Many claim that even if God did not exist, religion still teaches us morals. Some would say that the proof of existence of God and his wisdom is that he gave us the meanings of right and wrong. One way or the other this is a misunderstanding of the history of man.
Start from evolution being a proved scientific fact. Palaeontology, cell biology, geology all say that beyond reasonable doubt, evolution was the process by which life has come to be the way it is today. Before we evolved into what we are now, we existed as apes. At this stage we exhibited what may be said to be ethics. We protected the young, cared for the old and injured, helped each other and disliked and punished anyone who did not. To modern man these actions would undoubtedly seem virtuous.
Were these in any way morals? I think for it to be called such, these actions would have to, at least sometimes, go against individual's true self interest, to be selfless. So did these actions go against anyone's true self interest? Not really. These actions helped the individual to interact with others and ultimately served the individual. For example, man’s evolutionary grandparents protected the young because 'workers' and hunters were needed for the group. The group served the individual, for example sharing of the kills and provision of care if the individual was injured. So the young were protected for the good of the group which in turn was for the good of the individual. So these actions are based on selfish reciprocity. These actions were a function of evolution, adaptations to working in a group. Through varies evolutionary methods of mutation and sexual selection nature taught apes to work in a social group. This tribal behaviour gave the apes a greater chance of survival. In order to take full advantage of the group apes learned to be ‘moral’.
Fast forward to the dawn of modern man. Without questioning the very existence of God, everyone would agree that at that point in time the rational fear of the dark, snakes and the like, devolved into irrational phobias and superstition. This lead to the very early pagan religions. It would seem obvious to say the mentioned biologically controlled ‘ethics’ got mixed up in sun worshiping and the early debates about the nature of existence.
Fast forward again to the modern, more sophisticated religions. By studying the history of these religions one can see that vast quantities of material for the Holy Scriptures were borrowed from earlier times. Man’s understanding and thinking grew in complexity and simple truths became clouded in layer upon layer of abstraction, ignorance and the politics and power games of the rich and powerful. For example, questioning the authority of establishment of varies religions was deemed a sin and immoral.
Many would say that actually God himself was writing texts through people’s hands. He is the one who gave us rules and laws and morals through Holy Scriptures. It may be true that he was working through people in some way but these Holy Scriptures did not give us our morals. The idea that morals came about only through Scriptures is very convenient for the religions. It gave them the licence to make up their own ethics, their own right and wrong. The establishment used this authority to grab more power and guarantee itself long term survival. However, the idea that morals come from holy texts ignores the facts.
One cannot argue with that fact that the modern morals of man existed before they were “outlined by God”. If one does argue this point, one implies that modern morals did not exist before God wrote them down. We have already seen that this is not true. Morals existed before even writing itself did, because without them early society would not have functioned, humanity would not have survived. Look for example at the Ten Commandments. Is it really true to say that murder was exceptable, that property rights did not exist and perjury was unpunished? Of course not. The ancient Egyptians were doing just fine with their almost identical laws as was the proto-Persian as well as every other early civilisation.
It is true that modern law is based partly on religious rules. In UK at least some very early laws were based on the Bible and other church writings and opinions. But the Bible itself is based on earlier biological necessities of living in a group. I think it very important to wrestle back ethics from the authority of the religious types. The pious have all too often bent and twisted ideas of right and wrong into something very ugly. Torture during the Spanish Inquisition and flying aeroplanes into skyscrapers being some examples.
This leads one to the conclusion that there is no absolute right and wrong. All of ethics become relative. This does not mean that one is allowed to do whatever one wants. Man lives within society. This form of living is far more beneficial to an individual than living outside of society. There must be rules governing the behaviour of men to safeguard freedom of one from another’s force. One is thus free to experiment, explore, create and then trade or give away fruits’ of one’s labour. This allows everyone to benefit from individuals while also protecting them. Thus law is artificial in the sense that it not created by God but it is not arbitrary in its prescription of ethics since they come from the necessities of a functioning society. The development of ethics and law must be based solely on reason.
Ethics come from responsibility to others which is ultimately based on self interest developed by evolution. The Bible simply copied this reality and injected it with a requirement for slavish and unquestioning devotion to the clergy which was used to control the peasantry and enrich the church.
