An atheist would agree with this statement, as many hold strong ethical beliefs while denying the existence of a supernatural being. They often argue that religion, on balance, is bad for humanity, citing crusades and inquisitions as evidence. Philosophers have also identified religion as preventing the improvement of human civilization – Bertrand Russell states: “I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world”. He claims that religion prevents rational education and scientific co-operation, and causes war. Perhaps religion is in fact a source of immorality, a cause of wars and disunity among the human race. It holds back technological development and encourages belief in the supernatural. Furthermore, those who hold particular religious beliefs have often been intolerant of others holding different beliefs – as in the case of the Christian crusades against Jews and Muslims.
On the other hand, some argue that religion is a valuable source of moral absolutes. The saintly behaviour of people such as Mother Teresa was inspired by religious belief. The abolition of slavery in the UK came about partly because of strongly held Christian convictions. Those convictions inspired Martin Luther King in his assertion that all were equal in the eyes of God. All the major world religions teach about the primacy of love or compassion in human relationships. Religion enables people to develop in more than simply material ways and justifies a sceptical view of the materialistic culture prominent in the West. In countries where religion has been suppressed – such as in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Communist China – horrendous injustices and crimes still took place. Perhaps immorality has more to do with human nature than a set of beliefs with a supernatural element. In 392 CE, St Augustine wrote: “God is not the parent of evils; evil exists by the voluntary sin of the soul to which God gives free choice”.
Kant argued that morality supports religion. In his Critique of Pure Reason, he dismissed traditional philosophical attempts to prove the existence of God, but maintained that there is something about morality that makes it reasonable to believe in God. Humans have a moral obligation to bring about the summum bonum. Since it is impossible to do so in one’s lifetime, there must be an afterlife where such a perfect state exists. John Henry Newman argued that feelings of responsibility and guilt point to God and D.I. Trethowan suggested that an awareness of obligation is an awareness of God. Each of these writers considers the presence of moral values as an indicator of the existence of God.
Some philosophers believe that, without religion, there would be no reason to be moral. If there was no God everything would be permitted or permissible. Arguably, it is reasonable to act morally for non-religious reasons, e.g. to do our duty to others or the desire to have a civilized society. But equally it could be reasonable to act selfishly and look after your own best interests. Joseph Butler pointed out that the existence of God and religion make doing good right, from both selfish and selfless perspectives.
Some scholars question whether we are being good for the right reasons, if we do so simply out of obedience to God. Are we simply obeying a tyrant who commands us to obey, rather than making our own moral choices? James Rachels argues that such obedience is inappropriate for a moral agent: “to be a moral agent is to be an autonomous or self-directed agent”. He concludes that a being such as God cannot exist, as no God that requires a human to abandon his or her moral autonomy is worth worshipping – and the only kind of God that can exist is one that is worth worshipping. However, others argue that God does not require us to abandon our moral autonomy but gives us the capacity for moral choice.
Because all people have a capacity to be moral, whether they are religious are not, we need to accept a basis of morality from outside religion, but in which religion can be included. There is no necessary connection between religion and morality, but people should be allowed to believe or disbelieve as long as there is a moral basis that protects all people from immoral treatment from at the hands of the religious and non-religious alike.