It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here. I’m sorry if anyone has been a regular reader. I have been busy with work and other things, and religion hasn’t been in the forefront of my mind lately. I will try to post a little more regularly here in the future.
I was prompted to write today by an article in this week’s Newsweek about John McCain and religion, by Micheal Gerson. I had already been thinking along these lines and this brought it to the front. The article discusses McCain’s religious beliefs and how it affects his views on policy. Or at least it claims to. I don’t think it does. Instead, it discusses McCain’s ethical views and how that affects his policy.
Here is a quote to make my point: “He has shown a stubborn sense of decency and morality that should appeal broadly to Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews and others who are concerned about social issues.” The implication is twofold–that his sense of decency is the same as his religion, and that such a sense of decency would appeal to believers but should not be an appeal to atheists or secular people. Nowhere in the article is there a hint of how McCain’s views actually derive from religion.
Many people think atheists are immoral. They can’t understand how they could have ethics without religion. For many people, religion and morality are synonymous, as in the above quote. But the truth is that most ethical beliefs are not drawn from religion. If you are looking for stories of integrity and decency, the Bible is not a very good source. There is nothing specifically religious about most moral teachings, once you get beyond keeping the Sabbath holy and similar religious rules.
Instead what happens is that whatever ethical beliefs people have, they ascribe them to religion and put them in the sphere of religion. There have been many cases of secular changes in views that are later taken up by religion. Many people today would use religion to explain why they are opposed to slavery or racism or sexism or monarchy, etc., yet in the past religion was used to justify each of those.
This is what happens: people arive at various ethical views based on a variety of reasons, whether it is the BIble or church authority or philosophy or common ethical reasoning. Whatever conclusions they get are then ascribed to religion. People equate ethics and religion. They think they are ethical because of something specifically religious, when in fact all that has happened is that whatever they choose to call ethical becomes part of there religion.
This is why people can’t understand how atheists can be ethical, and why an article discussing the ethical beliefs of John McCain, that lacks a single reference to religious doctrine, can be title “The Gospel of Chaplain John.” People have simply decided that the word moral means religious, and evertyhing within the domain of morality is swallowed up by religion. Things like honesty and compassion exist independently of religion, but we pretend these derive from religion. We might as well just define religion as everything good and then use that definition to prove that nonbelievers cannot be good. Although I do not support McCain, I can admire a sense of decency as much as a believer.
September 19, 2008 at 5:10 pm |
I think you are right. Often ethics does come from a faith perspective, but people are common across the board. There are unethical Christians, Muslims, Athiests, etc. There are also ethical Christians, Muslims, Athiests, etc. The USA has politicized religion and it shouldn’t be.
Man in general is immoral, if you want to look at the broad spectrum. Whether it be Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, one of the Crusaders, etc. As an individual you are still judged by your personal decisions and actions. For a country I guess we look at what you do with those in poverty, how you treat aboriginal people, racial issues, etc.
A person’s religion is their beliefs in the area of both the physical and spiritual realm and how one sees it organized. In this sense a person who believes in no god/God has a religion just as much as a person who does believe in a god/God. We need different terms to deal with those who have a God and those who don’t, because “religion” isn’t it. Maybe Atheists and Theists?