This question, may be answered by selfishness. Sort of like how karma can be looked at as veiled selfishness, can't religion be as well? With karma, if you are a good person, good things will happen to you. That is ultimately selfish; do you follow? On to morals... if you believe in nothing, what motivates you to be a good person? You must develop a code of conduct for yourself, for fear of becoming a nihilist, a black hole of moral meaning. There are many moral theories, and I won't go into them here, but do you see why it's important to have some sort of theory governing your actions?
Seeing as 76% of Americans identifiy as being a Christian, it seems like there are many who choose the route of religion to define their morals. So now we are brought to the point, is religion just a way of extriniscally motivating people into doing good? What would religious peoples do without a promise of something good at the end? I would like to think that the result would be the same, regardless of the promise of heaven or not, but who knows. If when you die, you simply die, what motivation is there to do good in your life? In Christian theology, it is the promise of heaven. For non-theists, it is pushing daisies, and simply that. Is happiness the only true, motivator or all people? Is religion truly extrinsic?
Here is my stance and my feelings on this. I am a Christian, Lutheran to be more exact. My morals are governed by religion, but also by my effect on others, be it positive or negative. I want to assure happiness to myself and others. Call it Christianity with a little bit of humanism mixed in. And yes, I realize that is a contradiction, but why can't a Christian also hold some values of a humanist? People and their happiness comes before imposing my beliefs on them. Call me an anti-evangelist, I don't care, but if someone doesn't want your religion; don't bother them with it. Helping others and creating as much happiness for as many people as you can is pretty important. So, back to the point...
If religion is a creation to make people moral, then how good of a job is it doing? This is a very difficult question to answer, as there are plenty of moral non-religious folk, and plenty of religious folk out there who are complete hypocrites. It is also a difficult question because on the topic of religion, people aren't willing to consider the possibility that what they believe in isn't real. That possibility can never be completely extinguished on this Earth, because it is called faith for a reason. We don't know for sure. So what if your faith is a farce. Were you a good person for nothing? Now this is where the true extrinsic motivation or religion comes in. If you are purely extrinsically motivated, then sans religion you may cease to care about morality. If you are truly moral, I believe you will be truly moral regardless of faith or creed. So, if you are truly moral, thus not needing motivation, why be religious? After all, it seems like a lot of work. Faith is something that can ground you, make you fasten to something higher than yourself. It can bring enlightenment for some, happiness for others. Everyone has a different faith experience. The crux of it all though is a belief. The belief that there is something bigger than you out there. The promise of something better after this life. The comfort you need when life has been hard to you. Whether it is real or not, although I believe it is, religion has certainly done much good in this world. I cannot say that the track record is perfect, there are plenty of mess-ups along the way (i.e. the Crusades) but the idea of God has not, and will not cease is very powerful. Religion changes lives, whether positive or negative, and that is undeniable. So, is that why we are motivated to help others and conduct ourselves in a positive manner? I feel like we'll never know this answer. All we can do now is look inside ourselves and discover where we draw our morality. Are we intrinsic or extrinsic people? Morals are fairly serious and decide a large amount of who you are. I believe it's time we pay more attention to their derivation; and possibly discover more about ourselves.
Post Script
This started out as a simple question I asked myself. It ended up being a soapbox speach about faith, where I stand and how I feel. I'm sorry how things ended up, I really am. But... I left it there, and not extrinsically ;) I seriously want your opinions about this. Comment or otherwise contact me if you are interested.
Alex -as an atheist, I can tell you pretty simply that the reason I do good things is because they're the right thing to do. There's no end in it, no motivational heaven/hell factor because that just doesn't seem right to me. I do good because it's right.
ReplyDeleteI find my moral guidance in studying moral philosophers and applying what I find there to my own life without having to place the filter of religion over everything. I've found that acting based on whether I'll be rewarded or punished in a cosmic sense tends to cheapen the action for me.
For example, I don't volunteer because I hope I'll be going to heaven when I die, I volunteer because there's a clear need for it and it helps people. With that said, there are studies that show volunteering creates health benefits for the volunteer -so it's maybe not a completely selfless action. ;)
You make a lot of really interesting points in this and I like it. There are definitely points to debate it in from any POV and it gives anybody something to think about.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for being a true moral person.
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