Secular vs. Religious Morality

[DeistPaladin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HkYgJHPsaM&annotation_id=annotation_714568&feature=iv

This is an old topic that I'm sure everyone here has dealt with at some point (as the League of Reason did during their recent radio show). Many Islamo-Christians like to think that religious guidance is necessary, or at least helpful, for our understanding of morality. Even some atheists, like the caller, believe that it could be helpful.

I'm sure many here have argued that religion is unnecessary to be a moral person. I'm going to go one step further.

Not only is religion unnecessary for morality (as sociological studies of secular societies prove) it's not even helpful as a framework for discussions on morality. Religion, rather than provide a constructive guide, by its very nature confuses our moral judgment. Let me emphasize that this isn't just a problem with certain questionable verses in the Bible or Quran regarding the rape of female captives, the genocide of enemy tribes or the beating of slaves. Even ignoring all these specific verses, there is a fundamental problem with religion-based morality that can't help but be damaging to our moral compass.

By its nature, religion wants two things: more converts and greater control over said converts.

Any religion that doesn't make these two objectives a priority will quickly be eclipsed by those that do. Evolution will take its course with memes as surely as it does with life. If you need any examples, compare the religions of Islamo-Christianity, the denominations of which collectively dominate our discussion of religion, with the less-successful religions of the Jians or the Zoroastrians.

Reading the Bible or the Quran cover-to-cover makes it clear that Islamo-Christianity is primarily concerned with the "virtues" of proper beliefs and adherence to proper rituals as well as the "evils" of such victimless crimes as blasphemy, idolatry or conversion to other religions. While it's true that there are occasional admonishments of charity, peace or honesty that are ripe for cherry-picking, it's clear that most of the attention throughout these books is given to having "proper" metaphysical beliefs. Indeed, many Islamo-Christians will tell you that God will be primarily concerned with faith, not works, on judgment day (and even those who do consider "works" to be important will often define prayer, rituals and church attendance as part of that mix).

If you don't have the time to read the Bible cover-to-cover, consider the ten commandments, held by Christians as the basis for moral law. The first four, presumably the most important if order means anything, deal exclusively with the victimless crimes of apostasy, idolatry, blasphemy and failure to observe a holy day. Ironically, Christianity is in violation of #4 since it moved the sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. So much for unchanging laws set in stone.

Secular morality, by contrast, understands that where our actions impact other sentient beings, questions of morality apply. This is a complicated topic and there are different approaches to try to unravel our evaluations of right and wrong. What we can all agree on is that morality is a function of our relation to other conscious beings. As Sam Harris has noted, we have no moral obligations toward rocks. Neither do we have any toward trees, which are technically alive but not sentient. When we say something is "wrong", we usually mean acts of dishonesty, violation of the rights of others or wanton disregard for taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions.

By introducing other considerations to the mix, never mind bumping them up on the priority list as religion is inclined to do, we confuse our ability to understand right and wrong. We begin to obsess over victimless crimes like blasphemy or partake in useless, unhelpful pseudo-virtues like prayer.

Examples of "moral issues" that religion pushes today:

1. Discouraging condom use in AIDS stricken areas of the world
2. Abstinence only sex education, which is proven to increase unwanted pregnancy and STDs.
3. Violence against gays or treating them like second class citizens.
4. Preventing stem-cell research, possibly the most promising field of medical research.
5. Using resources to send audio-Bibles to Haiti instead of food or medical aid.

All this to say nothing of more dramatic examples of sectarian-inspired acts of terror, torture and execution.

Religion confuses our moral impulses. It's not only unnecessary, it's unhelpful.

 

[RichardMNixon]

Actually trolling about this right now on youtube in regards to religious laws. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6R5C9ntfl8

Religion is terrible for ethics by nature because it's completely arbitrary. There's no thought of the consequences of a choice, no opportunity to consider special cases, no possibility to improve it, etc.

Is this a good choice? Well what does the authority say?

