Morality without Religion

[vakkotaur]

I keep up with Irregular Webcomic which is more like three comics. A few different stories update on different days. Irregular Webcomic often has some text beneath the strip to explain or clarify things or for the author to just talk about something. Unlike many other comics with this text, I actually read it for Irregular Webcomic.

The comic for today differs from the typical strip and doesn't advance any storyline. Instead it makes a humorous snark at places loaded with advertising. However, the text below the strip is perhaps more interesting. In it is an explanation why of there is disagreement about whether religion is necessary for morality (emphasis original):

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I've never understood how religious people who are basically good can think like this. It seems clear to me that the vast majority of atheists (thus with no religious moral code) are basically moral people, extremely unlikely to swing at people with axes when the fancy takes them. If they weren't, the world would be a seriously dreadful place. How can the people who believe this sort of thing not see that?

So this has always puzzled and disturbed me. Until a few days ago when I raised the topic in conversation with a friend of mine. And he had an explanation.

Atheists, he said, need to find a moral direction from within. We need to examine our own values and beliefs in the context of human society, put some thought into them, and behave in ways that accord with what we decide is the moral way to act. There are various expressions of moral codes that work in this context. A simple one is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." You don't need to believe in God to think about that and decide that yes, if everyone lived by that simple maxim, the world would be a nicer place. You don't need God to be nice to people. You don't need God to have morals.

Strongly religious people, on the other hand, get moral direction from the authority of God. God tells them how to behave, and God is the most important thing in their lives, so there's their moral code right there. They never have to think about their morals, because they are decreed from on high. They never have to go through a logical argument with themselves to decide that they should be nice to other people - they're just nice to people because that's what God says to do. If they never have to internalise their values and derive their own moral code, then it's not even something that they realise can be done. When a person like this looks at an atheist, they don't realise that the atheist has probably spent time (more or less consciously) to produce a moral code that they endeavour to live up to. All they see is someone without the moral code of God. They don't realise that there are other ways in which one can be a moral person. So they conclude that the atheist has no morals.

This is why religious fundamentalists are so scared of atheists. Everyone who believes is okay, because God will keep them in line, but those atheists, they'll probably stick a knife in you as soon as look at you. This is the problem with religious fundamentalist morals.

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I've quoted that as it sums it all up quite well. He does go on to explain that when he says "religious fundamentalist" in this context, he means the extremists.

There are also extremist atheists who, using same logic, only reversed, see the religious as merely lazy and using belief as a drop-in replacement for actually thinking about things. For the religious extremists, that might be true. But the claim that everyone is either an unthinking sheep or a completely rational being isn't right. Religion doesn't make a person an idiot, and absence of religion doesn't make a person a genius. Nor does religion make one a good person or lack of religion make one a bad person.

Comments

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Atheists do tend to choose a much more libertarian morality than religious folks, they tend to prefer personal freedom over one's obligation to society, etc. I think the root cause may be that each person chooses a morality based on his or her highest priorities. Atheists scare religious people, and vice versa, because one group's highest priorities might not even rate in the top 20 of someone else's.

[jdm314.livejournal.com]

The conflict between atheists and believers has been getting to me lately. But worse: irregularwebcomic.net seems to be down at the moment, so I can't get my fix!

[jdm314.livejournal.com]

OK, I got through, and read it myself. Yes, I'm a believer myself, but I largely agree with him. Dawkins is largely responsible for my current unease about atheists, but in general it is clear to me that one can be moral without believing in God, and one can believe in God and still be immoral. Yet people like he describes to exist, who don't accept this obvious fact, and who think that the only thing that stops them from shooting innocent people with no extenuating circumstances is the existence of God. Such people make all who believe in God look bad, don't they? I can't tell you how many times I've heard the argument that religion is all about the carrot-and-stick of the afterlife.

Also, as an atheist.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time believing that religious people can get moral direction from God.

It doesn't matter if they do. It matters that they believe they do. Believing they do is a way to stop the thought train.

"God said it. I believe it. That settles it."

They even put that phrase on t-shirts and bumper stickers (I assume to enlighten the rest of us.)

That right there is an abrogation of responsibility through the mechanism of thought. All they have to do is obey the directive. They don't have to *think* about the directive.

Do all religious people do this? No. However at some point or another *most* of them will come to a point where they are taking morality and those choices *on the faith of directive*. Usually, when it gets to be too much to think about.

