The God Blog

November 8, 2008 | 12:02 pm

Godless morality

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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God-fearing folks like me are taught that moral behavior comes from diligent reading and observance of God’s Word. Indeed, I was moved by C.S. Lewis’ argument in “Mere Christianity”:

“I fully agree that we learn the Rule of Decent Behaviour from our parents and teachers, and friends and books, as we learn everything else,” Lewis writes in the opening chapter of his best-known book for apologetics. “But some of the things we learn are mere conventions which might have been different—we learn to keep to the left of the road, but it might just as well have been the rule to keep to the right—and others of them, like mathematics, are real truth.”

Eventually Lewis completes his argument that morality is placed in us by God. Our desire to do what is right, in other words, is an indication of God’s fingerprint on our souls.

I appreciate this line of reasoning as evidence of God, but I don’t believe it can be reversed, that absent from God people will succumb to total depravity (sorry Calvin). Certainly I have had many friends who, though having rejected God, behaved much better than some—many—of my Christian friends. Correlation is not causation; empirical evidence is mixed:

In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one’s reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review showing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when others are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them.

Maybe, then, religious people are nicer because they believe that they are never alone. If so, you would expect to find the positive influence of religion outside the laboratory. And, indeed, there is evidence within the United States for a correlation between religion and what might broadly be called “niceness.” In Gross National Happiness, Arthur Brooks notes that atheists are less charitable than their God-fearing counterparts: They donate less blood, for example, and are less likely to offer change to homeless people on the street. Since giving to charity makes one happy, Brooks speculates that this could be one reason why atheists are so miserable. In a 2004 study, twice as many religious people say that they are very happy with their lives, while the secular are twice as likely to say that they feel like failures.

Since the United States is more religious than other Western countries, this research suggests that Fox talk-show host Sean Hannity was on to something when he asserted that the United States is “the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the Earth.” In general, you might expect people in less God-fearing countries to be a lot less kind to one another than Americans are.

It is at this point that the “We need God to be good” case falls apart. Countries worthy of consideration aren’t those like North Korea and China, where religion is savagely repressed, but those in which people freely choose atheism. In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don’t go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don’t believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they’re nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.

Denmark and Sweden aren’t exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

The important question here, for religious and non-religious people, is: Why?

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Hi Brad.

I’m a first-time reader of your blog, but so far I am enjoying it very much.  I’m a quite liberal Christian, and there are few things in the world I enjoy doing more than discussing the tough issues with others from all perspectives.

It’s an interesting observation that primarily atheistic societies appear to contain more “moral” people than societies where religion is diligently adhered to.  It’s hard to tell why that might be, but I do have an idea or two.

When something in your life is substantially more important than anything else, are you not willing to sacrifice everything else for it?  This is what religion gives us.  Religion tells us that God is absolutely the most important thing, and if other people get in the way of your relationship with God, then those people are considerably more expendable than God is.  The result is religious people who marginalize others for the “good” of their relationship with God.

Additionally, especially for Christians, I know a number of people who claim to rely on the grace of God to forgive them when they make mistakes.  This kind of built-in “safety net” appears to give them the license to do as they please, assuming the forgiveness of God.  This is both flawed logic and flawed theology, but it is what it is.

I have also noticed that folks of the younger generation (specifically in America) are walking away from the Church in great numbers.  It seems to make sense to me that someone who is raised in an oppressive environment (as many Christian households are) might go overboard in rebelling against such an upbringing.  This could account for the variation between the analyses of Brooks and Zuckerman—if Brooks’ subjects were all from the same cultural base (i.e. the United States) and Zuckerman’s were clearly from outside that cultural base, perhaps the difference is less in religion (specifically) and more intrinsic to the cultures of the different nations.

As for suicide rates, I am honestly unsurprised that religious (specifically Christian) societies see higher rates of suicide.  Most often when people whose suicide attempts fail are asked why they wanted to die, they respond that they felt they had disappointed the people who matter most to them.  Well, I don’t know anyone with higher expectations of us than God.  Therefore, some might conclude that it’s quite easy to disappoint God.  This is only a small part of the puzzle, of course—devotion to God is likely shared by loved ones, who then are seen to hold similarly high expectations, which are very difficult to live up to, etc.

I look forward to others weighing in.

Comment by Kat on 11/08/08 at 6:36 pm

I think the biggest difference would probably come in when we look at the demographics of Denmark and Sweden vs. the US.  The Nordic countries are largely homogeneous, not the melting pot of culture that makes up the US.

I think that this has a great effect on the culture.  Just a thought.

Comment by ethan on 11/08/08 at 7:15 pm

Kat, I had a girlfriend who broke up with me in college because she “wanted to focus more on God.” It was a cop out. We both knew it.

As for Christians rebelling against oppressive parents, this is definitely the circumstance that led many of my friends to doing exactly what their parents were trying to prevent them from doing (i.e. having sex and doing drugs).

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 11/08/08 at 11:22 pm

my name is glen and i am a homosexual.

Comment by glen haligayn on 12/10/08 at 10:24 am

i love my boy friend roberto . love marky xXx

Comment by mark dunham on 12/10/08 at 10:27 am

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