Religion as a basis for morality

In his book The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky writes the following “if god does not exist, everything is permitted.” According to Dostoevsky, and theists in general, once you remove God from the equation, there is no reasoning for morality.

The fear of the lack for a secular moral basis, is a big reason for the religious appeal to otherwise rational people.


After observing the behavior of both groups, the theist and the atheist, I’ve noticed that it’s simply not the case, and often it’s even the opposite, morality for religious people, tend to extend mostly to people sharing the same believes, and even then it doesn’t necessarily include business practices, or when it contradicts the individual’s self interest.

I recently came across the United Nations human development report, while going over the list, it was apparent that the atheistic societies, are ranked on top for gender equality, charity, and the least homicides, and the bottom is populated by the most religious societies.


The dileama of morality, why be moral, or why are we moral, is an ongoing debate within the philosophical community, almost every philosopher struggled with this question.
There are a range of different theories for morality; they include, morality being entirely influenced by exterior reasons, to it being an innate quality.

One of many, is the social contract theory by John Lock, according to this, it’s a choice society has made, for its survival, and comfort, (Lock used it first as an explanation for morality, Socrates and then Plato used it as the foundation for social law) and the Richard Dawkins theory, caring/sharing being innate due to evolutionary sexual selection.


I hope that at some point humanity will discover a conclusive reasoning for morality, in the mean time, I’ll focus on the phenomena of theists being less moral then their contemporaries.


First let’s take a look at the text that is supposed to be the moral grounds for religious morality, they include the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Quran, in there the danger of using god as a moral authority is apparent, there you get reasoning to kill in the name of God when the underlying reason is nationalism and ignorance; it’s the cradle of racism and bigotry.


The above is a testament to what happens when God is used in a subjective manner, to serve the needs of the day, God did not create the golden rule, and so didn't he order genocide, but only in the name of the organized ideal, the good and the bad has enough merit, to make its believers act in his name and only in his name, since otherwise this same individuals, wouldn't be able to morally justify, such immoral behavior.


It’s the same when it comes to personal moral reasoning, if you use God as a moral source, you are left with a subjective outcome, when the reasoning for being righteous in personal or business dealings, is because of the word of God, you will have the backing of God when ones subjective consciousness leads him to a biased outcome, even if it’s not morally right, and once you have god on your side, there is no need for second guessing you are not even allowed to.


On the other hand the theist who is moral let’s assume because of the social contract theory, there will be a constant measure for morality, does the outcome fit into the contract, and even if personal bias would lead to the wrong conclusion, at least there is no religious conviction, therefore he/she would constantly second guess themselves.

21st century contradictions

We live in a fast paced society, events, issues, and innovations [technological and scientific] diminish, vanish, and are rendered obsolete.

They are rapidly replaced by new circumstances, knowledge, and discoveries; it’s what we call progress.

I didn’t write for a couple of months due to personal challenges, and my last post seems to have been written decades ago.

Luckily there is evidence that these events and people existed and were in the limelight in the not so distant past, just Google the names Sara Pailin or Dick Cheney.


Sadly enough progress on the issues of Religion, Racial divide, or for that matter most issues that are results of ignorance, progresses in a much slower, or even at a backwards pace.

You could have a discussion today with a stranger on the street, and if you would close your eyes, you might experience a fast paced ride to the past, right into the middle ages.


The other day I was approached by a Jehovah’s Witness missionary, a nice young gentleman, who took upon himself to spread the word of God, to the unfortunate sinners out there.

At first I was repulsed and said no, but he was polite and persistent, an interesting combination.

Then curiosity crept in, why does he seem so confident? A want to make him question arose in me.
I decided to go for it, (I started out by asking him, what makes you so sure that there is a god, and your religion presents his word. Most of his explanations and proclamations, where prototypical religious dogmas and believes. Perhaps the whole debate should be dedicated for another post.)

In the middle of conversation I was shocked by his proclamation “did you know that the whole evolution theory was recently debunked, it was in the papers,” and quote “they found a fossil [presumably they are the scientists] that debunks it all.”

I opened my eyes looked around, I realized there are cars buses passing by, looked at him again, he was well dressed, perfectly groomed in short everything looked so 21st century, forward moving and yet his words, beliefs.

I realized that there are millions of people, who cannot and will not recognize, and accept all the scientific discoveries and revelations, progress that has been made especially since Charles Darwin introduced his book On The Origins Of Species in 1859, on understanding our origins, all the proof that our universe is billions of years old and that its constantly evolving and expanding through the force of nature, due to ancient believes and myths despite of clear proof to the contrary.

The two realities science, knowledge, and proof on one side, and darkness, ignorance, and superstition on the other, one progressing forward and the other backwards, the contradiction was very blatant.

I’m happy to report though, that when our conversation was over, that confidence was shattered.


Another recent event I was astonished by is the Professor Henry Gates arrest controversy.

Here we have our first African American president Barak Obama, and professor Gates who teaches at Harvard, Yale and other universities for over 20 years.

If the only conclusion individuals that are leaders of our society, to an arrest for something that has been reported as a burglary, is that it must have been an act of racial profiling, since the individual making the arrest is from a different racial denomination by, then how could it be that the same racial group entrusted them with the task they currently perform Obama as president and Gates as educator.

They wouldn’t have been able to be where they are at, should their understanding, on the state of our progress as a society been true.

Yet again a stark contradiction exists, some move forward and others by backwards.

