Since moving to America, I’ve become increasingly disturbed and perplexed at the way in which some people appear to confuse the idea of being religious with that of being moral. Many of those people I’ve met who are not religious seem also to tacitly accept the idea that religious people are moral people by extension.
I feel that America is lacking a vital counterbalancing idea in its popular culture: that religion is immoral.
This is not to say that I necessarily hold this position, or that I believe that everyone should hold it. However, when banning birth control, the victimization of gays and the distortion of science in schools are on the agenda, it is not enough for the Atheist population to sit back and say ‘the Far Right may be moral, but they’re not rational’. The large majority of people in America do not pride themselves on being rational. They pride themselves on being right.
For young people choosing a life philosophy, rationality—with its complex, untidy answers and ethical uncertainties—is surely less enticing to many than a world view that offers that you be right at all times on all issues, without having to have thought about any of it first.
People need to know that if they choose a path of easy answers, that there are others out there who will regard their choices with dismay, or contempt.
This is not to say that all religious paths are easy, or free from critical thought. But to those of a rational persuasion who withhold judgment of the religious, and to those religious people out there who invite challenge and constructive debate, I offer the following intentionally provocative ideas:
How can anyone who gets their answers from a book have any moral courage?
Moral courage is making choices about what you believe is right or wrong, despite what others may feel, and following through on those choices. Real moral courage, then, would entail holding an opinion when the book you turn to would tell you to do otherwise. How, then, can following the Bible, Koran, or any other text, entail any kind of moral courage?
Moral courage is making the right choice regardless of the cost. One does something right not because you are going to be rewarded for it, but because it is right. Real moral courage in a religious person would mean the willingness to do the right thing even if it meant going to hell. It would mean being ready to ignore religious law. In effect, it would mean being indifferent to scripture, and to the opinions of God.
How then, can someone who follows religious law be said to have a moral center?
Ask a religious person what they were like before they found God. Were they making better or worse choices? How do they feel they’d do if they didn’t have God to turn to? Chances are they’ll tell you that they were making worse choices before they were converted, and that they’d make worse choices without their faith.
Can it be said, then, that these people have a moral center of their own? I know I have a moral center. I can make moral choices without faith. What is it about certain people that they require this external commodity of faith in order to make decisions that they can feel proud of? Either these people lack some inner strength that moral Atheists have without effort, or through having faith, an independent moral center never develops.
Many might reply by saying that God is one’s moral center. This reply is inadequate. God plays no part in my life. I am moral, and yet feel no desire whatsoever to join a church. Where then does my morality come from. The devil? If so, the devil tells me not to kill, to turn the other cheek, and to bring what goodness I can into the world. Not a very convincing devil.
It would seem to me then that following scripture is at best a morally indifferent life choice. To imagine that thoughtlessly following some prewritten dogma permits one to claim some kind of moral superiority is an offensive creed that should receive only limited tolerance. And to attempt to willfully impose that degraded mode of behavior and thought on others is a kind of sin in its own right.
To put it bluntly: how religious you are has nothing to say about the validity of the moral choices you make.
You may disagree. But next time you encounter people who believe that their faith gives them the right to claim instant moral judgment, remember that you retain the right to judge them on your own terms, and to let them know it. After all, a functioning multi-cultural society is not one where people withhold their opinions from each other. It is one in which each person has the courage to state their beliefs, and the courage to listen to others without resorting to indignation.