Perhaps the most widely used quote to explain why religion has the monopoly on morality is actually a miss-quote. In Dostoevsky'sThe Brothers Karamazovthe writer is often attributed with the quote, ""If God does not exist, everything is permitted." While this is indeed what the character it was attributed to felt, he never said the quote (Cortesi). This obvious, yet still propagated, misquotation is a small model of a larger misassumption. A quick browse on any internet search engine for morality will bring a predictable yet interesting slew of religious websites demanding that morals come from divine providence and without these absolute rules society would fall (Mohler). After this fallacious propagation of his own religion-tinted superiority, Mohler proceeded to attack Major Nidal Malik Hasan's morality as cause for the recent Fort Hood shootings. Mohler fell just short of claiming that good Christian morals would have prevented Hasan from becoming a murderer. This is a dangerous assumption that religion and religious authority make. Religion does not dictate decent human morality and has itself been responsible for some of the most immoral acts in history.
Morality is not something created by a God nor something created by current society. Morals come from a much larger and more robust history than any declaration or religious text can claim. Our race owes its sense of right and wrong to our Paleolithic ancestors who developed morality for the simple purpose of survival. Our race would never have evolved into civilization without morals. It was not civilization that begat morality, but morality and ethics that begat civilization (Shermer 19). Reaching its 150th anniversary this year Darwin'sOn the Origin of Speciesrevolutionized the way mankind looked at his own creation. This evolution in philosophy also allowed humanity to look at morality without any divine supervision. Secular humanism began to grow exponentially and the monotheistic god of all major religions was being chased from the dusty corners of our past. We continue to find evidence today that supports the theory of natural selection while running "God" from his bolt holes. Just recently research has been done to prove Darwin's theory that natural selection can introduce new variations of species (Santa Fe Institute). This usurpation of religion's control has caused the more militant of the religious to gravitate to one of the only things left that science cannot conclusively expel god from; morality.
Unfortunately for religion, the advancement of science, psychology, and philosophy have made the argument of divine morality shaky at best and solipsistic at worse. Frank Turek, an advocate for religion over science has accused science of taking all the decisions, emotions, and convictions of mankind and simplifying them into just chemicals (Turek 122). Turek happens to be absolutely right. He argues to the arrogance that seems to dwell within each of us. For all our thoughts, dreams, and ideas to be reduced to something as simple as chemical reaction is too demeaning for many to accept. Science neglects ego to discover truth. Our decisions and morals are indeed just chemical reactions within our brains. This is the very thing that makes them so special. One has to wonder why any religion would even attempt to argue this point. History has shown that when it comes to moral action religion has strayed from the golden rule, to a much bloodier and violent one.
Volumes could be, and have been, written about religious atrocities, but we will only skim over the slightly more colorful and still ongoing varieties of religious moral superiority. The shining archetype of the immorality of religion and its ability to corrupt decent people would be the suicide bomber. As far back as World War II suicide bombing was used by the Axis powers to chilling effect. The Japanese had special flight units popularly called Kamikazes, which loosely translates to "divine wind". These Kamikaze units would willingly crash their airplanes into ships and other military targets to effect massive devastation. Over 2000 pilots willingly sacrificed their lives at the whim of their Emperor who was considered a God-King (Coombes). If we fast forward to today a far more brutal religion employs suicide attacks for both political and theological reasons. The entire suicide bombing business is religious in nature. All suicide bombing is considered justified and moral by using religious doctrine and edict (Bukay). To commit an act as atrocious as this one has to be convinced they are justified and only religion could coerce people into believing this was indeed okay. As Steven Weinberg once said, "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it 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 (Weinberg)."
While the list of stupendous immorality on the part of world religions range from genocide to genital mutilation, it would be inaccurate to claim that all the worlds ills stem from religion and religious morality. Whenever the issue of morality comes up the religious will undoubtable bring up Joseph Stalin and the Russian Communist Party. This group was a specifically non-religious organization and was responsible for an estimated 20 million deaths. In what was known as the great terror Stalin swept through the ranks of the communist party and military; detaining and executing thousands of believed traitors (Kuromiya 4). It was Stalin who urged the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church during the 30's which resulted almost in its extinction. New evidence shows that it is unlikely that Stalin was a religious fearing atheist, but instead a believer who feared the church's power to control the people. After securing his totalitarian regime he even sought to revive religion in an attempt to garner war support (Radzinsky 472-3). What accusers of atheist-backed immorality do not factor into this example is that atheism is not the catalyst to Stalin's regime. Religious persecution and the death of millions of people were never caused by an atheist edict that demanded blood or punishment. It is only religions that demand of their subjects the death of infidels or the mutilation of children.
It is the crux of the situation. Religions have commandments or hadiths that demand that certain acts be carried out by believers. Some of these acts are considered vile and demented by all but the true fanatic. Even with the denunciation by most religious groups of fanatical murder and mutilation the fact remains that religions ask their followers to commit these acts while maintaining that without religion morality cannot exist. Besides the unparalleled arrogance to think that only a certain group can be moral and just, we as a people should be offended that anyone thinks they know better how we should live our lives. As a species mankind has managed to take care of his neighbor and create vast civilizations, all despite the immoral actions of religion. We continue to evolve and we refine our morals accordingly. It is only when we let the ancient past and the beliefs from the childhood of our species control us, that we are truly an immoral race.
Works Cited
Bukay, David. "The Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings." Middle East Quarterly Fall 2006: 27-36.
Coombes, Will. Divine Wind. 1 January 1995. 28 November 2009 .
Cortesi, David E. Dostoevsky Didn't Say It. 1st January 2000. 27 November 2009 .
Kuromiya, Hiroaki. The Voices of the Dead: Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s. Yale: Yale University, 2007.
Mohler, R. Albert Jr. When Morality Collapses. 27 November 2009. 2009 November 2009 .
Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives. New York City: Anchor, 1997.
Santa Fe Institute. Ecological Speciation by Sexual Selection on Good Genes. 27 November 2009. 28 November 2009 .
Shermer, Michael. The science of good and evil. New York City: Times Books, 2004.
Turek, Frank. I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Athiest. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004.
Weinberg, Steven. "The Constitution Guarantees Freedom From Religion."
The New York Times 20th April 1999: 3.