The media and dick Cheney

On first thought those two shouldn’t be lumped together in one sentence, the media reports news, and Cheney is a politician, but there is a common denominator, both seemingly follow the same motto “the end justifies the means”.

How else could we explain the following?

Following the Charlie Gibson interview with Sara Pailin, the media mocked her as inexperienced for asking “in what respect Charlie”, to the question what do you think of the bush doctrine, but the truth is there is no bush doctrine at least an official one proclaimed by bush as his doctrine, Bush has announced different policies throughout his presidency, which include; encouraging democracy around the world, to secure ourselves from countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups, among others. Non as his official doctrine, see this article regarding the supposed Bush Doctrine.

Throughout the first couple of weeks when Pailin was announced as McCains running mate the media came up with different lies for instance the New Yorker cover showing Pailin looking for Rusia through her window, when in fact she had said something totally different [see full interview here] to squash her growing popularity.

The difference between democracy and dictatorship is in part having a free press, a media that could report the truth to the people, and let the public decide the direction they want their government to take.

We don’t need, the media to decide for us, and assist us in making the right choice by lying to us, using the same moral underline as dick Cheney, who lied when he wanted to go to war, because he thought that the war is important, they are not better than us the people, the American people have the capacity to make the correct choice when presented with the truth.

What we do need, is a media that will report the truth, in this case tell us what are the policies of those who want to be elected as our leaders, the American people have the right to choose the candidate whose policies they approve of most, we need politicians that tell us the truth about the dangers lurking on our country, and let the American people decide if its worth going to war.

Intelligent design, chance, and tail wagging, what do they have in common?

How our universe and ourselves came to be, is a question asked since the dawn of human history, but is it really something that we could figure out?

Mankind has tried to come up with different answers, some of them are more logical then others, and each of them serve different needs in our day to day life.

For instance the intelligent design theory: it tries to apply reason and compare our existence to our own creation ability, typically when we encounter a somewhat complex object or mechanism, we will assume based on prior experience and knowledge that it was designed through intricate thought out processes.

The chance theory: appeals to those that need an explanation how this intelligence that was theoretically able to create our universe came about, since absent an explanation, we are at square one not understanding how we came to be.

Fable creation: serves those who choose to close their minds completely and believe in the ancient ways of thinking and explaining complex things.

A pretext to a theory is either a need to explain a phenomena, that will be able to predict a future occurrence, behavior, or an explanation on how it happens and how it could be reproduced.

In order for us to have the ability to know and understand any given subject, we might start out with theory, but it remains theory until it could be proven by being reproduced or experienced.

To date there is no method for reproducing or experiencing the creation of the universe and life, there is nothing within the boundaries of this universe that has that ability.

Therefore coming up with theories on how our universe and ourselves came to be, at this point is no more than fable, conjecture, and speculation, that has been tweaked to serve the need of the creator of theory.

This is awesome

A US judge has thrown out a case against God, ruling that because the defendant has no address, legal papers cannot be served.

The suit was launched by Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers, who said he might appeal against the ruling.

He sought a permanent injunction to prevent the "death, destruction and terrorisation" caused by God.

Judge Marlon Polk said in his ruling that a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a case to proceed.

"Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice," Judge Polk wrote in his ruling.

Mr Chambers cannot refile the suit but may appeal.

'God knows everything'

Mr Chambers sued God last year. He said God had threatened him and the people of Nebraska and had inflicted "widespread death, destruction and terrorisation of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants".

He said he would carefully consider Judge Polk's ruling before deciding whether to appeal.

The court, Mr Chambers said, had acknowledged the existence of God and "a consequence of that acknowledgement is a recognition of God's omniscience".

"Since God knows everything," he reasoned, "God has notice of this lawsuit."

Mr Chambers, a state senator for 38 years, said he filed the suit to make the point that "anyone can sue anyone else, even God".

Latino and African American comparison

Yesterday I was listening to NPR while driving, on the air was a show about arts, politics, and race, and how they are interrelated with one another, it was a joint program of Latino and African American artists.

It occurred to me that some Latinos are trying to compare themselves to African Americans in regards to race and minority status claiming to be a disadvantaged minority in the United States.

I was amazed at that comparison being that the African American people were not allowed to vote until recently, had to sit in the back of the bus, could not attend the same schools as the white, did not have access to higher education, all of this was inherent in the laws of this country, were deemed to be a negro race for thousands of years a philosophy that is integrated into the Judeo-Christian religion as is stated in the old testament.

The Latinos who are descendants of Spain who were big culprits in the slave trade, they were never banned voting rights, education, were not perceived to be of lesser race, nor denied anything by the laws of this country, somehow are trying to compare themselves to the African American people.

Yet what some Latinos are suffering is an integration period, and cultural difference, the same hardships as the Jews, the Irish, and every large group that have migrated to this country endured.

In the case of Latinos it seems to be a prolonged hardship brought on by unwillingness to assimilate and adept to their new country being very proud of their origins, you walk into some predominant Latino neighborhoods and the spoken language is Spanish even amongst the second generation.

Having said all that, nothing is wrong with clinging to your traditions and culture, it might even be cherished by some, yet you can’t expect the average American to accept you as an American when all you try to do is not be an American.

Using a vague similarity of hardships which are, poverty, high crime rates, and higher unemployment then the rest of the population, to liken themselves to the African Americans, seems to be a cynical ploy to gain what every other group acquired through hard work, trying to acquire it via free handouts, quotas, and free social benefits, which the African Americans earned by all their suffering in this country.