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Perhaps the second biggest concern to anyone investigating atheism is in regard to the subject of morality. If an atheistic worldview is assumed by an individual – that person being confident enough to conclude that any evidences for the existence of a deity are insufficient to warrant belief in – the next subject considered in connection with unbelief is moral accountability. Why be moral without God? What incentive is there to do right verses wrong? What is "right" and "wrong" without a concept of a supernatural god anyway? If God does not exist, then isn't morality completely relative, with no principles of ethical guidance and directional stability whatsoever?

For some, these are the really big questions that burn to be answered. I say, for some, because it is mostly religious people who feel like they need answers on this matter. Having been a theist, I understand these questions. Some believers honestly do not know how and why non-religious thinkers live stable, upright lives, and how we can call a thing "good" or "bad" with any sort of meaning. To atheists and other grades of freethinkers, morality is a very simple subject, explained completely by naturalistic principles.

A secular morality is composed of two core components. Those components are Contract Behavior and Enlightened Self-interest.

I. Contract Behavior: the basis of all morality

Contract behavior is a mandatory arrangement of standards or rules which must exist to keep a society in order. This is not a layout of any particular set of laws or moral regulations, per se, but a simple principle that allows societies to remain intact when all the members of a group agree to abide by certain ethics and rules. Generally, all intelligent animals – not just humans – honor this principle without thinking about it or putting a name on it.

Humans have rules that say stealing is wrong and that murdering one's own kind (without cause or provocation) is wrong. The entire human family has these rules, but so do bears, wolves, lions, and baboons. So too with each and every intelligent form of life in existence which happens to be higher than mindless bacteria or base organisms that operate on instinct only. Granted, the specifics of the morals are different from group to group, from species to species, but the high points of contract behavior are the same. Try stealing a lion's food—you will find out the hard way that they have a principle against stealing as well!

And despite what some would have us believe about the animal kingdom, animals seldom kill outside of necessity. They kill based on their own systems of morality and need. Wolves will attack any one member of their pack who tries to mate if he is not the alpha dog. One bear will attack another to safeguard their cubs. Lions will kill the offspring of another male to preserve his own seed and to protect himself when he is older. Baboons may well kill each other fighting over a mate. Peacocks, despite possessing colorful beauty and mobile grace, carry out vicious, competitive bouts to claim their highly prized mates. However terrible these "laws of the jungle" may seem to civilized you and I, they are rules nonetheless, rules that remain constant and help to enhance and preserve the species that adopts them. There is method behind the madness!

The more complex a society or species becomes (i.e. humans over lions), the higher the form of morality that society or species adopts. Humans face multifaceted issues that lions don't face. A human boy must determine what he should do when he is dumped by his girlfriend. In a rage, he can kill her, or he can seek the affections of someone else and try to make her jealous, or he can cut his losses and move on with his life. A father must decide whether he should have an affair with his secretary and risk his wife finding out, or whether or not he can live with himself, knowing that by having the affair he is breaking her trust. He knows he would be disappointed if she did the same to him. A boss must decide how to reprimand an employee who breaks the company rules. He can fire him and tell him to get his stuff and get out of the building, and risk coming off like a hard ass, or he can sit him down calmly at his desk and politely tell the man that for the sake of the company and himself, it would be best if he started looking for a job elsewhere.

But since animals don't face complex issues like we do, this sometimes gives us the illusion that we are not animals, but something "higher." This simply isn't true. It is typical human arrogance that causes us to see ourselves in that light. We are every bit just as much animal as our primate, meat-eating cousins, despite our enormous 1400 cc brain sizes. We have the same basic emotions, like love, confusion, excitement, and anger. We play and show juvenile aggression in games of competition and challenges. We kill members of our species (sometimes without a worthy cause). We break laws and contracts we make with each other, whether verbally or written. We fight over mates and show egotistical tendencies in relationships with our fellow man. On and on we could go. We might look down on our distant animal kindred, but their issues are just as significant to them as ours are to us. A wolf who refuses to dismount mating because he is not the alpha dog with rites to mate, must defend himself or be killed. Occasionally, that wolf leaves the pack and decides to start his own—most of the time a very dangerous maneuver! That wolf is ostracized or ex-communicated, much like a shunned, impenitent church member who leaves the fold. In a simplistic way, animals, like humans, break contracts—the agreements they make to live with each other.

