Morals without Religion

I am writing about this issue, not just because I am interested in theories of ethics, but because it is not without consequence. It is an unfortunate fact that Socrates and millions of others were imprisoned, tortured, maimed or murdered for their dissenting opinions. Much of that was done in the name of religion, by religious believers upholding "morality." Even in America, witches were burned to death in Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, within a century before the War of Independence. The American Founding Fathers were aware of the gruesome results of too much religion and morality, so they banned it from the new government of the United States. That ban is expressed in the First Amendment prevention of 'an establishment of religion.'
 

In their lust to exercise and retain power, authoritarian rulers elevate their particular moral systems to the status of godly commands. Along the way, such rulers often present themselves as agents of the gods, or as god-like, or even as living gods. The clear purpose of self-promotion to godhood and freezing of morality within religious practices is simply to make everything appear inevitable and unchangeable, hence unarguable. This reduces dissent, because most people accede to the inevitable. Further, it enables a rationale for punishment of dissenters, since they are seen as unreasonable, crazed and even criminal by those who are orthodox. For authoritarian rulers, that is one of the most attractive features of imbedding morality in religion: it disables the critical judgement of believers and incites them to extreme acts in support of the approved belief system.
 

Clearly, separating morality from religion either undermines authority or prevents authoritarians from using it to shore up their position. This is an important disconnection, because both morality and religion usually involve doing certain things and not doing other things. Religion, particularly, is most often expressed in rituals; i.e., cultural practices. Religious believers often conduct their lives according to procedures prescribed by their leaders or in their codes. For example, Muslim women wear some sort of veil, as do old-believer Catholic women in churches. Buddhists are given to lighting incense sticks, spinning prayer wheels and paying money to receive benefits from the gods. Going to a church or temple or mosque on Sunday or Saturday or Friday is a common ritual. Religion establishes control over the group by demanding certain public exercises on a regular basis (that's a ritual). This literally brings people together, and makes them feel they belong to an identified group. Rituals appeal to the inherent (genetic?) inclination of people to bond to a mother, then a family and then a tribe. When people are physically put together and perform the same acts together, a tribal bond forms which is the natural extension of the genetic familial bond. This sort of bonding is related to sexuality, in which mating enables bonding. (Sex is addictive.)
 

You may think, 'Walter is running all over the place,' and to some extent that is true. Nonetheless, religion, sex and morality are deeply tied to politics and governance. The common element in all those things is "bonding;" the ability of humans to form emotional ties to other people. Here, "emotional" means not thought out. No amount of reason ever produced liking for one's partners as in, let's say, a business. Business partnerships are frequently formed as a result of prior personal relationships, not the other way around. At a deeper level, "emotional" is chemical, hormonal and fairly automatic. Whether bonding is the result of genetic makeup or learning, the mechanism involved is fundamentally non-rational.
 

Religious rituals are opportunist parasites on that bonding mechanism. Religious morality is an attempt to intervene in the bonding process, to inject a third party as mediator between the parties. For example, people don't just mate, they are supposed to be married. Marriage requires an extensive regulatory network, because the sexes must be kept apart until authority allows their union. Marriage requires a licensing procedure, and a dissolution procedure (divorce). It requires people to observe large numbers of regulations about the conduct of their lives. Thus, what could be a fairly simple matter is tranformed into complexity. Ritual and morality are the exercises and codes, respectively, intervening in mating to create marriage.
 

When morality is referred to religion, it is reduced to the instructions of authority. That is, to say morality is some god's law is simply to say it is based on authority. Morality so conceived are the actions and thoughts commanded by the gods. Usually, it is the gods' priests who discover what the gods command. Religious morality is rarely left to a person's "conscience," as that would bypass the priests. Of course, to the extent that it is left to the individual, that morality has nothing to do with religion or gods. In that case, morality is just what a person believes it is, which could lead to many different moralities. I am not aware of any (major) religious groups that permit moral anarchy, so I think it safe to say religious morality in fact amounts to the commands of priests. The priests, in turn, claim their commands are based on the directly received words of the appropriate gods, which only they are qualified or able to understand. This is also their justification for interposing themselves between gods and men.
 

So, if we accept the notion that morality requires religion, we usually accept rule by priests. In that case, we also reject the direct intuition of morality by individuals. Morality then appears as commands from on high to the individual: lead life this way or that. It should be clear that such morality is inherently authoritarian. For that reason, those who claim morality requires religion are advocating one form of authoritarian rule. If it stopped there, perhaps we could live with it; but, unfortunately, accepting authority over a major portion of one's behavior usually leads to the acceptance of authority over the rest. That is, the effect of an authoritarian morality is to put people "under control" and to regiment their lives entirely. This is explicitly and publically recognized among so-called "Evangelicals," whose ministers say of non-believers that they are "out of control." Authoritarian morality seeks to make everyone "tow the line," which is why predominantly religious societes are filled with conformists who are reluctant to do anything new or different.
 

But, can morality not be referred to the gods or any authority except the individual conscience? Of course. We all learn the rules of the road as we grow up, and by agreement among ourselves. Most human behaviors are the results of long evolution, and not the inventions of some priesthood. Most people observe the usual moral codes because they make sense in practice, not because the gods wish it so. The prohibition of murder, for example, is a nearly universal social rule because everyone is advantaged by it. The exceptions - war and the death penalty - prove the rule.
 

Almost all of us come to the same conclusions, and follow the same behavioral rules, because we are all human. If one observes the birds and bees, and plants as well, it will be apparent that each species has its own behavioral pattern. We are all made a certain way, and we behave accordingly. That does not require priests or gods. It does require nature to be just what it is; no more, no less.

 

Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictonary defines religon as:
 

Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Anglo-French religiun, Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back ⋅ more at RELY
Date:13th century

1 a : the state of a religious *a nun in her 20th year of religion* b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
 

Note: The idea of binding, restraint, runs through the idea of religion from the start.