 

[Nemesiah]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here but...

What happens when an otherwise empty individual looses religion?

Imagine this (I'll try not to exagerate yet I'm propense to hyperbole so please forgive me if I do):

Jenny McPretty and her boyfriend Johnny McBuff both law abbiding, god fearing good american consumists are in the last year of highschool; after a terrible car accident both their parents die (both both?) and after much parying and not getting any results they decide that god doesn't exist since he didn't get to keep their comatose relatives with them.

Now, Jenny and Johnny are atheists but nothing else has changed, Jenny's highest aspiration in life still is a boob-job and Johnny's is also Jenny's boob-job. They think professionnal ethics means not stealing from the company and civics are containned to not running red lights. Jenny and Johnny are empty consumist american kids; while I understand that this is a caricature (as objectionable as you might encounter it to be) I think it can be used as a tool to analyze the following:

Jenny's and Johnny's brains are normal, they could enlighten themselves through study introspection and reflection; yet today's society and specially the media, mainly through it's demon ridden offspring "publicity" inhibits personal growth to the point where an individual views his /hers worth in terms of religion, afluency, sense of fashion, bodymass index, sex, color, nationality, etc...

How can these otherwise identity empty individuals cope with their social responsabilities without the promise of hell?

I'm not saying that Jenny would start using 8th month abbortion as a contraceptive device and Johnny murder as his way of making money; yet given that in many cases it is precisely this fear of hell what keeps people from descending into wanton murder (as many christians surprised with the idea of no god point out with their "without a god there is nothing stoping me from killing you" reasoning), how are , let's call them "simple-minded atheists", supposed to function within society?

This is only relevant of course for people who became atheists later in life and had their moral systems deeply linked to fear of hell (I don't think a theist that followed good for it's own sake would encounter this problem); also note that my main preocupation here is with people who are indoctrinated by the media to be un-inquisitive and just consume (clothes, fast food, ideologies).

On the other hand, does the mental analisis required to deny god and life after death imply some sort of detachment from the media ridden world of banality?

While this example used an american bimbo and an american jock; feel free to substitute for mexican'ts, eurotrashes, eastern-fundies or any other caricature you feel could fit the model of "nice enough but empty nonetheless" people we have at one point or another crossed paths with.

 

[Nelson]

I'm a bit torn on this topic as well, although I think I would have to agree with the OP. But I can also see a reasonable point in your counter argument:

What happens when an otherwise empty individual looses religion?

Much like the the caller to the LOR show, I think there are certain people for which loosing religion would be a detriment to their morality. These individuals are simply not intelligent enough, or perhaps just psychologically impaired, and can't understand a system of morality based on logic. But, I also feel that the overall problems in judgment introduced by allowing religion to guide your morals outweigh this potential benefit. As a whole, I think society would be better off, as in more people will become better individuals than the few who will become worse.

A agree fully with this rather well known quote:

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

(Side note: I never actually knew this quote was attributed to Weinberg until I searched Google just now. He is a rather well known cosmologist and I actually have his text book on the subject.)

This is the whole problem with religious thinking, specifically with respect to morality, but in some ways I think it also applies to reality as a whole. As soon as you allow apparent divine authority to dictate your morals, or to tell you things about reality itself, as soon as you accept that this is a reasonable place to get information, everything founded in reality and logic goes out the window. It doesn't matter if you think that stoning someone to death is wrong, or that it repulses you, if you truly believe that this command has come down from a vastly superior, super-intelligent being, you must trust their judgment over your own.

I think many people would also argue that there are plenty of religions who are quite non-violent, and so those sorts of beliefs are okay. I would disagree here (I suppose in some way this makes me quite anti-theist), the mere fact that you are substituting a faith based methodology for reason and logic is the problem, not the beliefs themselves. Because you are operating in this framework, you are susceptible to making bad judgments when you believe the motivation comes from a divine source. There is then no need to double check your judgment with the more basic operating system of logic and reason.