Chickens have a "pecking order." Should any chicken peck out of that order, they will be chastised. That is their way. The members in the wrong must suffer the consequences for their actions (wounds, ostracism, death, etc.). They have an evolved working order to which they hold, a basic form of morality, the beginnings of culture even. So the same principle that tells lions not to steal from one another teaches humans and bears and baboons the same lesson—a society cannot exist without social structure, and therefore, a "wrong" and a "right." These terms have differing meanings between species, but they are always constructed out of the need for social order and survival. Regulations supporting these socially ordered behaviors are contracts, and contracts upheld and contracts broken form the basis of moral or immoral behavior. Thus, I refer to the principle as Contract Behavior.

So it should go without saying that animals are completely “moral” in their respective ways without a god. They don’t go around unsatisfied about how their acts of compassion and aggression are useless because a spirit is not commanding them. Animals conform because their society and their identification with it demands that they conform so. The incentive is acceptance by the fellow members of their group, and the purpose behind it is that they find satisfaction in doing what makes them useful units to their groups. Emotional creatures need the love and support of their kind. If they do "wrong" they are ostracized, if "right" they are praised. The terms "right" and "wrong" only have meaning according to the accepted ways of the given species. The animal kingdom is full of species that feel need and significance in honoring the standards of their own societies without the slightest feeling that their ways are more or less meaningful without a deity. They have not the faintest knowledge of the existence of a god, no fear of burning in a place of fire for refusing to live a certain way. They don't for a moment suppose that if there is no chicken or wolf or lion god, that their ways are useless and that they can do whatever they want without fear of consequences. There is nothing more natural than the development of moral systems of order.

Is there a single reason why the answers above do not equally apply to human animals? If naturalistic drives and the erecting of primal laws to keep a society of animals together is sufficient for animals, why would this be insufficient for humans? Not only is God not needed for morality, but the idea of a god-ordained system of authority only gets in the way of a naturalistic morality.

The highlights of morals were made to keep social order and maintain the status quo. Even if it could be conclusively shown that no god existed, this would not make stealing or cold-blooded murder one bit more acceptable to a society; and if it could be indisputably demonstrated that a god exists, this would not make conforming to principles of social order as we know them one bit more right. Morals exist apart from a divine being. At least as far as morality is concerned, a god is superfluous. The existence of such a being adds nothing to the mix of what humankind determines is good or evil.

Humans are complex creatures, living in complex and diverse cultures. It cannot be a fair statement to say that there is anything simple about the species, Homosapiens, but one thing unites us all – not a god – but contract behavior. The Head hunters of Borneo are a warrior people, and though they have been recently touched with a hint of civilization, tribal violence still occurs in their homeland of Malaysia. These warriors are taught from birth that to be a "good" head hunter and to earn the right to mate as an adult, you must take the head of one of your enemies. This has been their way for thousands of years, and no matter how terrible it may seem to us westernized Americans, it has worked well for them, much like human sacrifices in the old world. These were not reckless, uncoordinated murders. They were ritual executions, important and cherished rites.

I would love to step out and take a long look down on these people and call them "evil." I believe they are, but not from an anthropological point of view. They are not "evil" by their standards, though they would be considered so by my own. But despite the drastic moral differences between more civilized peoples and the Head Hunters, contract behavior still joins us. Many states and countries still impose the death penalty for certain crimes in place of beheadings. While I see serious differences between this and hunting heads, the value of each practice serves a purpose to each society. These are not examples of chaos or lack of moral order, they are regulations, regardless of whether an individual considers them morally upright and civilized or not. We could spend quite a long time listing examples of regulated third world cultures which, aside from falling short of our expectations for humanitarian excellence, manage to maintain a working culture where chaos does not abound. In order to survive, contract behavior had to be in place or the society could never have survived.

