Do We Need God to be Moral?

Often Christians may believe that there can be no genuine morality without a belief in God and that our present moral decline is a result of the erosion of religion in society. Do we need a God to guarantee the moral order of this world? Can we be good without God? Can there be a Godless morality? If there is no God, will this world necessarily be plunged into moral chaos?  These are questions which all thinking Christians need to address themselves. Last night I read an article by David Eller on the topic in the book The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (2010) edited by John W Loftus.

To Eller  in the same manner that English grammar is not the only grammar in the world and there are no grounds for claiming that it is the only "real" grammar, it makes no sense to suggest that "Christianity provides the only basis for morality." Christianity is not the only religion with morality. Nor is morality the sole or essential component of religion because religion also includes myths, rituals, roles and institutions of behavior. Even more generally, moral behavior, understood in the sense of "orderly and standard-conforming" behavior does not depend on human religion at all. Eller argues not only that morality does not depend on religion, the view that it does is itself part of the ideology of religion.

Eller thinks that religion is not "belief in God". Some people think that religion is a question of having an individual or collective "transcendental/oceanic feeling". Others stress certain ritual practices and belief in certain myths or certain institutions, propagated and served by a professional or semi-professional class of "religious personnel". These are all merely aspects of religion. There can be religions without god(s), without (much) rituals, without (much) myth, without (many) institutions or professional religious personnel. According to Pascal Boyer and Scott Atran, religion is a composite of "basic elements" which are not fundamentally "religious" in nature in and of themselves. Thus there can be non-religious rites and rituals, non-religious myths, non-religious institutions, non-religious professional personnel. In the same way, there can be religious moralities and non-religious moralities. All these elements are human of course, but they are not specifically or exclusively or necessarily "religious" phenomena.

There is, however, one element essential to all religious views of the world: agency or the ability to decide on or to choose particular courses of action in what is thought to be the agent's own interest. Human beings are thought to have "agency" or intention: they are volitional but they must make their choices in respect of objects or other people under specific cultural and social conditions or contexts. People are different from objects: we can speak with a person but only speak about an object. Because people have "intentionality and agency with varying degrees of autonomy and freedom", as Graham Harvey points out in Animism: Respecting the Living World (2006), human beings tend to look for will or intention or purpose or goal-oriented behavior in each other and also in the world around us, whether or not there is in reality any such intention. To a religious mind, there are both non-human and superhuman agents (which lacks the qualia of physical bodies or mortality) which have a mind, a personality and intentions. This religious attitude or perspective thus "humanises" and "socializes" our world because not only can these non-human agents be spoken with, they must be spoken with. They are thought to be an inescapable part of our "real" world. The supernatural world is thought to be an extension of and governed by the same principles of social interaction as in our human social world. But there is one difference: we are viewed as dependent on the favours of such supernatural beings.

What exactly is the relationship between religion and morality (understood not as specific rules or principles of conduct e.g. honesty fidelity or non-violence but more generally)? Morality is not essentially about "goodness" because what is good or not good is relative to the person and the purpose concerned. To the victim chosen to be "sacrificed" to the volcano god or the sea god , the sacrifice is not "good", although the particular tribe may think that it is in the interest of "the common good" of the tribe. Nor does morality necessarily lead to happiness or pleasure e.g. sex or taking some one else's property may be pleasurable but may not be deemed moral under certain circumstances. Moreover, morality is always context dependent. Thus whilst it is generally considered "immoral" to kill another person, killing in self-defence or in defence of property may be permitted and large scale killing may sometimes be considered moral and even noble e.g. the so-called "just war" to defend one's country.or one's class. The killing of witches and murderers may be considered good for the community, but not so to the murderers and the witches. The prohibition of the public display of nakedness, same sex marriage, premarital sex or abortion may be considered to be good by some but not necessarily by everyone within the relevant society. Different cultures may have different moral concerns e.g. covering a woman's face,  figures and eating pork in Muslim country and consumption of beef in Hindu communities do not constitute "moral" issues in Christian countries. Thus the Jains consider eating vegetables and killing insects moral problems but not people in the West. Michael Shermer in his Science of Good and Evil (2004) thinks that morality refers to "right and wrong thoughts and behavior in the context of the rules of a social group." Kai Nielsen, says in Why be Moral (1989) that moral language is concerned with appraising human conduct and guiding us on what to do under specific social contexts. It is "a practical kind of discourse that is concerned to answer the questions : "what should be done" or "What attitude should be taken toward what has been done, is being done or will be done." and "functions to guide conduct and alter behavior or attitudes." But it does not do so infallibly or in isolation. In short, morality is socially determined. Nor are moral rules the only rules for appraising word or conduct. There are other appraisal standards too e.g. legal/illegal, sane/insane, mature/immature, normal/abnormal, polite/impolite, professional/unprofessional etc. Not every practical behavior is a moral issue and not every standard of conduct is a moral standard. Only some but not all of the standards for appraisal are related to or overlap with morality.

