What is striking about the hundreds of reactions to my blog here and elsewhere (such as opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com) is that even though 90% of my text questions the religious origins of human morality, and wonders if we need a God to be good, it is the other 10%, in which I tentatively assign a role to religion, that has drawn by far the most ire. Atheists don’t like any less than 100% agreement with their position.

To have a productive debate, religion needs to recognize the power of the scientific method and the truths it has revealed, but its opponents need to recognize that one cannot simply dismiss a social phenomenon found in every major society. If humans are inherently religious, or at least show rituals related to the supernatural, there is a big question to be answered. The question is not whether God exists, or not — which I find a monumentally uninteresting question defined by the narrow parameters of monotheism — but why humans universally feel the need for supernatural entities. Is this just to stay socially connected or does it also underpin morality? And if so, what will happen to morality in its absence?

Just posing such an obvious question has become controversial in an atmosphere in which one has to be either pro science or pro religion. How did we get maneuvered into this polarization, this small-mindedness, as if we are taking part in the Oxford Debating Society, where all that matters is winning or losing? Remember, we are talking about how to lead our lives and why try to be good — very personal questions — and all we get is a shouting match. There are in fact no answers to these questions, only approximations, and while science may be an excellent source of information it is simply not designed to offer any inspiration. It used to be that science and religion went together, and in fact (as I tried to illustrate with Bosch’s paintings) Western science ripened in the bosom of Christianity and its explicit desire for truth. Ironically, even atheism is a product of this desire, as explained by the philosopher John Gray:

“Christianity struck at the root of pagan tolerance of illusion. In claiming that there is only one true faith, it gave truth a supreme value it had not had before. It also made disbelief in the divine possible for the first time. The long-delayed consequence of the Christian faith was an idolatry of truth that found its most complete expression in atheism.” (Straw Dogs, 2002).

Those who wish to remove religion and define morality as the pursuit of scientifically defined well-being (à la Sam Harris) should read up on earlier attempts in this regard, such as Walden Two by B. F. Skinner, who thought that humans could achieve greater happiness and productivity if they just followed reward and punishment schemes. Skinner’s colleague John Watson envisioned “baby factories” which would dispense with the “mawkish” emotions humans are prone to, an idea applied with disastrous consequences in Romanian orphanages. And talking of Romania, was not the entire Communist “experiment” an attempt at a society without God? Apart from the question how moral these societies turned out to be, I find it intriguing that Communism began to look more and more like a religion itself. The singing, marching, reciting of poems and pledges and waving in the air of Little Red Books smacked of holy fervor, hence my remark that any movement that tries to promote a certain moral agenda — even while denying God — will soon look like a religion. Since people look up to those perceived as more knowledgeable, anyone who wants to promote a certain agenda, even one inspired by science, will inevitably come face to face with the human tendency to follow leaders and let them do the thinking.

Individual and Community

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant saw as little value in human kindness as former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney did in energy conservation. Cheney mocked conservation as “a sign of personal virtue” that, sadly, wouldn’t do the planet any good. Kant praised compassion as “beautiful,” yet considered it irrelevant to a virtuous life. Who needs tender feelings if duty is all that matters?

I had to think of this reading Andrew Jehan’s commentary that anyone with a natural drive to act altruistically may be less deserving of our esteem than someone who has no such drive, yet still shows altruism. The opposite view was voiced by Joel Marks, who prefers someone with the spontaneous impulse to help over someone who helps based on the calculation that it will be good to do so. It is an interesting dilemma, comparable to the question whom you want to be married to, someone who loves you or someone who is equally nice but acts out of duty? The latter partner is surely putting in more effort, and deserves our admiration, but I’d much prefer the former. Human morality is sturdier and more reliable if supported by genuine prosocial tendencies, which is why it is so important to demonstrate, as I have done in my primate research, that many of these tendencies are older than our species.

Morality is a system of behavioral rules that transcends the individual. Self-interest is of course recognized, but it is weighed against the interests of the larger community. The typical argument runs like “we understand that you might want to steal someone else’s possessions, but if everyone were to do so, society would fall apart, and you would not like it either if it happened to you.” Morality appeals to the community level, and indirectly to your own interests as a member of the community. It is designed to reduce strife and promote social cohesion. Concern about the community is to some degree recognizable in chimpanzees, but humans are masters at it and have turned it into a set of social norms that everyone is supposed to obey.

This is in everyone’s interest, albeit to differing degrees (e.g. the rich have more interest in rules of possession than the poor). So, when Stephanie Brown comments that “surely evolutionary pressures run counter to … investment in matters that do not affect us,” her interpretation of the disinterestedness of Adam Smith’s “impartial spectator” may be a bit too literal. Smith meant that we judge situations as moral or immoral even if we are not directly involved, but this is not to deny our interest in the moral level of society as a whole. Morality promotes cooperation, as Darwin already speculated, so it is important for us to monitor it at every level, whether we are directly affected or not. As soon as morality begins to crumble around us, our own well-being as a member of society is at risk.

Furthermore, Buddhist practice and beliefs are scientifically-based. Many of the things that Siddhartha predicted when he was here on earth are just starting to be confirmed scientifically. This includes the size of atom and dark matter.

Maybe what religion is good for is practicing what we intuitively know. We cannot always count on science to prove something before we believe it because there are limitations on how fast science can improve and how fast it can generate information. Therefore, as science catches up, we can try to live our lives to the fullest by using our most powerful tool-the mind-to truly “know.” This is the benefit of Buddhism.

