Comes a conversation between two writer-friends utilizing the social networks. One suggests that instead of religion we might as well think in terms of being kind to each other and taking care of our fellow creatures. The other responds by asking, “Without religion what would be our moral basis for taking care of our fellow creatures?” This raised not a few questions inside the person reading in on this exchange. He could not help continuing in his mind the train of thought, asking himself if religion is really the sole basis for morality. If indeed, it really is a viable basis for it.
Morality is defined here as a judgement of whether an act is good or evil. Is religious doctrine the only instrument for making such a judgement? He does not agree. There are many peoples living in the world now with only a marginal exposure to religion. Can we presume they would have no concept of morality?
He thinks ethical behavior rooted in a sense of justice and kindness to other organisms, human or not, is possible even for people who have absolutely no religion. On the other hand, religiously pious people have over time demonstrated the capacity for evil; this fact, repeatedly illustrated throughout history with the most recent being the terrorist attacks in France and Africa.
Indeed, these developments make it quite understandable for people to ask if religion has become the cause of some of the most horrible acts committed now as in the historical past. Do we still need religion? Are we better off without it? These are bold questions, inevitably arguable both ways.
Ethical behavior is not the main point of religion. For the religious, the truth of god (their God) is the first premise of religion. It is only because their “one true god” is inevitably good that goodness and morality form part of their tenets. For the religious, the two arguments are one.
One must place a bit of disinterested distance between one’s self and one’s god to see that human behavior and the truth of one’s own god are two unrelated concepts. One might speak of morality on the basis of religious teaching. It is possible also to speak of it without bringing religious teachings into the argument, if only as a form of intellectual exercise. Without allowing religion into the picture, what would be the basis for moral behavior? How would we judge between good and evil?
Every organism seeks first to survive and multiply. It will do so usually by competition. But there are many social organisms which establish a harmonious relationship between each other in order to function and survive, bees, ants, lions, pods of whales, etc.
Competition is not inevitable. As with humans who over millennia have survived both by competition as by conviviality.
Inside every structured society one presumes that ethical norms of behavior and morality are not only possible but necessary.
Admittedly, religion was often used as a device to establish collective social identity as well as the norms of ethical and moral behavior. While this device animated every individual society to survive, whenever this society rubbed against or clashed with a neighboring social structure, religion was also the devise used to rationalize why these societies should make war with each other.
And so religion has always been socially useful. And because of this, religion itself may be good or bad. It must be subject to moral judgement.
This should certainly move us to rethink our relationship with our own religion. We should not make moral judgements about another person’s religion. But we are certainly right to weigh the inherent morality of the acts of our own religious leaders. Keeping in mind that religions are first and foremost human institutions subject to moral weaknesses just like all other human institutions. Our capacity to make moral judgements does not derive exclusively from religion. We may presume it can derive from a higher source, if not from our own inherent humanity then we may as well believe it comes directly from god.