Just as religion can and should be broken down into more fundamental building blocks that are not "religious" in themselves, morality can and should be broken down into more fundamental building blocks which are not "moral" in themselves.  Shermer calls these "premoral sentiments" and include among them the following " attachment and bonding, co-operation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group." Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham say in 2007 that morality may be reduced today to 5  "psychological preparations for detecting and reacting emotionally to
issues related to harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty,
authority/respect and purity/sanctity. It can be seen that most of these have little or nothing to do with religion..

Different religions have got their own particular rules of behavior rules and systems of appraisal .Thus Judaism was hailed as a religion of justice long before Christianity was invented (Alan Dershowitz's The Genesis of Justice (00)):  the 10 commandments were written centuries before the Gospels though not all the commandments are "moral" in the normal sense e.g. there is nothing moral about the first commandment nor any good moral reason for avoiding graven images ("or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth") as ordered in Exodus 20.4 nor in keeping the Sabbath, nor in not coveting your neighbor's goods (in fact, Western capitalism is built upon the basis of the last prohibition). There is no acceptable "moral" reasons why after the first tablets were broken, Moses was given a new set with different commandments in Exodus 34. like keeping the feast of the unleavened bread, to offer the first born to God, to observe the feasts of weeks and to assemble the men-children three times a year etc. The Jewish concept of "sin" is more like the impurity or uncleanness in their dietary laws, which do not say that it is "immoral" to eat pork or shellfish, only that such substances are an "abomination" and that a woman is unclean after birth (not "immoral") . The Jews had 613 mitzvots or commandments, not just 10 e.g. that every man should copy the Torah for himself, wear the tefillin or phylactery on the head and arm, not to reap the entire field, exempting a bridegroom from public labor or military service for one year, that a widow whose husband had no children should not marry any one except the dead husband's brother, that one not kiss or hug or wink at or skip with a relative lest one commits incest, that one not borrow money at interest, that one release after 6 years any servant that one has "bought"".

Islam also has many rules of behavior which cannot be considered to be particularly "moral" according to our modern concept of what morality is although they do differentiate between fard (the performing which is meritorious and its omission punishable) halal (allowed or permitted but not required) makrub (disapproved though not forbidden) haram (forbidden or prohibited or unlawful and religiously harmful).  Thus milk, honey, fish, fruits, vegetables and meat are halal as long as sacrificed according to Muslim ritual (never strangled or bludgeoned to death but drained of blood by throat slitting). A food is haram if it contains or has come into contact with blood, pigs, dogs, reptiles, alcohol, animals with protruding canine teeth, animals won by betting or gambling. A man should not wear gold ornaments or silk clothes, although a woman may but she should not wear tight or transparent clothing and she should be veiled from head to toe to show their modesty and preserve their honor and no one is to alter their physical features for beauty and all excess is prohibited. Gold, silver utensils and pure silk bedspread and sheets are haram. Keeping dogs inside a house as a pet is forbidden as are songs that praise wine and that encourage drinking and all forms of gambling and lottery and movies that depict or incite sex, greed, crime, deviance or false belief are prohibited. Many of these rules would not be considered to have anything to do with "morality" in the Western sense. 

According to the views of the Hindus, everything must operate according to the law of dharma which imposes duties to act or refrain from certain acts. If one fails to act, that would generate karma, which functions like a kind of moral weight or dirt or rust on the soul or atman. Their society is divided into different castes, a system of different and unequal social and occupational groups white Brahmins (preachers and teachers), red Ksatriyas (warriors and rulers) brown Vaishyas ( farmers, merchants,artisans) and black Shudras (ordinary laborers) and pariahs or untouchables (polluted laborers) each with different type of work or obligation cut out for them in harmony with the three powers of their born nature. Thus the nature of their moral duties depend on their castes e.g it is the religious "duty" of a warrior to fight and to kill as their soul cannot be injured by death.

The Buddhists have got what is called "The Eightfold Path": the duty to observe the right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration and also the duty to obey the 10 precepts: avoid harming any living thing, taking anything not freely given, sexual misbehavior, speaking falsely, ingesting alcohol or drugs, eating untimely meals, dancing/singing, miming, using garlands or perfumes or other adornment, sitting in high seats, and accepting gold and silver etc. 

The Jains have the strictest religious behavior code: they must observe ahimsa or no-harm principle. They condemn all forms of killing even the killing of an insect and microbes Hence they wear masks and drink through a strainer lest they swallow an insect and they sweep the path before them with a broom lest they trample on one. They must be vegetarian and eat only plants which are already dead so as to avoid injuring the plant. They cannot be farmers because farmers harm living things. Neither can they be blacksmith because hammering is thought to hurt the anvil and the bench. They must avoid attachment to life, whether it be food, clothing, family or their own body and those who adhere strictly to their moral code will also avoid travelling, owning weapons, eating at night or contacting their spouse. They aim to become ascetic, dwelling naked in the forest and dying proudly of self-starvation. Thus what they regard as moral may not necessarily be so regarded by the followers of other religious faiths. 

