Morality Without Religion-- is it Possible?

Maxx said:

Then morality is what people want it to be and religion is no more moral than any other conventional activity.

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That's certainly one way to look at it.

Torgo said:

I think generally the more democratic and open a society becomes, the more the rights of the individual are protected, and the less culturally acceptable it becomes for men to impose themselves on young girls. Exactly where you draw the consent-line is, of course, still an inexact science; here in the UK it's 16, whereas over in Sweden where some of my family live (a similar society in many ways) it's 15.

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Hmmm...What about Georgia and Mississippi? Oh no...did I just say that out loud?

Before I leave, I think it's also important to point out that morality, civility and ethicality are three very different concepts. Bye all...I enjoyed the intelligient back-and-forth.

rwam said:

I agree, Sarpedon....except if I were to say the last sentence, I'd replace "the difference between right and wrong" with "what was socially acceptable".

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My conjecture about morality is that morality can be defined as the rules that allow individuals to function within society. Because human beings are social animals, and have evolved from other social animals, I would not be surprised if some mechanisms of moral behavior were intrinsic to our natures rather than merely learned.

This may form a core of morality that is more basic than mere social convention.

I do think it's fair to say that much of what we consider "moral behavior" is based on religion, and not just Christianity. Most religions, for example, do not look favorably on murder. However, I think certain 'levels' of morality came about simply because without them, the society in question could not have survived. The people may or may not have called it "morality", but it was certainly a set of basic 'rules' of how to treat other members of that society, whether or not they were codified.

And morality does evolve, for want of a better word, at least within societies. Individuals, of course, choose their own morality, either stricter or more lenient than society's.

As to the basic 'can an atheist be moral', the answer has to be yes. Belief in a god or a religious practice has little to do with it; however, acknowledging religion's (and I mean all religions, not just Christianity) input should not cause any discomfort. Religious groups were, and are, a part of society and thus would naturally have some, if not a lot, of influence, just as any other group would simply by existing.

rwam said:

any concept of morality HAS to be based upon a Religious North Star of Morality....otherwise, any moral is really just an invention of man.

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This is false, unless you are defining "Religious" or "God" so broadly as to be meaningless. Take Platonism, for instance - the idea is that there are forms, existing independent of man, including the form of perfect justice, perfect beneficience, and all other moral concepts. The forms are not "God" in any meaningful sense of the word, yet according to Platonism, they form the basis of morality. To reply that the forms are in fact the invention of man is to beg the question against the view.

You can question whether a moral system has real legitimacy if it is not based on something beyond what a society made up, but to claim that if it is based on something beyond that, it must be based on God and/or religion is simply false.

Boudicca said:

This is false, unless you are defining "Religious" or "God" so broadly as to be meaningless. Take Platonism, for instance - the idea is that there are forms, existing independent of man, including the form of perfect justice, perfect beneficience, and all other moral concepts. The forms are not "God" in any meaningful sense of the word, yet according to Platonism, they form the basis of morality. To reply that the forms are in fact the invention of man is to beg the question against the view.

You can question whether a moral system has real legitimacy if it is not based on something beyond what a society made up, but to claim that if it is based on something beyond that, it must be based on God and/or religion is simply false.

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Thing is...the way you describe Platonism - it sounds like a religious belief. At a minimum, believing in these invisible Platons (?) seems to be a matter of faith.

rwam said:

Thing is...the way you describe Platonism - it sounds like a religious belief. At a minimum, believing in these invisible Platons (?) seems to be a matter of faith.

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Platonism - i.e. the philosophy of Plato - did start to become something of a religious belief (esp. in neo-Platonism) and it influenced many of the fathers of the Christian Church (such as Augustine and Origen) as well as Islamic thinkers.

Though, Plato felt that you could derive the existence of the Forms through logic, so for him the most religious bit of it was probably the Form of the Good, which was pretty damn mystical. People like Plotinus did some expanding on that.

rwam said:

Thing is...the way you describe Platonism - it sounds like a religious belief. At a minimum, believing in these invisible Platons (?) seems to be a matter of faith.

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Not everything that involves "faith" in the sense of believing things that are not 100% known is a matter of religious faith. I have faith that the mail will be delivered today, in that I believe it without having irrefutable proof of it, but that doesn't mean I have a religious belief centered around the postal service. If you are defining 'religion' so broadly that it includes anything you believe without airtight proof, then I think the claim that morality requires religion is a trivial one.

Torgo said:

Platonism - i.e. the philosophy of Plato - did start to become something of a religious belief (esp. in neo-Platonism) and it influenced many of the fathers of the Christian Church (such as Augustine and Origen) as well as Islamic thinkers.

Though, Plato felt that you could derive the existence of the Forms through logic, so for him the most religious bit of it was probably the Form of the Good, which was pretty damn mystical. People like Plotinus did some expanding on that.