My Critics

Naturally, the points made thus far are not beyond criticism. My critics will argue that my comparison of animal and human moral systems is invalid, that animals cannot be called “moral or immoral” in any true sense of the word because humans have the ability to conceptualize, to think ahead and make decisions between options, whereas animals are limited to not much more than instinct. This objection is moot.

The difference between the advanced decision-making abilities of humans and the instinctual actions of animals is one of degree only. The complexity of human morals and the ability to choose between many options comes from evolution; our intellects surpass those of the animal kingdom, but we still operate like animals. Our drives are primal; love, hate, anger, excitement, curiosity, embarrassment, fear, and jealousy are animal emotions. And it is humbling to consider that despite our species’ complexity, we are every bit as predictable as any other animal species.

It cannot be denied that because of our intelligence humankind affects the world in a more extensive way than do animals. Humans are capable of saving wildlife and committing genocide on a much larger scale than the animals ever could, but the fact remains that the principle of what is morally sufficient for the animal kingdom is sufficient for the kingdom of man. Contract Behavior is sufficient; societies can survive in degrading conditions, so long as the basics of morality are intact (prohibitions against murder and theft). Moral precepts of man beyond these are merely additives.

The Additives

Being that we have conceded man’s animal nature, his complexity, and his incredible diversity, we must be careful to distinguish between contract behavior and false additives to it, which are extraneous as far as survival is concerned. Moral necessity and utilitarian thinking is not the only means by which ethics are established. Religion provides the rules for many people. These rules, believed to have been spoken by God, are considered ultimate laws. They cannot be broken without suffering the consequences. God makes the rules and we have to abide by them, so they say. But religious laws are superfluous; Muslim Shariah law is one example; Christian-based laws, as set up during the colonial period, is another.

In 1682, Pennsylvania’s Great Law declared that only Protestant Christian worship was to be allowed, and if this law was violated three times, death was the penalty—so much for the idea that the colonists came to America to set up a society of religious liberty! In fact, all laws – including almost all secular laws – are the particulars of every human society, and are thus additives. Man loves to employ policies and laws in the name of keeping order. He sets up state, federal, and local laws to improve the quality of life, but these are not absolutely necessary for survival. They only help out.

Distinguish between the natural principles of contract behavior and those contracts made out of religious piety between gods or religious leaders. They may all involve agreements, but when we speak of contract behavior, we are speaking of strictly utilitarian laws. Religious teachings are not. They rely on submission to a spiritual leader. They are extraneous, and more often than not, useless, but contract behavior and religion can sometimes overlap. That is, religion is seen as a means to preserve moral order. In reality, it is not needed, but it can act in conjunction with natural principles of contract behavior underneath the religious garb.

For instance, in many parts of Afghanistan, the police enforce religious ordinances along with prohibitions against theft and murder. To them, Muslim law should be bound on all people just as surely as principles like “thou shalt not steal.” Here is where the secularist draws the line. We don’t serve a god. We refuse to submit ourselves to the laws of one. Why should I submit myself to the laws of a god I have no faith in? I put no stock in Hindu rules for life. Such rules are needless to me, but for the people that submit themselves to this system of religious authority, the rules are important because, in their case, Hinduism attaches to itself the enforcement of contract behavior, which, as we have seen, binds and directs lives. It has power over them like our own beliefs do over us, and the world continues to go round—morality intact. I already have a respect for contract behavior, for naturalistic principles of moral conformity. Men may disagree on the particulars, specifically where devoutly religious people are involved, but we can keep order in our disagreements. We don’t need the laws of a higher power to preserve moral order. Therefore, as an atheist, I will bypass the gods and go straight to the morality they supposedly represent.

