Morality Part One

Many (most) people hold the view that morality and the desire to lead moral, ethical lives, comes from religion, in particular, religious writings supposedly inspired or dictated by supernatural being, i.e. gods. The argument is that people will naturally act in their own self-interest without regard for others and that is only religion which ameliorates this tendency. This line of thought assumes several things:

• That there is, indeed, a god or gods
• That these gods (or god) are morally superior to humans
• That humans are incapable of reaching moral conclusions without these gods

One difficulty in subscribing to the god-derived view of morality is the variety of god-based systems in the world, some of which offer moral codes that are mutually exclusive. How then do we decide which one is the correct one? Religious believers often resort to Pascal's Wager or some variant of it, where the choice is simply between God (and his religion - assumed by Pascal to be Christianity) and irreligion or atheism. The wager suggests that it's a good bet to believe, since if there is no god, believing won't harm you, but if you don't believe and the hypothesized god (and the eternal punishment that he has in store for non-believers) exists then you are in big trouble. This view is of course a false dilemma. There are more than two choices, which version of "god" do you want to wager on? The Christian? The Muslim? The Hindu? The choices are not simply between god and not-god, but among a multitude of gods, religions and philosophies. So how do you choose? Most people take the approach that they were lucky (or blessed) enough to have been born into a family and culture that believed the "true" religion. 

Another difficulty is that much of what is "god's will" in various scriptures is at variance with what most people would describe as ethical or moral thought or behavior. Would most modern people agree that it is morally right to kill all the people in a town just because they worshipped the wrong god? That a rapist not be prosecuted, but required to marry his rape victim? That it's okay to kill off all the married and widowed women in a town but save the virgins as spoils of war? That's it's the duty of a husband to beat his wife if she is disobedient? That slavery is a good thing? Most religious people, unless they are fundamentalist extremists, would agree that these are not moral actions despite what their holy book says. They cherry-pick their scriptures, extolling what they agree with and ignoring or explaining away what they don't like. They say that their moral compass comes from their god via their holy writings, but only when they already agree with it, or find it easy to do. 

Then there's those who stick to the book no matter what. They follow the circular reasoning that their god cannot espouse immoral things because whatever he says by definition is moral. 

So, in effect, other than the ultra-literalists, most people, whatever their professed religion is, are following a morality that seems right to them, setting aside religious strictures that don't make sense - rationalizing them away or ignoring them and are acting in ways not all that different than the irreligious. These people then use their scriptures to justify actions that the general population might find immoral, like discrimination based on gender, sexual preference or skin color. For example, an American in the 21st Century might find it repugnant that 19th Century Americans used the bible to justify slavery or the extermination of the Indians/Native Americans, but be perfectly comfortable citing biblical passges to justify hating homosexuals. 

So, in reality, atheists or those who are theists but not affiliated with any specific religion, in defining for themselves what is moral or ethical, are doing the same thing that the religiously affiliated are doing, but without the confusing layer of "divine inspiration" to muddy the waters. Everybody is writing their own moral code, its just that the religiously oriented use an ancient book to justify the more unpalatable portions of their morality.