Commenting on the view that a society without religion will collapse, Dawkins writes: ‘Perhaps naively, I have inclined towards a less cynical view of human nature than Ivan Karamazov. Do we really need policing – whether by God or each other – in order to stop us from behaving in a selfish and criminal manner? I dearly want to believe that I do not need such surveillance – and nor, dear reader, do you.’
But this overlooks a number of points. First, many people who have strong moral commitments without any religious foundation were shaped by parents or grandparents for whom morality and religion were fundamentally bound up. Moreover, many of those in the forefront of progressive political change, who have abandoned religion, have been driven by a humanism that has been essentially built up by our Christian heritage as Charles Taylor has recently brought out in his magisterial study, A Secular Age. How far are we living on moral capital?
Then, although I believe there is a shard of goodness in every human person, there is a dark side to our nature that it is sentimental to ignore, one which is still wreaking such terrible havoc. As WH Auden put it: ‘We have to love our crooked neighbour with our crooked heart.’ This points to the need for both self-knowledge and grace. At the beginning of this new year, with the world so stricken with growing inequality, corruption, decadence and conflict, each of us, believer and unbeliever alike, need all the help we can get.
Dawkins:
naively, I have inclined towards a less cynical view of human nature than Ivan Karamazov.
I can’t believe that, as a believer, my view of humanity is more cynical than that of an atheist.
Do we really need policing – whether by God or each other – in order to stop us from behaving in a selfish and criminal manner?
Uh, yes we do. Mr. Dawkins, why don’t you go live in an inner city for a while, populated by people who never knew their father, or any structure to their lives other than drugs, prostitution, and violence. See if you can fix these people without policing – be it policing of parenting, religion, or government.
How could anybody who has lived life – no less, a geneticist – fail to see that human civilization is ruled by the survival of the fittest – and roughest, toughest, and nastiest?
It sounds like Mr. Dawkins – in the fine tradition of illogical believers – has fashioned his own hopes and dreams in order to make the logical implications of his own beliefs less scary.
Of course it is possible to be moral without God. The Western ethical tradition is mostly non-theistic, going back to Plato and Aristotle. But that is not the point. There is a deeper question: If God is the ground of being and existence is an expression of God’s grace, then existence is NOT governed by the mechanism of the survival of the fittest.
“Of course it is possible to be moral without God.” Yes, maybe, and no.
If one defines morality as doing I darn well please. Then even I can satisfy those requirements. But if one has an external set of ethics and one defines being moral as not violating that standard with outward actions, then perhaps. But if one takes the proper outlook which is “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother…”, then no one acts morally.
Now, it has been said that we all have a God-given sense of self depravity. Many go through life trying to numb this sense into oblivion. Perhaps, Mr. Dawkins has succeeded, but it is not easy.
As the article alludes to, people can act in a moral fashion without God. But their morality is synthetic and parasitic, constantly referring to theistic moral behavior where its own rootlessness has only lacunae, not unlike the Soviets loosely basing their command economy on the West’s free-market model. Without that template to go by, they wouldn’t have been able to say why a tractor should cost more than a marshmallow.
Marshmallows should cost more; they taste better. ;->
Is it possible to be moral without God? Yes, but Moral behavior without God is merely self-serving. The only motivation to behave morally would be for one’s own ultimate good, pleasure, sense of well-being or for the praise, love and adoration from self or other people. Or maybe from your dog.
6 the point of Marxist dialectics was to create a non theological morality. One is moral in that construct if one’s actions are consistent with the demands of the historical period. Ergo, the revolutionary quip that “when making omelettes it is necessary to break eggs”.
Is is possible to be really moral even with God, since we are all sinners?
I guess it all boils down to where you think you will spend the most time. Here, on Earth with “The Worlds” morallity, or in Heaven, with your Brother and Heavenly Father. Me? I’ll plan for the latter.
bl