I'm not going to pick on a particular place today. Instead I'm going to recount a recent conversation with a friend (who reads my blog, incidentally, so he'll be seeing this).
I am listening to God Is Not Great on CD, listening to Mr. Hitchens explain many, many aspects of his point of view on religions of the world and discussing his atheism. Dude is smart. Though some of his arguments are, I think, a little strained and certainly not always "objective." But still, dude is SMART.
My conversation with my friend was civil and respectful, overall, and left us both mentally tired. But those who know me know how much I love that kind of discussion.
One overarching issue for my friend seemed to be wondering was whether atheists would have any morals at all without a belief in God and a religious construct to provide moral guidance. Hitchens is actually very good on this point that he and other atheists are no more or less moral than religious people. Statistically, he is right.
One particular point had to do with Hitchens' position on how religions repress normal, natural sexual behavior. My friend wondered if being an atheist meant a person could just have sex whenever, wherever, and with whomever he or she chose. Mr. Hitchens has his own morality about such things, and I don't know what it is, but I did point out that absent a religious construct prohibiting this sex and that sex and this act and that act, there is a mostly universally accepted secular prohibition on hurting people, on taking without consent. So, even absent religious mores, there has to be consent. And he said (paraphrasing), "So two people agree to have sex and they just have sex?" My response: "Yes."
He seemed a little shocked by this response. Maybe because it was from me, or maybe because it had not occurred to him that such behavior would or could be considered "moral" under any definition. Clearly, he would not consider it moral.
But people make choices every day to do things they were taught were immoral: like living together without being married. Happens all the time now. It's actually the norm, I think. Yet we still call it "living in sin." Why? Because the Bible says so? Because it upsets Mom? If we really thought it was wrong, we wouldn't do it (unless we were sociopaths). But if someone cheats? Holy hell! We KNOW that is wrong! (Why? Because it hurts the other person.) And yet, not married, so it's not adultery. Do you see where I'm going?
We have established a secular moral construct, which we all live by, whether we are religious or not. Even our decision as a society that slavery is immoral is secular. I have not read all religious books, but the Bible certainly does not prohibit slavery, and in fact provides rules for how to treat slaves. (Kind of makes me proud to be human, that we figured this out on our own, even if it did take us centuries to do so.)
Yet we continue to pretend the rules we live by come from religion while simultaneously ignoring many of the actual moral teachings of religion.
We don't honor our father and mother, though we try to visit when we can.
We don't take care of the poor, though we sometimes donate food to the shelter at holidays and donate to Good Will at the end of the year when we want a tax deduction.
We don't love our neighbor as ourselves, though we will call the cops if we see someone breaking into their home.
We still don't want people stealing, but we don't correct the cashier when she makes a mistake.
And we oppose killing, except for wars, the death penalty, and by ignoring those in need of medical care, food, and shelter.
And we covet everything. Heard of capitalism?
I am not advocating that we actually live by the Ten Commandments and the teachings of religious books (though those who do have every right to continue doing so as long as it does not infringe on the freedom of others). I am advocating that we start being honest about what is "moral" and stop pretending this is Salem, Massachusetts, circa 1625.
If morality were defined by what we actually DO believe to be right and/or wrong, and not by a 2000 year old book written when most of the world was illiterate and only men mattered, wouldn't we all be a lot happier? I know George Reker would be.
I am a Christian but I do believe that people and churches are filled with hypocrisy. It is hard to understand many that espouse religious beliefs out of one side of their mouth and act in an entirely different manner. I heard a line in a recent movie that I thought was true: "Religion is flawed because man is flawed". I do agree with you that society has established a secular moral construct. I Like Ayn Rand's idea because I do believe in the concept of free will: "therefore, possessing free will, human beings must choose their values: one does not automatically hold his own life as his ultimate value. Whether in fact a person's actions promote and fulfill his own life or not is a question of fact, as it is with all other organisms, but whether a person will act in order to promote his well-being is up to him, not hard-wired into his physiology. "Man has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."
ReplyDeleteIf this isn't Salem Massachusetts circa 1625 what am I supposed to do with the scarlet letter?
ReplyDeleteBravo! Nicely said!
ReplyDeleteHeather,
ReplyDeleteInteresting entry. Quick side note: if you believe the Bible is the way God has chosen to reveal Himself, then you believe it was "God-breathed" -- that it was inspired by God and that while it is important to study its context, its real truths are timeless.