Relativism, Government, and the Iron Rule

About now, a theist accuses the naturalist of belief in moral relativism, the idea that what has been presented here is nothing more than my opinion, and that without a god, I am left with no decisive answers on what is good and what is bad. I can, after all, say “to hell with society” and decide to take a baseball bat to everyone I don’t like! Much hogwash has come from religious and irreligious people alike as they discuss “objective” verses “subjective” morality, when those on both sides use the terms only at the expense of understanding morality. Call it a product of relativism or absolutism, but true morality comes ultimately from need. The individual and the society both play a part; the individual searches out the moral side of things. He follows his own moral compass, but society doesn’t work that way. Societies and governments are concerned with utilitarian and pragmatic concerns. Governments are not moral or immoral—they are effective or ineffective. It is their job to enforce what works, not what is “right.”

Because contract behavior-based morality deals only with the bare essentials of surviving, when we speak of moral considerations beyond mere survival, we are “going off the map,” so to speak, into uncharted moral waters. Life on an island may be simple as a small group of men and women do what they must to preserve moral order, and this will consist of making non-complicated moral calls. There is simplicity in a small society, but this simplicity is thrown out the window with a nation and a government. In preserving themselves, societies and their governments become lone wolves. It is sometimes in a nation’s best interest to wage war on another nation in efforts to preserve their way of life. At this point, we are not talking about “moral” or “immoral,” only feasible and unfeasible. Contract behavior doesn’t help us anymore.

By what standard is a suicide bomber to be judged? Under what law are we to prosecute the leader of a foreign land for “war crimes”? When heinous acts are done selflessly and in the name of a greater good, what wrong was committed? The suicide bomber who blows himself up because he believes he is killing the enemies of his people who are trying to steal his land is not doing a bad thing—except in the eyes of outsiders who do not understand his plight. A president or a king who defeats his opposition may be a murderer in the eyes of his enemies, but he is serving and preserving his country as many would see it.

When we began this chapter, we examined the simple moral connections between intelligent animals and showed how basic wrongs and rights in nature run through each species. But now we present the limitations of contract behavior. Murder is a defined term. It can only be committed in view of a society’s definition of it because what is murder to some is not murder to others. The same with theft. In war, plundering the enemy’s camp and taking weapons is good strategy, not “evil.” But when terms like murder and theft are defined in the eyes of societies and applied within, we find that they are identical in each society. Every society must have these prohibitions or they will not survive—that is what objective morality is. All other moral convictions are essentially subjective, changing with times and cultures. There can be no agreement on these things. As complex as the human species is, with its brain-bending problems and ethical dilemmas, there are not, nor will there ever be easy answers to our problems. Having bigger brains than primates often doesn’t help us in goodness and virtue. It only complicates our decisions and drops us in the center of a confusing and elaborate maze of decisions, from which we cannot escape.

Godless Morality and the Balancing of Societal Morality

The dogmatically religious (particularly those of the Christian persuasion) tend to view godless morality in a very childish way. They seem to think that upon becoming an atheist, a formerly decent person will be more inclined to become a morally dissolute thug. But people do not forget their upbringing and moral conditioning because they lose faith in a religion. People do not suddenly decide to go on a pick-axing spree because mom and dad’s old time religion didn’t pan out for them.

Any one of any belief system is capable of doing horrible things, and people do such things; rape, extortion, bank robberies, murders, domestic violence, muggings, and hate crimes happen all the time. Anyone can become a criminal if they choose to, and when they do, they mark themselves as enemies of the greater good who must be dealt with accordingly. So should I decide that I don't care about others, but only myself, and decide that it is in my best interest to rob a bank, thinking I can get away with it, I become an enemy—a lawbreaking, contract behavior-violating threat to society. I must then be stopped, like all other moral threats.

There will always be criminals, those who fight against the status quo, malevolent individuals who must be stopped, but few of us stop to consider how few people choose to totally disregard the safety and wellbeing of others. In a world of 6.1 billion people, only hundreds of thousands of serious crimes take place per day. This is a strikingly small number, given the population. No police force can operate without the backing of a supportive civilian populace; rioters are dispersed, only a few of them are arrested. A whole city can’t be arrested. People can and do maintain a secular status quo morality. It is not as though lacking churches would throw the world into a state of utter chaos. Even in situations where leaders like Hitler orchestrated many horrible acts, we find that only 3% of Germans claimed allegiance to the Nazi party.