Start from evolution being a proved scientific fact. Palaeontology, cell biology, geology all say that beyond reasonable doubt, evolution was the process by which life has come to be the way it is today. Before we evolved into what we are now, we existed as apes. At this stage we exhibited what may be said to be ethics. We protected the young, cared for the old and injured, helped each other and disliked and punished anyone who did not. To modern man these actions would undoubtedly seem virtuous.
Were these in any way morals? I think for it to be called such, these actions would have to, at least sometimes, go against individual's true self interest, to be selfless. So did these actions go against anyone's true self interest? Not really. These actions helped the individual to interact with others and ultimately served the individual. For example, man’s evolutionary grandparents protected the young because 'workers' and hunters were needed for the group. The group served the individual, for example sharing of the kills and provision of care if the individual was injured. So the young were protected for the good of the group which in turn was for the good of the individual. So these actions are based on selfish reciprocity. These actions were a function of evolution, adaptations to working in a group. Through varies evolutionary methods of mutation and sexual selection nature taught apes to work in a social group. This tribal behaviour gave the apes a greater chance of survival. In order to take full advantage of the group apes learned to be ‘moral’.
Fast forward to the dawn of modern man. Without questioning the very existence of God, everyone would agree that at that point in time the rational fear of the dark, snakes and the like, devolved into irrational phobias and superstition. This lead to the very early pagan religions. It would seem obvious to say the mentioned biologically controlled ‘ethics’ got mixed up in sun worshiping and the early debates about the nature of existence.
Fast forward again to the modern, more sophisticated religions. By studying the history of these religions one can see that vast quantities of material for the Holy Scriptures were borrowed from earlier times. Man’s understanding and thinking grew in complexity and simple truths became clouded in layer upon layer of abstraction, ignorance and the politics and power games of the rich and powerful. For example, questioning the authority of establishment of varies religions was deemed a sin and immoral.
Many would say that actually God himself was writing texts through people’s hands. He is the one who gave us rules and laws and morals through Holy Scriptures. It may be true that he was working through people in some way but these Holy Scriptures did not give us our morals. The idea that morals came about only through Scriptures is very convenient for the religions. It gave them the licence to make up their own ethics, their own right and wrong. The establishment used this authority to grab more power and guarantee itself long term survival. However, the idea that morals come from holy texts ignores the facts.
One cannot argue with that fact that the modern morals of man existed before they were “outlined by God”. If one does argue this point, one implies that modern morals did not exist before God wrote them down. We have already seen that this is not true. Morals existed before even writing itself did, because without them early society would not have functioned, humanity would not have survived. Look for example at the Ten Commandments. Is it really true to say that murder was exceptable, that property rights did not exist and perjury was unpunished? Of course not. The ancient Egyptians were doing just fine with their almost identical laws as was the proto-Persian as well as every other early civilisation.
It is true that modern law is based partly on religious rules. In UK at least some very early laws were based on the Bible and other church writings and opinions. But the Bible itself is based on earlier biological necessities of living in a group. I think it very important to wrestle back ethics from the authority of the religious types. The pious have all too often bent and twisted ideas of right and wrong into something very ugly. Torture during the Spanish Inquisition and flying aeroplanes into skyscrapers being some examples.
This leads one to the conclusion that there is no absolute right and wrong. All of ethics become relative. This does not mean that one is allowed to do whatever one wants. Man lives within society. This form of living is far more beneficial to an individual than living outside of society. There must be rules governing the behaviour of men to safeguard freedom of one from another’s force. One is thus free to experiment, explore, create and then trade or give away fruits’ of one’s labour. This allows everyone to benefit from individuals while also protecting them. Thus law is artificial in the sense that it not created by God but it is not arbitrary in its prescription of ethics since they come from the necessities of a functioning society. The development of ethics and law must be based solely on reason.
Ethics come from responsibility to others which is ultimately based on self interest developed by evolution. The Bible simply copied this reality and injected it with a requirement for slavish and unquestioning devotion to the clergy which was used to control the peasantry and enrich the church.
