Sharpe's Opinion
Friday, 13th Feb, 2009
Religion Doesn’t Fit With Western Values
Tom Harris is learning about moral relativism:
At the risk of being accused of ‘appeasing’ anyone, you could argue that Christianity, like Islam, is similarly incompatible with western values: the Bible teaches that women should be subservient to their husbands, that homosexuals and adulterers should be killed (or, in New Testament terms, at least condemned as sinful), that slavery can be tolerated and that a man whose testicles have been crushed can’t go to church (check out Deutoronomy if you don’t believe me, though I imagine that if you had just suffered that fate you might have concerns other than whether or not the kirk elders are going to let you into the 11.30 am service).
In fact, I would argue that. I have argued that. This is why secularists like me want religious organisations to stay out of politics. Religion has no bearing on morality, and I’d argue that it never has.
Ask yourself this question: If God didn’t exist, would I still want to be a good person? If the answer is yes, you’d lose nothing in a secular world. If the answer is no, faith is the least of your problems.
Comments
“I can’t agree with you that religion has never had a bearing on morality, or immorality for that matter, though not as bad as the Roman Catholics claimimg that all are born evil”
Why not? There’s a perfectly good evolutionary case for morality – if early humans had all gone round murdering each other in an unsustainable manner then there wouldn’t be many of us left, would there? Likewise if we’d all slept with our siblings we’d have died out through genetic diseases.
The only early humans likely to flourish would have been the ones who didn’t engage in these activities. That can also serve to explain why homosexuality (and bestiality) were such terrible sins in the ancient texts – humans who are likely to procreate wouldn’t engage in those activities.
…And now we’re back to the fable about the caged monkeys, the banana and the hose.
All that the various religions can claim is to be the oldest surviving record of morality. There’s no evidence to suggest that the Bible (Koran, Tanakh, etc) is the source of the rules. Just the first version we have that is written down.
Not getting your on this one, Stu. Are you suggesting that moral rules for Homo sapiens have been derived through evolution rather than experience?
Both. In the first instance, we learn right and wrong from out experiences as children. However, collective morality almost definitely, to my mind, has an evolutionary origin. That’s why every society on Earth, no matter how disconnected or primative, seem to share a fundamental set of basic moral codes – don’t kill, don’t commit incest, etc etc.
To explain how behaviour is influenced by evolution (either in The Selfish Gene or The Blind Watchmaker, can’t remember which), Richard Dawkins’ had the best analogy: that of a chess computer. Genes, he said, were like a programmer writing software for the chess computer. They can’t directly influence the behaviour of the chess computer during the game, but they can provide a set of rules for a set of situations, which the computer can then use to decide which move to make. In the same way, our genes, through natural selection, are able to provide a set of default behaviours which we then use to live our lives and make our decisions. In some individuals it doesn’t always happen exactly right, and sometimes the rules backfire or get lost, but as a society the system is stable and we all have a set of collective morals.
…And then some clever man writes them down, and suddenly we have a religion.
You last para asks a person to assess themselves based on their moral interpretation as seen through their eyes, whereas a religion theoretically sets standards whatever your circumstances. Also, one can have faith without following a religion; that religious people have tried to nick the term for themselves is annoying, and reminiscent of the appropriation of the word ‘gay’.
I can’t agree with you that religion has never had a bearing on morality, or immorality for that matter, though not as bad as the Roman Catholics claimimg that all are born evil.
Some questions I’d like answered include:
why are secularists, particularly in the US, thought of as pinko wackos and how long before our minds are correctly realigned?
if I decided that a supreme being existed, which religion is the right one?
haven’t we learned enough about religion by seeing how Scientology became one?
As much as I agree with you that religion should be kept separate from politics, it clearly can’t until the Head of State and CofE separate and that ain’t going to happen until Her Maj finds out for herself.
ladytizzy
February 13, 2009 at 2:28 pm