As to living together, etc, one question you must ask is "what if a pregnancy results?" No matter what you believe about the unborn, pregnancy in a relationship that is "only" committed enough to include living together (not marriage) could easily be very hurtful to one or both in the relationship. The commitment of marriage is, in fact, an important aspect of morality in society even if you don't believe that God ordained it.
Further, for me, I define morality by what I DO believe to be right, and/or wrong, AND I happen to believe the ultimate authority for that is expressed in a 2000 year old book written by God-inspired writers. Now, that book doesn't tell me to force those moralities on you or anyone else--I don't want laws against living together. However, I will still consider it "living in sin," as you put it.
Finally, I wonder if what you're really getting at is a question of hypocrisy? I know you've expressed a great distaste for it (who likes it?), but here's the issue--if you define hypocrisy as saying one thing and doing another, then we're all hypocrites at some level. We will all end up doing something in life that, if you ask us to be honest about it, we really believe is wrong (and we're usually quick to find excuses too). We're all human. We'll feel bad about it, but when faced with a similar situation again, we might find ourselves taking the same "wrong" action if its an area of weakness for us. I don't consider that so much "hypocrisy" as I do "weakness." The way I see it, a hypocrite says something s/he really does _not_ believe in (and therefore does not practice) in order to reach his or her own ends.
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ReplyDeleteHere's my question: WHY do we find such a need to feel moral in the first place? I'd guess that many people living together do, in fact, have some uneasy feeling about it--feel the need to justify it as moral behavior when asked about it, for example. If I hear of one person hurting another, even if I somehow KNEW it would never affect me or anyone I knew, it would still upset me. Why? Even societies that practiced, for example, human sacrifice did so because they believed it was for the good of all--that it wasn't immoral. If they believed it to be immoral, then they wouldn't have done it. So, where does this need to feel moral come from? Why do we find the most basic concepts of morality to be so very similar in the vast majority of societies?
I imagine you have some possible answers to those questions (which I'd love to discuss), but I'd like to submit one myself: what if there really is an authority for what is moral and what is not. What if our Creator gave us all some sense of it, or we have a sense of it simply because it is inherent in the character of our Creator? If there were actions we wanted to take that violated that absolute truth of morality, it would be natural for us to deny the existence of such an authority and justify the notion that morality is what we feel to be right or wrong. But somewhere deep within the psyche of our humanity, we'd probably still feel uneasy--prompting us to make even more powerful excuses so we could convince ourselves that we aren't being immoral. Perhaps we have such a need to feel moral--so much so that we would lie to ourselves to feel that way--because the idea of morality is a universal need put in place by our Creator.
-Jason
I do believe we all have a conscience (except for sociopaths)that directs our behavior, that makes us feel guilty if we do something we know is wrong, and that makes us feel proud when we do the right thing.
ReplyDeleteThe question really is: is that conscience inherent in us as self-aware human beings, or does it come from an outside source?
But the answer to your question, why do we want to be moral, is simply this: to feel good about ourselves.
Okay, I get the "to feel good about ourselves" idea, but it still begs the question doesn't it? Why do we have such a need to feel good about ourselves? As you say, this really poses a question of "where does it come from?"
ReplyDeleteBut consider the individual. Say you have a married person who finds a "magical" way to enter a Holo-deck, have an intimate relationship with a completely realistic artificially-generated character, and leave without anyone finding out and without any other ill-effects to the person or his/her spouse (who will never know about it). Such an action could never do any outward harm to society. Yet I'd guess that most people would still feel bad about themselves if they took that action.
No one is hurt; nothing becomes better if the person refuses the opportunity, yet many people may very well decide not to do it because they would feel bad about themselves. Then again, others may choose to do it, but later feel bad about themselves. Many would make excuses for their actions (if only to themselves) in an attempt to feel good about themselves--which basically means they really don't think their actions were very moral in the first place.
Often, the moral thing to do is the the action that goes against our stronger basic instincts. We believe we (and others) should act a certain way, but we often don't. Morality is not what we actually do, but it's what we believe we should do. If we found ourselves always acting moral, then morality might be more like a rule of nature, but its not.
I guess it's hard to get across what I'm getting at, but it seems to me that the great similarities between concepts of morality across societies and our desire to be moral (though we know we never truly will be) is best explained by a supernatural origin.
Just stuff to think about.
-Jason