For those not familiar with the argument from morality, it basically goes like this¹:

1. If God does not exist, then there are no objective (i.e. independent of human opinion) moral values and duties.

2. There are objective moral values and duties.

3. Therefore God exists.

My gut instinct when I first thought about this argument is that the first point has issues. I’ve asserted before that we can have morality without religion², and I still believe that a moral code independent of religion is superior, but as for where this morality could come from – I have no idea. I seem to remember Dawkins talking about how morality could have evolved, but that wouldn’t be objective morality, would it?

Which as got me thinking about the idea of objective morality as a whole, and I can’t help but ask – do we really have objective morality (point 2)? Zach Moore says that, at least at a debate lecture he attended, the idea the objective morality exists seems to be generally accepted, but I can’t help but feel that there’s something wrong with that, too.

What morals do we have that are objective? “Murder is bad” – Surely there’s some times it’s justified³? “Do no harm” – but what if my survival is at stake? “Do the greatest Good” – but, what IS good? Even the golden rule isn’t objective (although the rule itself seems to be the most universal law of morality) – “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” relies on our own opinions! Perhaps I really wouldn’t care if you stole my girlfriend?⁴

Do we really have objective morals? If so, what?

1. Moore, Zachary (2007) Dr. Craig Meets Dr. Zach
2. See my three part series on morality.
3. or is that just when we don’t call it murder?
4. Try it, and I’ll kill you!

• 7 Proofs That We Live in a Computer Simulation – or Why Proofs of Gods Existance Are Unconvicing
• Why I took so long to accept evolution – a.k.a. Why every christian should read their own bible. “part of what helped me along was actually reading the Bible in high school, being horrified by much of it”
• denialism blog : I can has souls? – There is a god, and it’s a cat.
• Religion and Sexual Ethics – A nice summary of the moral position of various religions. Interesting to compare catholicism and buddhism side by side! (I think I’m with the Buddhists, here)
• LOL cat Bible – Personally, I hate this pathetic LOLspeak crap, although this picture is funny… “In teh beginning, Invisible Man make univerz. Invisible Man say, I can has light. Gots light.”

• Morality Part 1: God Hating Atheists
• Morality Part 2: Immoral Religion

Non-Theistic Morality (or, what you do when nobody’s watching)

In line with my theory of religious eclecticism, I think that all religions share the same basic ideas on morality.¹ That said, however, morality based on religion is flawed not because of what is taught (be good to others, don’t kill, etc.) but how it’s enforced.

Athiest’s Wager suggests (as I did in my last post) that Christian morality is flawed because of the opportunity to receive forgiveness through religion. Without being able to fall back on forgiveness from God, how could an Atheist respond when given the opportunity to act immorally? Simple, they’d do the right thing.

I didn’t feel that I had a choice since I answer to myself. I am able to tell right from wrong and I would have to live with the knowledge that I had caused harm to someone else. ²

A moral Atheist might have no one to answer to but themselves (which seems to be the reason some suggest that an Atheist has no reason to be moral), but does this make them more or less moral than a Christian who answers only to God? Is a Christian who acts “morally” from fear of eternal punishment more or less moral than an Atheist who acts morally because they feel it’s the right thing to do?

We rightly do not consider a well-behaved dog to be acting “morally.” In the same way, the religious person who obeys not out of love and respect for other people, but in response to the promise of Paradise or the specter of Hell, acts not as an independent, moral person. He is merely a trained animal seeking to please an unseen master.³

A great real-world example of this is described over at Parenting Beyond Belief:

“If not for the seventh commandment,” I once heard a Veneerist proclaim in a debate, “there would be NOTHING to keep me from walking out the door to cheat on my wife!” Nothing? Not love? I wondered. Or commitment? Or simple human decency? If you say so.⁴

While I’d agree that not cheating on your wife is the moral way to act, I think that the reasons behind one’s actions are just as important (if not more so) than the actions themselves. While it’s certainly possible to have immoral Atheists, it’s just as possible to have immoral Theists. I think that a morality based on a true respect for those around us is far better than one based on the threat of hell and the promise of heaven.

True morality is what you do when no one (even God) is watching. Or in other words – being good, for goodness sake⁵

1. While I generally like to keep my definitions as broad as possible, let’s exclude from our definition of religion (for the moment) weird cults that think eating the hearts of live babies (or some similar variation) is a moral thing to do.
2. Atheist’s Wager, Atheist Morality
3. Midwestern Gentleman, Letting Go of God
4. Parenting Beyond Belief – The Relaxed Parent Film Festival
5. Barker, Dan (n.d.) For Goodness Sake

• Morality Part 1: God Hating Atheists
• Morality Part 3: Non-Theistic Morality

Immoral Religion

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. – Steven Weinberg¹

As Steven Weinberg suggests, some people use religion to justify their immorality. I remember a joke I was told a few years ago (by a Lawyer, I think – who knew they had a sense of humour?), that talked about there being two types of Catholics – those who felt so restricted by their religion, that they had very dull lives, and those who live life to the full (“immorality” and all), and then simply ask forgiveness. Religion, I suppose, can be quite liberating for one’s morality if one can always rely on the forgiveness of sins.

