numbing of the mind and raging biases against women, homosexuals and others who don't wear white shirts, black pants and name tags. One wonders what Homo sapiens did for morality before a bunch of lost sheep herders wandering around in the desert discovered monotheistic Judeo-Christianity. The fact is as a creation of nature, humankind is capable like nature of both astonishing beauty and terror.
Interesting point. You address morality and the first tthing you go to is smoking and drinking. How are these moral issues? You are neither harming or helping another or siciety as a whole. It's the same as religion's attempt to control sex and claim it is a moral issue.
Two weeks to wabbit season.duc
Smoking and drinking do hurt "siciety" as a whole. Ever hear of people being killed by drunk drivers or secondhand smoke or increased cost of health care due to people who lack good health habits? But I am not defending Mormon morality. Don't you mean duck season not "dusck" season? I will be on the lookout for a Caveat bufflehead from my shooting blind.
It is clear that Elmerfude is describing his subjective moral sense. Why the hostile reference to "Elmer season?"
Morality birthed religion, not the other way around. Given how much religion has condoned murder in God's name for centuries, a practice that continues to this day, there is no basis for religion, any religion, as the foundation of any lasting moral tradition.
But if I'm wrong, I can apparently pay the church to wash all my sins away, like they did back in the day.
Back in that day all you had to do was pay. Now there is more to it. You must also humble yourself before the church or its representative, and confess you are a sinner and profess belief. It also helps if you are willing to put some effort into convincing others to do the same.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