 

[Aught3]

I wonder if the conflict is between the consequence and motivation. On a first pass it seems that as long as the consequences of a particular action are good then it doesn't particular matter whether the motivation was religious or not. But if you start comparing some who acts for the sake of goodness compared with someone who acts for the sake of god, the one acting for goodness is to be preferred (for all the reasons outlined in the OP).

I suppose what I'm saying is that any firm moral system is better than no moral system, but a moral system based on goodness is better than one based on religious notions as religious notions can easily let good people do bad things.

 

[DeistPaladin]

I guess I give more credit to the human conscience than others. Social studies have shown that society doesn't implode when people collectively lose their faith.

There's also one other important factor with religious morality: people see God in their own image.

I've never known a Christian who didn't see Jesus as a glorified, idealized version of themselves. Liberals love the hippy Jesus. Conservatives love the stern Jesus. Even Hitler said he thought he was doing the "Lord's work". Jesus is black, white with blond hair, straight, gay, bi, asexual, Jewish, Christian, Muslim or whatever you want him to be. I'm sure everyone has seen the pop-depictions of Jesus playing with children, laughing or giving the thumbs up sign. When did he show such merriment in the Gospels? When did he even laugh? As I see it, people seem to shape their religion to suit their character, rarely the other way around.

But let's just say that a Christian does pause for a moment to consider that Jesus wouldn't approve of an immoral act. Even then, he has an easy out. Jesus died on the cross for that sin. Just pray to your imaginary friend and all is well. I did a video once pointing out that John McCain was an adulterer. One Christian responded, "so, we're all sinners". The flippant excuse for him, even as McCain was puffing up his chest and talking about the sanctity of marriage, shows just how little accountability Christians feel.

 

[creativesoul]

The problem is evident if one looks at morality a little differently. With human history having the tendency to equate morality to God it is quite easy to throw morality out with God after God has been shown as fallible. That is a huge mistake for humanity itself. God does not entail morality, rather conversely, it is morality that entails God. Consider this...

All humans necessarily have/hold beliefs(that which is accepted as true). Some belief includes a belief in God. Morality as is most commonly held, is belief regarding acceptable/unacceptable human behavior. All individuals have moral belief. Some individuals do not possess a belief in God. Therefore moral belief exists with or without a belief in God.

Every human initially holds the exact same moral belief(expectation of another's behavior) prior to our having grasped a common language. It is through living and learning without really thinking about belief that objective morality has been, and continues to be molested and transformed into that which is but a pale comparison to what it *is*.

 

[Andiferous]

I suppose what I'm saying is that any firm moral system is better than no moral system, but a moral system based on goodness is better than one based on religious notions as religious notions can easily let good people do bad things.

I think you're right. Like the basic house rules kids have to follow before they reach independence.


But...

DeistPaladin , I suspect that swearing loyalty to anything, by the nature of oath and constancy itself, is likely to inhibit further development in some way. I agree with you on some level and I suspect that it might be intentional that many religions do this in a power grab.

And keep in mind, not all religions speak out against use of condoms, and wouldn't be fair to lump them so. Not all religions outline a strict kind of morality and force you to sign up. They're all different.

But as Nemesiah pointed out above, the people who easily adopt moral tenets from religion could be those same people who don't spend time evaluating their moral compass anyway.

I rather hate bring up diagrams. But please consider this summary of "Fowler's stages of faith". Interestingly, I can see it applied along a broad spectrum of learned topics.

* Stage 0, "Primal or Undifferentiated" faith (birth to 2 years), is characterized by an early learning of the safety of their environment (i.e. warm, safe and secure vs. hurt, neglect and abuse). If consistent nurturance is experienced, one will develop a sense of trust and safety about the universe and the divine. Conversely, negative experiences will cause one to develop distrust with the universe and the divine. Transition to the next stage begins with integration of thought and languages which facilitates the use of symbols in speech and play.