According to one book (at least, the review of it that I read) evangelical Christian teenagers, although likely to think not having sex before marriage is the right thing to do, are actually more likely than many other Christians to commit this “sinful” act.

80 percent think sex should be saved for marriage. But thinking is not the same as doing. Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics.²

Sure, maybe you could argue that these teenagers “aren’t true Christians”, otherwise they wouldn’t be having sex before marriage³. But then, that wouldn’t stop people using the bible to justify slavery (as long as the slaves are from neighbouring nations)⁴, and killing people who work on the Sabbath⁵⁶. Not to mention all the historical atrocities committed in the name of religion⁷.

I’m definitely not claiming that religious people are necessarily immoral, but I think I’ve shown that it’s certainly possible to “live by the rules” of religion, and act completely immorally (honestly, does anyone still think slavery is moral?). There’s people out there clearly saying that religion is not always a force for good⁸, and they make some pretty good points!

Why, then, do people persist in claiming that religion is the only way to live a moral life?

1. http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26814.html
2. http://www.slate.com/id/2167293?nav=tap3
3. Of course, you might also argue that sex before marriage isn’t immoral, in which case, I’d agree with you
4. Leviticus 25:44
5. Exodus 35:2
6. Some other great examples at Follow the Bible?
7. The Inquisition, The Crusades, etc.
8. Link via Religious Education With Warts

• Morality Part 2: Immoral Religion
• Morality Part 3: Non-Theistic Morality

God Hating Atheists

Some have claimed that atheism is responsible for immoral acts, and that lack of Christian morality (ignoring the possibility of other types of morality) in schools is responsible for school shootings. Both these articles describe various violent acts and crimes committed by young USAians¹, and then jump right into blaming Atheists and Darwinists (perhaps I’m missing a step in the argument, but I can’t see it – although “How to build a bomb in the public school system” does have one piece of evidence – the words “Natural Selection” on one shooter’s T-shirt):

Now do you realize who the people are who are responsible for children having gotten so violent? The answer is ATHEISTS and other non-beleivers [sic.] in the true God. So you may ask how can this be? The reason why they are responsible is because they hate God and teach their children against God (which is the highest form of child abuse). For example: Atheists hate the TEN COMMANDMENTS because God is their Author. ²

Aside from the obvious problem that Atheists, by definition, are unable to hate God (because as far as they’re concerned God doesn’t even exist) I see no logical reason why someone couldn’t hate the Christian God, but still “love” the 10 commandments. Jews and Muslims still have the 10 commandments, but in this writers mind, I’m sure Jews and Muslims would classify as “non-believers in the true God” (even though, technically, all three religions have the same roots, and thus the same God). There’s also plenty of people who live arguably moral lives while breaking at least the first few commandments. Depending on your interpretation, it’s also possible that all Christians break the 1st commandment, if you read “thou shalt have no other Gods before me”³ as endorsing strict monotheism, given that Christianity (arguably) invokes three Gods⁴ – I think Jews and Muslims are safe, though. Then, of course, there’s those of us who choose not to kill, steal or commit adultery, and still manage to respect our parents every so often – I don’t need to love (or even believe in) the Christian God for that.

There may be many religion-hating Atheists (or, anti-theists – of which Richard Dawkins comes to mind – while I’ve seen him in documentaries, I have yet to actually read his work, though, so I could be wrong), but a God-hating Atheist is an oxymoron. I certainly don’t think taking issue with religion necessarily makes you amoral, just like I don’t think that following a religion (whatever it may be) necessarily makes you moral.

One final thought – how many “immoral” people do you think are out there in this world? 5%? 20%? 50%? Well, if you subscribe to the theory that without Christianity, you’re necessarily immoral, you are immediately saying that 67%⁵ are incapable of living moral lives – not including immoral “Christians”, of course. Is there really a God who would condemn the majority of the world’s population simply because they were raised in a religion other than Christianity?

(To Be Continued… – Morality Part 2 will be posted next Sunday)

1. Residents of the United States of America – often incorrectly (in my mind) called Americans. “The Americas” cover a lot more ground than just the U.S.A.
2. Atheists Responsible for Youth Crime
3. Exodus 20:3
4. Suggested by AthiestWager, although I think it’s definitely possible to be Christian and follow the 1st commandment – it all comes down to interpretation
5. According to Wikipedia, only 33.06% of the world’s population are Christian