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For this reason the Platonism example isn't perfect, since for the Ancients philosophy and religion blended. Nonetheless, one could subscribe to Platonism (specifically, his beliefs about the forms, not his beliefs generally), or any one of a number of other moral theories, without having any beliefs that are religious in a meaningful sense of the word.

Boudicca said:

Not everything that involves "faith" in the sense of believing things that are not 100% known is a matter of religious faith. I have faith that the mail will be delivered today, in that I believe it without having irrefutable proof of it, but that doesn't mean I have a religious belief centered around the postal service. If you are defining 'religion' so broadly that it includes anything you believe without airtight proof, then I think the claim that morality requires religion is a trivial one.



For this reason the Platonism example isn't perfect, since for the Ancients philosophy and religion blended. Nonetheless, one could subscribe to Platonism (specifically, his beliefs about the forms, not his beliefs generally), or any one of a number of other moral theories, without having any beliefs that are religious in a meaningful sense of the word.

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It actually sounds like a cool concept, much like the Force in Star Wars. I guess when I said it sounded like a religion, it's because I also imagined invisible beings that were arguably superior to us. Then again, it doesn't sound like these beings were being worshipped in the religious sense....just acknowledged as existing. So, I think I get you. Thanks for piping up about Platonism - I'm going to wiki it.

Why do morals and religion have to be inclusive. It is very small-minded to say that only people who believe in God can be moral. Are all religious people moral? Not at all. How many horrible acts have been done in the name of God? The Inquisition, Holy Wars, murder, ritual sacrifice. Many people of today would call these acts highly immoral.

Besides, I would trust an athiests morals more quickly than a many Christians. Why? And athiest who does good, does it simply because they know right from wrong, and choose to do the right thing because, well, it is the right thing. How many Christians do what is right because they fear God's wrath? Because they don't want to go to hell? Sure, they might want to be good because it is right. But it sure seems like religion is trying to force them through guilt and fear. Can those kinds of morals even be trusted?

ColoradoGuy said:

Quakers essentially reverse the terms of discussion: that is, religious people are not, because of that, moral; rather, moral people are giving evidence of the Quaker belief of that of God in everyone. Doing the Right Thing celebrates that Inner Light.

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I really like that.

Torgo said:

All kinds of reasons. Empathy and reciprocity, mainly.

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This.

Morality isn't based on religion. It's based on instincts. Y'know, those instincts that make us not eat our children. AFAIK, that's where empathy comes from. We feel other humans' pain along with them, so we make sure we don't inflict it.

Altruistic behavior has been found among monkeys and (I think) other animals not known for having religion.

Morals (as a general code as opposed to spontaneous acts of kindness) are an abstraction of that. So is religion.

Except, religion has more sources than altruism. It's also based on power and (lack of and/or unequal distribution of) knowledge.
Inequality is at religion's core. It begins with shamans keeping their skills to themselves so they can rule. From an atheist perspective, this can be seen as corrupting even the moral standards religion holds up.

ColoradoGuy said:

Quakers essentially reverse the terms of discussion: that is, religious people are not, because of that, moral; rather, moral people are giving evidence of the Quaker belief of that of God in everyone. Doing the Right Thing celebrates that Inner Light.

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Quakers are really cool - lots of them in my family tree. I am a fairly hardline atheist, but I really do respect them.

Mpride said:

My question: Can there be MORALITY without RELIGION? Think about the US court system; think rule of law; think the very basic foundations and tenets of a civil society and it's framework-- all of it obviously grounded in religious principle.

Your thoughts?

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Yes there can be morality without religion. Absolutely!

My four best friends are Atheists and in no way does the fact that I'm a Buddhist make me more moral than them.

They are just as ready as I am to avoid harming others, either human or animal, to help others when help is needed and to be decent human beings.

They would also defend my right to be a Buddhist and yours to be a Christian against the sort of militant Atheists you mention in the OP who would presume to deny others the right to their beliefs and religious practice.

rwam said:

Without a God (in most religions, Someone who serves as a "North Star of Right and Wrong") to tell us what is Right and what is Wrong, then anything labeled Right or Wrong is ultimately an invention of Man.

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An invention of Man or a recognition by Man?

In the example above, I think a fair question for an atheist would be "What is your basis for labeling pedophilia as bad?"

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Does it harm kids? If so, it's bad. Why is that so? Because it harms kids and harming kids is bad.

Do we need a god to tell us that harming kids is bad?

Can't we see it for ourselves?

Disclaimer: I'm not saying atheists are incapable of adhering to morals - two of my best friends are atheists and are some of the best, kindest, sharing and selfless people I know...I'm just saying any concept of morality HAS to be based upon a Religious North Star of Morality....otherwise, any moral is really just an invention of man.