From the above, it can be seen that different religions may well have different codes of religious behavior, some considered strange or absurd by Christians and vice versa.  Not only are different kinds of behavior called for under the religious rules or customs of different religion, not all so-called "moral" rules favored by certain religion are considered "moral" by non-believers and the bases or sources of morality itself may often be considered arguable. Did morality evolve naturally? Is the basis of morality rational self interest? Does morality depend on certain philosophical principles? Is morality culture specific?  Loftus thinks that moral rules are far too diverse and contradictory to be considered "natural" . In more or less the same way that it is absurd to claim that there is only one "real" or "objective" language in the world, there is no basis to claim that there is only one single "real" or "objective" morality.  Nor does he believe that the origin of morality is reason because such so-called "rational grounds"or explanations often ignore questions of value conflict or conflict of interest.

Socrates asked long ago whether the gods command men to do an act which is considered good because it is good or whether something is good because the gods command it. In the latter case, what is good seems to depend entirely upon the whims of the gods and appear completely arbitrary and contingent on the will of the gods. It is far more likely that religion is a reinforcing agent of morality rather than its source. Whatever the true position is, there is little doubt that in practice, religion is often considered a source of specific moral claims and legitimizes those moral claims. Whilst some people regard personal interest to be the ultimate criterion for deciding whether some act is good, others regard egotism to be the very antithesis of morality. Utilitarians argue that the best and most ethical conduct is one that promises to produce the most pleasure and the least pain, presumably for the maximuum number of persons. If so, human beings are considered mere moral calculators, adding up pleasures and substracting pain to arrive at the most congenial solution.If so, there all sorts of problems because it is difficult to decide how to compare different types of pleasure. Also, some moral choice may involve immediate pain presumably for a long term good. How does one compare my pleasures or my pains against yours? Immanuel Kant argued that morality flows from the perception of duty: whether something is required of us. Moral actions are "imperative" and "categorical imperative" e.g treating others as an end in itself or merely as an object is thus contrary to this principle. To him the maxims of moral action are universal or universalizable rules. Aristotle thought that living and acting virtuously is its own reward and he thought that there are 8 moral virtues eg. prudence, justice, fortitude, courage, liberality, magnificence, magninimty and temperance. To him virtue consists of following the middle path, between two vices. Still others think that the basis of morality should be justice, fairness and human rights. No matter what, culture is a part and a source of behavioral expectations and behavioral appraisal which requires usto follow them .

Although many people regard morality to be a uniquely human gift, sublime, ethereal, spiritual or supernatural, moral rules do have their origin in nature, to Eddie, such a view is a the result of a combination of hubris, ignorance of the ways of the natural world and a Christian bias. What makes us moral? Darwin first wrote in the Descent of Man (1871) that " any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience". Plenty of research have been done from the 1970s on. Edward Westermarck's The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (1908), E. O Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975)Peter Singer's The Expanding Circle (1981), Robert Wright's The Moral Animal: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology (94), Marc Hauser's Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think (00), Moral Minds: How Nature designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong (06) ; Michael Shermer's The Science of Good and Evil : Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share and Follow the Golden Rule (04) ) Richard Joyce's The Evolution of Morality (06) Frans de Waal's Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved.(06). Such studies show that morality is not utterly unique to humans. Observations by naturalists have shown that human beings are not the only species which make tool, imitate, think ahead, have a culture and are self-aware and some species show proto-moral behavior towards other adult members of the family or the adult member of the larger social group  like sharing, indications of "fairness", gratitude, self-sacrifice, sympathy and mutual grooming. Human morality has historical, evolutionary antecedents and a biological basis . Just as some prehuman beings have "linguistic capacities", some prehuman beings have "moral" capacities. People develop morality because they are social beings: the need to procreate and to raise the young. For such purposes, sometimes people show concern for their young and disadvantage themselves in their favor and may even put their own life at risk to protect them. Human morality may thus be seen as the extension of more "'short-range" helping behaviors.

A certain amount of regularity and predictability in behavior is required for social co-existence and for the eventual evolution of "morality". To be moral requires a certain empathetic understanding of the thoughts, feelings and actions of others: this is physiologically and neurologically supported by the existence of mirror neurons in the brain of certain higher primates and of the human species. The development of moral rules also requires memory, crucial for preserving and learning from previous interactions with the others and also an ability to inhibit one's own instincts and finally a capacity for detecting and responding to "cheaters" or those who violate normal expectations.Finally, it takes the capacity for "symbolic thought" and the capacity to record and recall such thought in language, in rules and principles Moral codes may be based on tradition, popular views or even force. But no matter how morality originates, there is little doubt that what are specifically religious rules may not be universal or important whilst what is universal and important morally may not be specifically religious. What religion often does is to move the source of authority and the responsibility for the enforcement of rules and institutions out of human hands into the hands of  one or more non-human and super-human sources. They create obligations in those who believe in them. But moral science is now bringing morality back to earth and into the hands of the human beings who create and sustain them!