It is interesting how some refer to the balancing out of powers in the universe as The Boomerang Effect. It would have disastrous consequences to drastically modify any aspect of this world. Kill one kind of bug and the bugs which were supposed to be kept in check by it stay around, eat, and overpopulate. But in not too long, nature rights itself so that the struggle for survival balances out. Species go extinct over time, but it is rare in the short term because of nature’s tendency to preserve. Nature rights itself so that struggles reach a standstill. One empire might conquer another for 400 years, but after some rebellions and a few bad rulers, by the next millennium, that empire becomes just one among many contemporaries, a big but brief blot appearing in the history books. Diseases, natural disasters, and wars wipe out large portions of societies, but since people keep dying and being born at a comparable rate, the population does not diminish and life goes on as normal. Viewed over the long term, an average is obtained. Society keeps going. A murderer can only take so many lives until the more numerous opposing forces against him get the upper hand. Justice returns. The wrong is righted. Life goes on.

Generally, it can be said that mankind demonstrates great compassion for others of his kind. It can therefore be called a "natural law" when humans exhibit emotional and moral concerns, strongly promoting preservation, instead of the destruction of other races and peoples. However, we would be remiss if we left our discussion without facing the ultimate truth of naturalistic morality: the Iron Rule (that might makes right) is true, in the final analysis.

Suppose another race of beings visited our world. Suppose they came down, and for whatever reason, decided that they needed to learn more about human anatomy. So they find an isolated human, fishing in a lake. They abduct that person and perform whatever experiments on him they choose. The poor human is screaming bloody-murder to be released. Naturally, he feels violated and terrified beyond words. He endures what amounts to sheer torture, and if he lives and is returned to earth, will never be the same again. According to this man, these beings are "evil," perhaps even “demonic," but do you really suppose these beings would care what this lower life-form thought?

What law could we hold them accountable to? Being that they are more powerful and obviously working according to the best interest of their species, is not their morality higher than ours? Logically, we must say that it is, the same way our morality is higher than the fried chicken dinners we consume so thoughtlessly. That chicken had its own will to live, but your morality had a higher say in the matter. The higher/greater/more powerful good must always be served; you are less important than your race as a whole. When one acts according to the best interest of their species (no matter what species that happens to be), how can they be faulted for it? The cheetah is not evil when it consumes the gazelle as his meal. It is feeding, a thing that ruthless nature put into play. This is certainly not encouraging to think about, but it is indisputably true. We must remember that we live in a universe that doesn't give a damn about our hurt or our wellbeing, either way. Sad, but true.

As with any hypothetical alien species, even so with mankind: when push comes to shove, it is our dominance, our power, our own pursuit of ideals and sense of preservation that determines right and wrong, though this only applies to collective powers (species, races, factions, groups, causes, etc. It does not apply haphazardly and individually to mere "bullies").

II. Enlightened Self-interest: the second principle of morality

Egoism

Enlightened self interest is the second principle of a freethinker's morality. When all is said and done, we live for ourselves. We are egoists, each doing what ultimately makes us happy and brings us some sort of fulfillment. The most humbling, noble, and selfless efforts manage to give something back to the one who does them. The religious believer searches for the comforts of eternal salvation, and when he thinks he’s found it, it gives him mental satisfaction to believe that others might receive the same thing once he tells them about it and persuades them to receive it.

One has a hard time wondering how selfless one can be, but even these acts are ego-driven. Those who do so operate out of the desire to reap the rewards of heaven some day, to get an extra star in that shining crown. Yes, humans are selfish creatures, as are all animals. We can’t help but be so. But if all actions are ego-driven at their source, then our primal instinct to survive is at the top of that pyramid.