Commenter Paul makes a point that I think warrants elaboration. Many who thankfully did not “absorb the basic tenets of Christian morality” (as practiced rather than preached) from the society of their youth (in my case, a “morality” that included 50s Bible belt racism, sexism, homophobia, tribalism, et al) nor any other dogmatic and theistic belief system nonetheless feel no void in need of being filled, whether by science or anything else. Such people are often labeled “nihilist”, commonly but mistakenly understood to be a debilitating curse. Yet in my experience, they often are a generally cheerful, productive, and arguably “moral” bunch. So, I suggest that we actually do have some idea of what a religion-free community might be like, and it’s actually rather attractive.

As for criticism of the polemic strategies of so-called “new atheists” (seemingly quite irrelevant to the topic at hand but apparently de rigueur in some circles), it should at least be accurate lest it worse on the critic than the target. Eg, the observation about “brights” is at best misleading (see Brights Movement entry in wiki), there is nothing “supposed” about Dawkins’ status as a “champion” of evolutionary theory, and the incoherence of “fundamentalist, war mongering atheists” admits no substantive response.

To address this question requires that the analysis consider selection pressures on qualities that are uniquely human. Many scientists agree that humans are unique in the extent to which they must give prolonged care to helpless infants. My work suggests that this uniquely human condition shaped a human capacity for suppressing self-interest, at high cost, over long periods of time, and even in the absence of reciprocity. The implication of this capacity is that self interested motives such as the desire for resources and sex are at war with our “other-regarding” motives that direct sustained help to others. It is not unreasonable to speculate that this almost ubiquitous war between self and other, and among others, (moral dilemmas) produces “WarGames” (MGM,1983), systems of moral thought that help us run simulations to decide when and whether we should choose ourselves or others. This process would create increasingly intricate and subtle neuroanalytic capabilities for attempting to solve the unsolvable. Because these mechanisms, iterated over time, equip us with rather large computational devices, we are able to anticipate the inherent tragedies that result from this war between self and other, and among different others. Whether it is a jealous lover who cannot reconcile his hatred and love for his wife or a single mother who cannot reconcile her cocaine addiction with her need to work for a living, on some level we know that motivational conflicts can and do result in tragedy. As we are interdependent with individuals in our social world, perhaps it is in our evolutionary interest to use our reason to create and follow rules, to reduce (even slightly) the prevalence and incidence of harm to all. In this way, the uniquely human part of morality—our allegiance to creating, following, and enforcing rules—may amount to a desperate act of altruism, so compelling that we give up our own freedom, wants, and needs to try to prevent the horrific inevitable consequences of being endowed with competing and contradictory social instincts.

As for God and religion, perhaps it takes faith in a higher power to live with the irresistible conclusion that the war between self and other cannot be won. But then this means that faith also excuses us from following the moral systems that are distinctly human, permitting arguably the most heinous types of tragedy.

Stating that morality cannot exist without God does not mean that religious people are more moral than non-religious people or atheists. It is simply admitting the fact that any discussion of morality that does not presuppose a God, or at least something higher than mere fermions and bosons, is somewhat ridiculous. To actually get anywhere in most discussions of morality, we say “assume life has meaning”, “assume we have control over our actions”, “assume our ideas of right and wrong matter” without any explanation or support for these assumptions. Using a philosophy that ultimately destroys these assumptions to build something on top of them is useless. Any such moral debate will, under some level of scrutiny, collapse under its own weight.

I do find it interesting that the existence of altruistic instincts is being used as evidence against religion. If there is a Creator God, is it so surprising that he would create human beings with some kind of natural inclination to moral behavior? Even the Bible says “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law…. they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts” (Romans 2:14-15). It seems to me the heart of this argument is a chicken-and-egg type question: Did God provide revelation to clarify the morals he had already written into our biological make-up? Or did humans somehow evolve conscience-like instincts and then invent religion as a means of justifying it? I feel that how we answer such questions will go a ways toward deciding how seriously we should take morality.

On the other hand, you have morality, the moral freedom. We use it, we claim it’s there to undo the chaos, to support life; a building block of progress, both inwards and outwards. But then why does our society flourish, with immorality in its very core? Personally, what would you choose: an eternal afterlife, or providing your loved ones with the things they need now?

Morality and God is all the same. We give it different properties, we try and organize it, we try and find it a place in our tiny little space called ego, put a label on it and then find something else to do. In my opinion, it all comes down to personal choice – whichever it is, it is the right one!

Boyer, 2008 has suggested that the capacity for episodic future thought –also referred to as prospective mental time travel– may underlie the human ability to make choices with high long-term benefits. (It is well known that humans discount the value of future rewards over time. This issue –although, in my view, it is a less interesting one– is similar to the role of interests of others.) Likewise, the capacity for inner speech (an ability that arises at the age of seven) may support the effort aiming at focusing on the complete known reality -that is, on the truth. What is the conclusion? Morality -and moral freedom – is supported by the human capacity for objective (and not merely subjective, selfish) knowledge. Thus, morality would be beyond non-human primates. Since the Big Bang and since unicellular beings, a very long and, at the end of the day, clearly progressive evolution has produced us, our language, our developmental trajectory from children to adults and our capacity to focus on the truth or objective reality.