If there were _no_ point at which the "faith in directive" were used, and a religious philosophy just happened to conveniently coincide with personal morality, then you find people rapidly questioning traditional faith and organized religious practices by saying "Why do I need $organized religion? I figured this stuff out on my own!"

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

God said it.

And my response is: No. Someone said God said it. How do you know that person didn't get it wrong?

Of course it seems to degenerate into a version of "This book is right; it says so."

I suspect the Great Fear of Organized Religion (as opposed to the fear of the religious individual that the part I quoted mentions) is your final paragraph. It reminds me of the Lucius Annaeus Seneca quotation, "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." And those who rule the religion or by it have an interest in maintaining that utility.

Still, I find that religion can be useful in good ways. I know people who firmly believe that it is only with God's help that they have achieved some of the things which they have achieved. One is an alcoholic who hasn't a drop in over twenty years. If that belief helps such a person, I see no gain trying to argue it away.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I think we're speaking at cross purposes. My comment was based on the "I have a hard time believing that morality comes from God."


To which my comment then follows- it doesn't *matter* whether it does or doesn't. The real issue is that in utilizing the belief that it does, it stops the requirement of thought and replaces it with the faith of directive.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

And on that we agree. Even a directive needs to be questioned.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Yes... if you believe an omnipotent god is on your side, then you're less likely to succumb to depression or fear; you'll persevere based on that belief. Faith is an effective placebo.

I just wish that we could learn to generate that effect without having to base it on a deception.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with the final paragraph of your post, and would add that it doesn't take a LOT of thought to reach these conclusions. Which is why super-religious people scare me so much - they won't even think THAT much, or at least not at all in that direction.

[koakako.livejournal.com]

You pointed out in a reply one of my biggest problems with religious authority. Some person SAYS this or that is what God wants, or tells you what to do. The Bible is "inspired by God" (something I've never really understood), but written by men. Not to mention, the 'books' of the Bible were selected by ecumenical council and a number of them which should have been included were flat left out. Though I digress, since this is whole 'nother topic.

I call myself an Agnostic, rather than an Atheist, but the end result is much the same. I have to choose my own moral values because I don't accept that certain people "speak for God". Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of moral values are plainly obvious, AND are taught to us long before we're old enough to understand the concept of choosing a religious framework within which we can hang said morals.

IMO, religion is the enemy of Belief and Faith, those things you need to have for God to be in your life. Many people choose to listen to edicts, admonitions and teachings of men in the theory that they are following God, but when you examine just how VARIED these teachings really are it becomes pretty obvious that either this is driven by what people say to other people or that there MANY paths to Faith in God. In whichever case, it's also pretty obvious that one doesn't need to parrot a particular religion's words in order to have a sound moral base.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I use the term "morals" for those values that people take from religious grounds", and "ethics" to describe those that come from within. It makes for a somewhat clearer discussion.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

On the surface that seems to work, but it would bother me to allow some (of the whackier) folks to imply "immoral" when the results are not immoral.

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

My main problem with extreme religious fundamentalists is how they make God in their image (not the other way around).

Myself, as a person of faith and a believing Christian, I do see that several atheists do indeed abide by a moral code, so I guess I'm not at least an extremist, which I'm grateful for. However, there are also several people, both believers (of any religion) and non-theists (to simply the term rather than "atheist") who don't seem to operate with morals anyways. So that may be also proof that religion doesn't necessarily equal morals.

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Some weird arguments going on that Christians don't think because they learn their morality from books.

Who would be a better mathematician, one who studied from books, or one who picked up math on his own?

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I suspect you've missed a crucial point. Many religious folks do learn from books. Unfortunately some merely slavishly parrot them.

Who is the better mathematician, one who learns from books and thinks about what they say, or one who merely copies them?

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Well, some folks who claim they've acquired their morality through logical thought have actually just rationalized their greed. "I want health care coverage, but I don't want to pay for it, so I think the government is morally obligated to provide it for me", and so on.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Indeed. The thought is lacking there, as when you get right down to it there is not really such a thing as "government money." It is the citizen's money which government uses. Whether one claims a religious belief or claims not to have one, there can still be error - or outright lies. The original point, though, is that the nigh-on phobic fear some seem to have of folks who do not claim a religious belief can be explained. That doesn't mean you needn't watch out for yourself. It's best to be careful around anyone.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

You don't need God to be nice to people. You don't need God to have morals.

Absolutely true. One of the most moral people I know has so little attachment to, or knowledge of, religion that he could not tell me the names of the Protestant sect in which he had been raised.