Self-preservation

Nothing is more precious to us than our lives and the lives of our loved ones, and when our lives are threatened, we choose to preserve our lives over the ones threatening to take them. Individuals fight to save their lives. Communities and cities have local systems of law enforcement to preserve life and domestic tranquility. Nations go to war to preserve their ways of life. This is the height of preservation, and it is more than justified. Someone who kills in battle or in defense of their own life is not looked at like a degenerate addict who murders to get money for a cocaine fix.

But morality goes beyond this to social situations, complex social situations where societies have grown as large and as complex as they are today. Michael Shermer, in “The Science of Good and Evil,” p. 41, observes…

Sociologists know that once groups exceed 200 people, a hierarchical structure is needed to enforce the rules of cooperation and to deal with offenders, who in the smaller group could be dealt with through informal personal contracts and social pressure. Still larger groups need chiefs and a police force, and rule enforcement involves more violence or the threat of violence. Even in the modern world with a population exceeding six billion individuals, most of whom are crowded into dense cities, people find themselves divided into small groups. Studies on optimal group size (in terms of finding a balance between autonomy and control) by the military during the Second World War found that the average-size company in the British Army was 130 men, and in the U.S. Army it was 223. The 150 average also fits the size of most small businesses, departments in large corporations, and efficiently run factories.

Smaller is better; the smaller the community, the more intimacy there is between members, and consequently, less crime. But with population increases, there are increases in crime. It is quite a pleasant thought to imagine living in a world where we wouldn’t need to worry about locking our doors when we go out or safeguarding the passwords to our bank accounts, but it wasn’t to be. Extreme measures must be taken to ensure that justice and social structure are upheld. Remember this next time you are pulled over for speeding, or stopped on the way out of a department store and your bags checked because you set off the theft alarms. It is the price we pay for living in big, impersonal nations instead of small, spear-wielding tribes.

Enlightened Self-interest

So far, we have demonstrated the rationale behind moral behavior of the individual. We have seen that conducting ourselves properly is natural and reasonable, but how do we go from serving ourselves to serving others and looking out for their interests? The principle of enlightened self-interest with applied egoism states that I will serve myself except when it is in my best interest to serve and help others. I will look out for myself first, but I will also look out for you if it is in my best interest to do so—and it usually is.

If, living 50,000 years ago, I needed to chase a wooly mammoth off a cliff, I would be a fool to try it on my own. Two hunters on the hunt work better than one. I would rather have more friends and less enemies. I don’t go around looking for trouble. On the contrary, I am looking for help, for a community to aid me in my survival, and not to be struggling on my own against all odds. Apply this to social situations, big and small. By exchanging nice words standing in a line at a coffee shop, I could be making a friend who will someday save my life, bail me out of debt, or become one of my best friends. The same reasoning would apply to any stranger I meet. Humans are naturally social animals, just like our chimp cousins, but beyond that, we look for friends because it profits us, and scratching each others’ backs is what friendship is all about.

What about those situations where it doesn’t profit us? Why don’t we club someone over the head who disrespects us? Why don’t we attack anyone whom we find disagreeable? Again, reason comes to the rescue for those who are normal and rational and sane. In cases where we would become angry and violent with someone, we remember what the consequences of our actions would be. Does hitting a waiter with an attitude put us in a favorable position? Is there a better solution to getting back at a corrupt business colleague than threatening to kill him if he does it again? What avenues does the law provide to rectify this wrong? Even if no options for payback seem to stand out, is it really worth pursuing just for the diminishing returns of sweet revenge? Beyond your satisfaction, what will it profit you? Is it worth pursuing? The wise pick their battles. They don’t pick up the sword and fight at every challenge, and often enough, the sword never has to leave its sheathe! So it is enlightened self-interest that serves as a rational basis for morality.

But how do we explain natural selection giving us the ability to put ourselves in harm’s way for the sake of someone else? Isn’t that contrary to nature? If we see someone drowning and we know we could join them in death by trying to save them, why do we risk it? Where do the virtues of compassion and sacrifice come from in man? From rationality, from contract behavior, and from enlightened self-interest.

As we can see in nature, even the “lesser” animals can sacrifice themselves for the sake of their kind. An older male baboon will throw himself at a predator, surrendering his life to the beast, so his troop can escape the jaws of death. The baboon does not need to be told to love his neighbor as himself to do that. A herd of bison, attacked by a lion, will at first try to flee, but if enough are prepared, they will line up side-to-side to fight off their attacker. The lion will retreat and await a better hunting opportunity in order to avoid being gouged by a mob of horned beasts with tremendous weight advantages. And these bison need only be of the same species to help each other—not necessarily immediate offspring. Love, nature, and rationality enables us to endanger ourselves to help each other because that helps our species to survive.

III. The Alternative: morality through a theist's eyes

Now with theists, morality is quite different. God-based morality tells us that all morality can only stem from a supernatural creator. God is in the heavens, making rules, laying down ordinances and commandments, constantly shaking his finger at man, warning him not to cross the line by doing something he forbids. It is as though man is incompetent of doing anything good were it not for this "godly" influence in the clouds. To a believer, it’s not enough to live a moral life. You can’t just pay taxes, hold down a job, help the world by excelling in your career, give to charities, raise a family, donate your time and resources to a good cause, or just live a quiet life by yourself in search of knowledge. No, you must acknowledge the right Spirit and keep his ordinances. These ordinances usually have nothing to do with living a more productive life, and are useless as far as improving the world is concerned. But regardless, you’ve got to do what this deity says.

There was a time when almost every believer in Christianity held that one cannot in any way be moral without the adoption of that religion or its principles, but times have changed. Most theists today will concede that one can in fact live a perfectly good and moral life without being of a certain religious background, only the morals they are living by are not really theirs, but “borrowed” in principle from God. So all secular morality that we atheists follow is simply borrowed from the Christian God, so they say, who originally made all things. America is only law abiding because it gets its principles from Jehovah. That’s what we’re told.

I will go on and point out what should be astoundingly obvious thus far—long before Judeo-Christianity was around, laws and moral order were kept just as they are today. And all countries who fail to identify themselves as Christians haven’t the slightest concern that the laws they have been living by all these years (Jewish and Muslim countries, for instance) are lacking in some way. So the claim from believers that Christianity is the highest and best form of morality is reduced to nothing but an arrogant breath of hot air. Christians, Muslims, Jews, and believers in any other world religion or no religion at all will likely respect and abide by similar moral precepts. When believers in any religion stand up and declare themselves more moral and just than their spiritual counterparts, we have spiritual snobbery. Though she is by no means alone, Christianity has been exceptionally guilty of this throughout the church’s history.

It is this sort of smirking pride which proves to be one of the least desirable qualities of a faith. Morality is morality. It is not mine or yours, nor does it belong to the guy down the street. No temple can claim to have a monopoly on it, and no priesthood can claim to bring it down from the mind of their god and bind it upon the masses. It does not belong to any one race or species or nation. It stands on its own power. Rather than being elusive and complex, it is everywhere and simple. It need not be deciphered or decoded, or translated, or declared by some pious individual, decked in ritual garb. It stands by itself, whether you like it or not. It was not created. It does not come to be, but in our struggle to survive, its presence becomes known. It has no preference to anyone. It does not take sides or play favorites. It cannot be manipulated by councils and seminars. It speaks to all living beings and befriends all with common sense. Living beings often stray from her, but like a tried-and-true best friend, it welcomes us back to its side when our sense of reason returns.

IV. Tag-along Morality: three ways god-based morality is inferior to a reason-based morality

The first problem with a god-based morality is that it commits the believer to any and all actions a god commands. “All thy commandments are righteousness,” says Psalm 119:105, which means whatever God commands a believer to do is right. We haven’t the luxury of determining whether or not a commandment is humane and decent. The follower of God must be as faithful to God’s will as Abraham was, who was prepared to offer up his son on the alter (Genesis 22). No matter what action God commands, it must be followed without question—from murder and torture, to rape and mutilation. God decides what is right and no one else can object.

Christians, like all of the civilized world, hated what happened on September 11 of 2001, but they would do the same thing if they were faithful to God and he commanded them to do it. The Muslims obey their violent God’s commandment to wage holy war on the world, and it is wrong, but had the God of the Bible been the one to command it, the same act would have been right, and to refuse to go through with it would have been wrong!

The freethinker’s morality is not based on such unprincipled reasoning. Morality does not operate so. We are not committed to blindly following the whims and ways of a dictatorial deity, which change from time to time, from religion to religion, and from interpretation to interpretation. Killing is never done so heartily and without remorse as it is in the name of God.

The second problem with god-based morality is that what little good Christianity manages to promote (like charity) is limited and offsets itself. Mother Theresa’s charitable work in India was motivated by her religion. In her case, something good came from her faith. Though she was at first met with resistance from the Hindu people who disdained conversion to Christianity, when it became apparent that she would be charitable regardless of whether or not they converted to her faith, she was praised for her work. I don’t believe her religion was responsible for her good works. I believe that good was in her to do, but I’ll not contest that point here. Let us say without argument that she was good because of her faith. What was her attitude towards science? What was her attitude towards stem cell research and abortion rights? The religion that brought out her benevolence also made her oppose science and use her good name and influence to impede the progress of learning. Her compassion for her fellow human being didn’t extend to the mother who was forced to carry a mentally retarded child to term. How can we grant that religion is a benefit to society when its moral reach is merely a trade-off with error? A man who gives to charities but opposes evolution is not doing a good thing. He is trading one good for one bad. Even granting that Christianity can be at times, and with select individuals, a morally productive religion, if its motivation for good is being offset, if it is not complete and balanced across the board, how can it be called a good thing?

Who is really more of a saint? Is it a devout religious man who opens his home to some orphaned children, or a stingy, atheist scientist who never gives a dime to his fellow man, but uses his education to build earthquake sensing devices, enabling millions of lives to be saved all over the world? A benevolent atheist can compassionately give to the poor while not setting back the cause of science. Christianity is motivationally inferior because it does not provide the proper motivation for moral excellence in all areas, whereas an atheist can be equally or more benevolent than a believer. And charity is not all there is to goodness. There is more to decency than feeding starving children. Using our minds to ingeniously make this world a better place is also part of what it means to be called “good.”

If we want a superior system of ethics, neither Christianity, nor any other religious belief system need be consulted to achieve this. A compassionate, science-minded individual can be every bit as moral or more so than any believer in superstition. We need only look within ourselves to find the goodness that is already there.

The third problem God-based morality exhibits is that it proves to be motivationally inferior. It has to do only with the consequences of our actions. The Christian does good things for a bribe, for a reward (Heaven), and avoids doing bad things to avoid torture, a punishment (Hell).

I will consent that the laws of our land operate this way (that is, people have to know how to act). There must be punishments to a certain degree, but one should not have to be spiritually motivated by rewards or punishments. To do so strikes at the heart of all that can be called “spiritual.” One who keeps the law only to get a reward, and one who abstains from an action out of fear of punishment is not a principled individual. That person is operating out of intimidation. Who is to be commended? Would it be one who does great deeds out of the desire to be paid a large amount of money, or one who does so because he believes it is the right thing to do? It doesn't take a Solomon to see the glaringly obvious selection that just about all of us would pick. A criminal who is sentenced to prison, makes life changes, and is paroled, is to be desired over one who regrets getting caught, and intends on maintaining good behavior and a sense of humility just to get paroled so he can try to wrong the world again.

I am not going to "be good" to get some awesome prize up in the sky, nor because of a bully's threat that eternal hellfire awaits me if I refuse to comply. Though most God-believers will claim to serve God out of a "higher" desire to love him, when push comes to shove, it is still basically, a fear-motivated service. Should they apostatize from their faith by reasoning their way out of it, their deity becomes a galactic bully who punishes with eternal damnation. This is clearly an inferior system of morality in every conceivable way.

(JH)