On 02 May 2005 04:04:15 GMT, Maaxx wrote:
>"Dale" wrote in
>news:SScde.71$1o3.13@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com:
>
>> "JaBrIoL" wrote in message
>> news:1114967704.662297.165850@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>> are you sure? Maybe you are right. the concept of morals is a
>>> religious one, and are not needed.
>>
>> Morality existed long before religion.
>
>Morality has no basis without religion.
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be
the hijacking of morality by religion. - Arthur C. Clarke
Religion and morality go together like boiled beef and carrots. You
often find them together but it is perfectly possible to have one
without the other.
Many people have swallowed the idea that morality started with
religion to such an extent that they cannot separate the two. I myself
was under the impression that religion had a significant causative
link to morality until quite recently when I came to see the truth.
Man is a primate. All primates have innate morality. A moral sense is
vitally important to the efficient running of any society or group.
There are no amoral primate groups anywhere. The Mafia have morals,
baboons have codes. There are differences between the various groups
and their codes of morality but all primate groups have some morals
and standards of behaviour. Religion is also very common but it is not
universal and it did not cause the codes or the instinct to observe
them. These are facts that need to be clearly stated. Morality does
not require religion.
In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union millions of people were brought
up during the middle decades of the twentieth century in a state that
was thoroughly atheist and many of the households and communities
within those states were also atheist. There was no collapse of
morality. You were not more likely to be robbed, raped, murdered or
cheated in Leningrad than you were in Manchester. Why? Why did people
freed from the fear of divine retribution not suddenly start behaving
like amoral animals? Because we are animals. We are political animals,
animals that need to live within societies and feel respected by them.
Religion is not the bulwark of morality any more than the cockerel
crowing if the cause of the dawn or the virgin sacrifices are the
cause of the volcano keeping quiet. This trick has been perpetrated on
people for centuries and people continue to fall for it. It is very
reminiscent of the great Santa Claus conspiracy. The surest way to
lose a job on television is to state clearly that there is no such
person as Santa Claus. No adult believes in Santa Claus, but most are
part of the conspiracy. We mustn't let children know that there is no
Santa Claus because ... er, well, because. And we mustn't let the
people, especially the poor, know there is no God because, well,
because. We wouldn't want to face those consequences would we?
What is there to be afraid of in the truth that God is just as much an
imaginary being as the bogeyman, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the
Tooth Fairy? None whatsoever. Morality in our species does not rest
upon fear of God. We act morally because to do so makes us feel good
about ourselves and makes us better friends and allies. Being good and
moral is the right thing to do for your own selfish self interest. The
best thing we can do as a society to make morality more widespread and
more potent is to strip away all aspects of religion from it. Being
good is the right thing to do because it simply is the right thing. We
as a species have an innate sense of morality just as we have an
innate ability to learn language. We need it. We are political
animals. We have an innate sense of what is or is not fair. We need
respect and the esteem of our neighbours, friends and colleagues. This
makes us behave morally.
Our morality breaks down with anonymity. It is no surprise that the
biggest cities in the world have the most selfish drivers. If you
drive in a small town in Kansas you see people being polite and well
mannered not because they fear the wrath of God but simply because in
small communities people expect to interact again with you at another
time. In contrast in New York, Hong Kong or Rome the rule of the road
is to curse and never trust the other driver.
The way to keep morality and lose the encumbrances of religion is to
promote morality in and of itself. We as a species know what morality
is and we recognize moral behaviour when we see it. We are naturally
moral because we have developed complex instincts to help us in social
situations. These instincts work as long as we allow them instead of
burying them in external threats and admonishments. The ten
commandments do not help us discover ultimate morality. We all know it
when we see it. The way to get people to behave in a moral way is to
trust them, to integrate them and to allow them to develop fully as
individuals in a caring society. People will only act as amoral
criminals if they fall into a criminal subculture, are mentally
deficient in morality (rare conditions do exist that cause these
problems) or are in a situation in which crime really does pay in a
way that can become a life choice.
However you cannot create a moral society with nothing but kindness.
We also need something else, something deeply unfashionable but vital
to the healthy running of any society: intolerance. We must promote
intolerance of criminality and cheating. We as social animals
naturally despise the cheat and the thief, but too many liberal
bed-wetter types have been telling us that the thief only steals
because of what we do to him. This line must be resisted and fought
from both ends. We must both minimize the lure of cheating by ensuring
that all can live without falling into crime and at the same type
promote natural justice in the community. Criminals must be
ostracized. But this is not enough. People who use the glamour of
crime and immorality vicariously to achieve their legal business ends
must also be shunned. Refuse to watch films that glamorize crime and
violence. Refuse to buy music produced by violently antisocial people.
Walk away from people who talk about such things. If you are
introduced to somebody who makes their living from glorifying violence
and crime wipe your hand and walk away. They might claim that they are
just satisfying a demand, they are right, but we as individuals should
see to it that we never add to that demand and do all we can to spurn
those that do.
God cannot punish the wrongdoer or the man who sells his products with
images of crime and violence but we can. How many crimes have been
prevented by the fear of God? Do Christians never commit crime or sin?
Do atheists spend all their days stealing from charity collection
boxes, murdering strangers and sexually abusing children? There is no
link between belief in the supernatural and God and morality. If the
only reason a Christian can give for continued belief in his
incredible theory is the idea that such a belief is a useful tool to
keep the poor from falling into immorality then his religion is
morally bankrupt. The only purpose I can see in religion is as a way
to catch the attention in order to reinforce the messages of the
natural morality that we as a species are already responding to. It
cannot be beyond the wit of our species to come up with other ways to
spread lessons of morality than this. Surely the poor and the
dangerous will be inclined to listen more clearly if we treat them as
adults rather than simply threatening them with the bogeyman again?
from:
http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/relmor.htm
When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then
I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I
just stole one and asked him to forgive me.
- Emo Philips
|
|