* Stage 1, "Intuitive-Projective" faith (ages of three to seven), is characterized by the psyche's unprotected exposure to the Unconscious.

* Stage 2, "Mythic-Literal" faith (mostly in school children), stage two persons have a strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are almost always anthropomorphic.

* Stage 3, "Synthetic-Conventional" faith (arising in adolescence) characterized by conformity

* Stage 4, "Individuative-Reflective" faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties) a stage of angst and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for their beliefs and feelings.

* Stage 5, "Conjunctive" faith (mid-life crisis) acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems

* Stage 6, "Universalizing" faith, or what some might call "enlightenment".

It's not uncommon to reject something before accepting it within the learning process - I suspect on some level it's a critical stage of understanding. Perhaps those who have rejected and re-evaluated their position deserve more credit than those who follow and don't question at all.

Religion doesn't encourage independent thinking about morality, but a lot of people just aren't inclined that way anyway. Some people choose religion after evaluation and deep consideration,. Those sorts have likely already considered morality.

So in the end; I don't think there's a lot of evidence or probability for a significant trend. To say otherwise is simplistic and short sighted.

 

[realisoph]

The Golden Rule - The Categorical Imperative

I don't care much if someone's morals stem from secular agreement or religious tenets...

What I do care about is that they comply with the Golden Rule:

Do not unto others what you don't wish them to do unto you.

...or better, that they live up to Kant's Categorical Imperative to...

Act only according to a maxim which - at the same time - you would accept as a universal law.

As for the ten commandments, I'll stick with...

 

[creativesoul]

How about a moral system based upon truth seeing how every belief possible necessarily depends upon it?

 

[realisoph]

How about a moral system based upon truth seeing how every belief possible necessarily depends upon it?

What is "truth"?

 

[creativesoul]

The value given to a statement which has an accurate correspondence to reality.

 

[realisoph]

The value given to a statement which has an accurate correspondence to reality.

So then I suspect there would be different moral systems depending on who considers which "truth" as more significant or more accurately corresponding to the reality as he or she perceives it.

 

[creativesoul]

Then you examine the evidence in question for it's relevency and sufficiency.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Then you examine the evidence in question for it's relevency and sufficiency.

While I'm not quite sure what you're advocating; I do think you might find something like it in the works of Immanuel Kant.

In particular the categorical imperative comes to mind.

 

[creativesoul]

While I like Kant's CI, I find it less than objectively and universally applicable, and much too complex for most to comprehend.

I am advocating objectively demonstrable universal morality. Moral truthes.

 

[realisoph]

objectively demonstrably true morality

I always found morality to be a matter of social agreement as to specific conventions for intra-group behaviour.

I am advocating objectively demonstrable universal morality. Moral truthes.

Care to give examples and to explain how in the world they can be "objectively demonstrably true" for everyone?

While I like Kant's CI, I find it less than objectively and universally applicable, and much too complex for most to comprehend.

Can you explain when and why Kant's categorical imperative is not applicable and also wherein the complexity lies?

 

[creativesoul]

Well sophi,

You could begin by quoting me correctly!



Universally applicable, and objectively demonstrable morality.

Wanna try again?

 

[creativesoul]

realisoph: I always found morality to be a matter of social agreement as to specific conventions for intra-group behaviour.

Morality and Ethics are always about behavioral expectation. That is the universally applicable common denominator. Every example, both real and imagined, share this.

creativesoul wrote:

I am advocating objectively demonstrable universal morality. Moral truthes.

realisoph:

Care to give examples and to explain how in the world they can be "objectively demonstrably true" for everyone?

Being universally applicable means: True in all known and imaginable cases. The process begins by recognizing that morality *is* behavioral expectation.

creativesoul wrote:

While I like Kant's CI, I find it less than objectively and universally applicable, and much too complex for most to comprehend.

realisoph:

Can you explain when and why Kant's categorical imperative is not applicable and also wherein the complexity lies?

Yes, I can.

 

[realisoph]

yes I can

:facepalm: