Religion as a Moral Center
Is religion necessary to a good moral center?
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| Skeptoid #02 October 11, 2006 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe Also available in Japanese |
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Today we pull open the drawer in the motel bureau and face the need to have a Moral Center, that core set of behaviors and ethics that governs the way we conduct ourselves and live our lives.
It may shock you to learn this, but I am an atheist. I do not believe that supernatural deities exist. There's nothing evil or wrong about that. I view the Christian God in the same way that the average Christian views Shiva, Athena, or Thetans. There's nothing evil or wrong about doubting the actual divinity of those characters either. Yet a common generalization made by some religious people is that atheists lack a moral center. More than once, in late night bull sessions with religious friends, I've been told that faith is a necessary component for developing a sound moral center. The implication is that religious beliefs play an important role in the development of a normal, healthy system of ethics and personal conduct. Without religious faith, one is less likely to become a "moral" person. Thus, one of many reasons that people of religious conviction want to reach out to atheists is to help them to find a Moral Center, so we don't have a bunch of naked godless pagans running around wreaking havoc and mayhem.
My response to the religious people — after thanking them for the assumption that I am an unethical person — is to compare our Moral Centers and see where these supposed differences lie. If you knew me personally, you would probably find me to be a generally upstanding person, like yourself, who stays out of trouble, brushes his teeth, walks his kids to school, and tries not to shout too much in the library.
Like you, I am generally an honest person. I don't cheat people in business. I don't steal or commit crimes any worse than speeding on the freeway. I lie all the time, but only when the lie is a helpful one: "Yes, you look great in those parachute pants."
Like you, I play fair in sports, even against unfair opponents. I try to be a gracious loser, and occasionally even a gracious winner.
Like you, my family is the most important thing in my life. Preserving the love, trust, and happiness in my family absolutely outweighs all other priorities in my life.
Like you, I have a clear sense of right and wrong. Generally, behavior that injures someone else is wrong, and most of us avoid doing that whenever possible.
Like you, if I see a complete stranger drop their wallet — even if they're a different race and speak a different language — I'll spring into action like Batman to return it to them. It would never occur to either you or I to keep it or expect a reward for returning it.
If I see an elderly woman, I don't run over, punch her in the face and steal her purse; and neither does a religious person. But note that no religious person ever says "I would love to punch out that old woman, but I can't because God told me not to." Nobody is going to do something like that, because it's so obviously wrong. Rarely or never does a basically good person — and that's most of us — need religious commandments to stop them from doing something wrong.
In summary, my Moral Center is essentially the same as yours. It comes from the basic goodness of human nature, and my own sense of right and wrong that is universally shared among all people. It does not stem from having read any particular set of religious commandments, or from fear of punishment from a deity. Since I formed this ethical system in the lack of a religious context, how could my Moral Center be so similar to that of the average Christian or Buddhist? I argue that everyone's basic Moral Center comes from human nature, the nurture of societal interaction, and the sense of right and wrong. Since everyone already has these things, the need to credit religion as an additional source is redundant and thus wholly unnecessary.
A common retort from religious people is that God gave me those things: common sense, and the ability to tell right from wrong. If that's so, and everyone (atheists included) has been gifted with all the fundamentals needed to develop a Moral Center, then we're still left at the same place. A religious upbringing is still superfluous.
Religion is an important and favored part of life for most people. Its practice brings them satisfaction in many ways. But religion is absolutely not necessary to become a good person, or to have a sound Moral Center. Philanthropists, educators, doctors, emergency workers, and Nobel laureates have the same general breakdown of religious affiliation (including atheism) as the population at large, because they are the population at large.
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References & Further Reading
Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Clear, T. R. Clear, Stout, B.D. "Does Involvement in Religion Help Prisoners Adjust to Prison?" National Criminal Justice Reference Service. U.S. Department of Justice, 1 Nov. 1992. Web. 1 Sep. 2006. <http://www.ncjrs.gov/app/Search/Abstracts.aspx?id=151513>
Curlin, Farr A, Lantos, John D et al. "Religious Characteristics of U.S. Physicians." J Gen Intern Med. 1 Jul. 2005, Volume 20, Number 7: 629–634.
de Waal, Frans. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Nielsen, Kai. Ethics Without God. New York: Prometheus Books, 1990.
Reference this article:
Dunning, Brian.
"Religion as a Moral Center." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
11 Oct 2006. Web.
12 Mar 2010. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4001>
Discuss!
5 most recent comments | Show all 337 comments
Remember, you should always read with skepticism the comments of anyone too lame to put their real name & city.
You clearly do have a 'moral centre' and you are certainly not alone among athiests in being thoroughly decent. However to say that all peoples from all cultures automatically share our basic view of 'decency' is just not true. The prisoners of the Japanese would certainly disagree with you. The Japanese regarded peoples of other races to be little more than animals and treated them as such. Many Amazonian tribes would cheerfully slaughter the babies of neighbouring tribes as potential competitors to their own for scarce food as would our own ancestors before nation states evolved. These are but two of many examples. Decent behaviour is relative not absolute, you have been influenced by the Western, Judaeo-Christian view of right behaviour whether you like it or not and have responded to it.
Steve, UK
January 27, 2010 1:58pm
@Steve: One major reason why Japanese treated POWs badly was becaus they were prisoners. To be captured in battle was against the strict honor code that the Japanese high command used to maintain discipline. The Allied also honored those who fell in battle insted of surrendering; most of the heroic stories have men dieing agains great enemy forces to save others. The basic moral behind it is the same. Allied propaganda just exaggerated the negative sides of the Japanese honor code. I bet that the Americans were not always that decent against the Japanese POWs either.
Your last claim I do underwrite. The infuence of family and school is the biggest force moulding our moral.
Jani, Finland
January 30, 2010 8:20am
I do belive athiests can and often are good people. However without a greater diety to tell you what is wrong and what is right the morals of what good is and bad is just become a bunch of ideas that humans have created and have no greater meaning(kinda like a fatory worker understanding the theory of relativity it may be interesting to know but serves little value in their life). Once a person gets this in their head they are in danger of becoming more "animal like" seeing other people as competitors for jobs and resources. At this point the person only would help other people if it benefits them. Now if a person the realizes that their time on earth is finite and has little weight compared to the entirety of the history of man and to a greater point the Universe they are indanger of giving in to dark desires. This is how I belive many of the criminals (rapist, murderers, and drug dealers) of this world think.
Niklas Bohanan, U.S.
February 22, 2010 6:01pm
Brian, I love your podcast, but this episode is by far the weakest! Your argument that goodness lies in the "human nature" is very strange. How do you prove that? Its as unproven as the argument that morals are given from god. If morals lie in the human nature, how you explain the different morals of different societies. You already see: morals are a product of society, the way it is organized, the way we work and live together. It is taught us by our parents and our schools. Morals have no other basis than society. You will realize this when you try to prove the moral right- or wrongness of something: You can either appeal to someone's interest (then its not a moral anymore). Or you can point out that it is a custom that anyway applies in our society.
Hans Zobel, Heidelberg, Germany
February 27, 2010 8:37am
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I think the biggest nail in the coffin of the idea that God provided us with morals is the fact that the morals of the Bible, even the New Testament, are so radically different from today's society. Have a read yourself, you're bound to be surprised and shocked by the things the book actually promotes.
If we act like we do because we're programmed to do so by God, I wonder why He's programmed us to act in so many different ways, based on history and culture. Were the racists of the 60's following God's rules? Were the people of the 1500's? Are we today? Which of the countless billions of interpretations of morality and the bible is the true "way of God"?
Safe-Keeper, Norway
January 20, 2010 1:27pm