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Just an invention of Man or a recognition by Man, arising from a functional mind with the capacity for empathy and respect for others?

very briefly,

I believe you need religion for morality, but my definition of religion is different from yours. I view religion as having faith in something that is beyond your ability to know for certain.

It is beyond our ability to know for certain whether there are such things as absolute right and absolute wrong, but we can have faith in this. Without this faith in an objective, absolute morality, morality becomes little more than a socio-evolutionary construct that we've developed and refined over time (in my opinion, this reduction would destroy what morality is really about--why we should or should not, in absolute terms, do certain things, irrespective of biology, social norms, evolutionary advantages, self-interest, etc.)

Moreover, I would argue that we, as human beings, must have faith in this absolute morality. Otherwise I don't think we would have the heart to go on living and interacting with people. I don't think we would be able to maintain relationships, if on some level, we didn't believe in this absolute ethics.

Where does God come into the picture? Well, one could argue that you need some kind of penultimate authority to dictate absolute morality, and that if one has faith in absolute morality, one must also have faith in a penultimate authority. There really is a very fine line between having faith in absolute morality and having faith in God.

To say that this sort of God is dictating to is what is right and what is wrong would be something of a misunderstanding. God could recognize absolute morality as a thing in itself (in other words, good is not good because of God, but for it's own sake) while at the same time either being a part of it or comprising it.

So, maybe

absolute morality + authority to recognize absolute morality = God, but absolute morality is nevertheless a distinct thing in itself (in the similar way to how a two people comprise a couple/relationship, yet are themselves distinct entities, yet are parts of a greater whole, yet are distinct entities, etc.)

This has some overlap with the aforementioned quaker belief that we are moral because we all have god in us. Because God and absolutely morality are inseparable parts of each other (according to this view), acting in accordance with absolute morality would be a godlike act.

Max Vaehling said:

This.

Morality isn't based on religion. It's based on instincts. Y'know, those instincts that make us not eat our children. AFAIK, that's where empathy comes from. We feel other humans' pain along with them, so we make sure we don't inflict it.

Altruistic behavior has been found among monkeys and (I think) other animals not known for having religion.

Morals (as a general code as opposed to spontaneous acts of kindness) are an abstraction of that. So is religion.

Except, religion has more sources than altruism. It's also based on power and (lack of and/or unequal distribution of) knowledge.
Inequality is at religion's core. It begins with shamans keeping their skills to themselves so they can rule. From an atheist perspective, this can be seen as corrupting even the moral standards religion holds up.

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Interesting thought about instincts. It reminds me of a Bible verse that basically says God's Law is written on the hearts of man (I paraphrase). t seems to me, though, that if left to our own devices (oro instincts), each of us would come up with our individual moral code. Or, is each of us equipped with the same moral instincts? Put this way: If we gave 1,000 people a test of 200 Questions regarding 'what constitutes theft' (getting extra change from a cashier, stealing a car, stealing a car from the guy who stole it from you, etc), I'm pretty sure no two answer sets would be identical.

Indeed, though. Every person has a conscience - an inner compass to their understanding of what is moral and what is not.

An obvious answer from an atheist would be, things are--in general--wrong if they cause harm, loss or suffering.

In fact it is much more direct to say it is immoral to do harm, than to say it is wrong to do things that God has told us do harm.

My question would be the reverse. What has God got to do with morality, really? Why do we need God to tell us not to kill, deceive and steal?

the obvious question is why are killing, rape, etc bad?

Shakespeare says, "There is nothing either Good or Bad, but thinking makes it so."

That is the argument of a skeptic. There are a couple ways you can try to meet it.

The person who bases morality on religion (at least, my definition of religion) bases morality on faith.

Whereas the atheist (in my opinion, mistakenly) often wants to base morality on facts that are not actually present, or, in the case of instincts, consistently present (serial killers lack empathy, so is it okay that they do not abide by morality?)

Things that cause harm are bad because we recognize that harm causes suffering to other, and other people are basically like us and of equivalent value. I don't see what is confusing about that. Christian morality is based on the same thing, but with deity inventing some intervening laws. Allowing a sociopath to do harm would constitute allowing harm to happen, which is bad. what the deviant sociopath thinks is beside the point from the perspective of a normal citizen who is responsible for the implications of his/her own behavior.

Most western morality is Utilitarian, seeking to minimize total suffering--whether it includes the God-judge or not.

Who says human beings have any value? Who says value is not determined by might? You're taking the enlightenment notions about natural rights etc etc on faith, which is fine, I take them on faith too. I just want you to recognize that.

I am talking about sociability and empathy as experienced even by cows and chickens who both become distressed if seeing a herd or flock mate harmed, and will warn and defend herd and flock mates when sources of harm appear--even at risk to themselves.

Just because we can express an idea in clever words, does not mean that the underlying impulse is created by clever thoughts and education.