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015 - Atheism and Morals · Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen of Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative by
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  Speaker 1: Chapman Cohen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: Atheism and Morals. Looking at the world as it is,
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  Speaker 1: one cannot forbear a mild wonder at the fears expressed
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  Speaker 1: at the probable consequences to morals of a general acceptance
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  Speaker 1: of atheism. One would have thought that the world would
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  Speaker 1: not run to a very great danger of becoming worse
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  Speaker 1: on that account, And that, seeing the way in which
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  Speaker 1: all forms of rascality have flourished and still maintain themselves
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  Speaker 1: without in the least disturbing people's religious convictions, one might
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  Speaker 1: even feel inclined to risk a change in the hopes
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  Speaker 1: of improvement. Mainly, indeed, one might say that those who
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  Speaker 1: are affected by religious belief are such as can very
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  Speaker 1: well do without it, while those who stand in urgent
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  Speaker 1: need of moral improvement seldom show that their religious belief
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  Speaker 1: has any very beneficial effect on their conduct. Yet nothing
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  Speaker 1: is more common than to find the theist, when driven
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  Speaker 1: off all other grounds of defense, protesting against a deliberate
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  Speaker 1: propaganda of atheism on the ground of its probable harmful
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  Speaker 1: consequences to morals. This not because those who have publicly
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  Speaker 1: professed atheism are open to the charge of loose living,
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  Speaker 1: but on account of those who at present believe in religion,
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  Speaker 1: and whose loss of belief would possibly upset their moral equilibrium.
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  Speaker 1: It is a curious position for a theist to take up,
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  Speaker 1: since it implies that while the atheist as we know
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  Speaker 1: him shows no deterioration of character in consequence of his
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  Speaker 1: loss of belief, we cannot be so certain of the
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  Speaker 1: present believers in deity. They are formed of poorer clay,
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  Speaker 1: and once convinced that there is no God with whom
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  Speaker 1: they have to reckon, there is no telling what will happen.
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  Speaker 1: So we are urged to let well alone and leave
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  Speaker 1: believers with their illusions, lest their loss should present us
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  Speaker 1: with a very unpleasant reality. This fear is expressed in
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  Speaker 1: various ways, but in one way or another it is
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  Speaker 1: tolerably common. The following, which reached me from a well
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  Speaker 1: known man of letters, probably puts the argument as fairly
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  Speaker 1: and as temperately as it can be put, and therefore,
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  Speaker 1: in dealing with that I cannot be accused of taking
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  Speaker 1: the theist at an unfair advantage. His conclusions are summarized
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  Speaker 1: in the following paragraphs. The summary is the author's, not mine. One,
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  Speaker 1: The decentish code of morals which prevails in this twentieth
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  Speaker 1: century is the outcome of all human ages from the
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  Speaker 1: very first, everywhere and all the time. It has and
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  Speaker 1: continues to be inextricably intertwined and influenced by theistic beliefs,
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  Speaker 1: even when and where such beliefs have been the crudest
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  Speaker 1: and the most debased form of polytheism. Two. The ethical
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  Speaker 1: atmosphere in which we now live, after having had such
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  Speaker 1: an origin and history, remains strongly and frankly pervaded by
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  Speaker 1: religion of a theistic type. Atheist, agnostic and theist alike
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  Speaker 1: have to live in this atmosphere, and consciously or unconsciously
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  Speaker 1: are subject to its influence. Three. Even if we could
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  Speaker 1: set up a wholly secular code of morals derived entirely
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  Speaker 1: from the exigencies of tribal, communal, and national life, I
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  Speaker 1: take it that such a code would be inadequate to
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  Speaker 1: form the type of individual character we most admire, and
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  Speaker 1: which acts under a sense of aught rather than of must.
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  Speaker 1: The latter is often the mere demand of gregarious or
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  Speaker 1: individual comfort and convenience. The former may be quite opposed
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  Speaker 1: to the inclinations of the individual, and yet bring into
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  Speaker 1: play irksome but ennobling springs of action which a purely
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  Speaker 1: secular code cannot touch. Now, these statements put the case
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  Speaker 1: for the theist as moderately and as well as it
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  Speaker 1: can be put, and I think that they are worthy
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  Speaker 1: of a little careful examination. It may be observed that
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  Speaker 1: there is no insinuation that atheists are actually worse than
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  Speaker 1: other people, only the fear that in the absence of
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  Speaker 1: some form of theism, the higher ethical motive cannot be roused,
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  Speaker 1: and that therefore character will suffer. Well, we are none
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  Speaker 1: of us free from the contagion of our environment, and
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  Speaker 1: the most powerful influences are often enough those that it
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  Speaker 1: would be difficult to specify in any given instance. It
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  Speaker 1: is not only that the influence of the higher members
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  Speaker 1: of society affect the lower. The lower is not without
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  Speaker 1: its influence on the higher. But the question here is
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  Speaker 1: not really whether we are all exposed to the general
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  Speaker 1: influence of the group to which we belong. That I
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  Speaker 1: think is undeniable. The real question at issue is whether
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  Speaker 1: the determining influence on conduct is theistic or not, And
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  Speaker 1: I think it will be found that while the one
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  Speaker 1: thing is asserted, it is the other that is proven.
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  Speaker 1: So far as the first first proposition is concerned, it
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  Speaker 1: may be taken for granted that our present state is
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  Speaker 1: the product of all past evolution, and that in the
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  Speaker 1: course of that evolution, theistic beliefs have been closely, not inextricably,
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  Speaker 1: connected with morals. But this is not alone true of morality.
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  Speaker 1: It is true of every branch of human thought, and
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  Speaker 1: of every aspect of human life. Art, science, literature have
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  Speaker 1: all been closely connected with religious beliefs. Necessarily so, early
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  Speaker 1: human history is spent under the shadow of superstition, and
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  Speaker 1: its dominating influence affects the form of every aspect of life.
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  Speaker 1: But as the course of development has been to separate
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  Speaker 1: the essential from the non essential, and to place most
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  Speaker 1: of each department of life on a self supporting basis,
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  Speaker 1: it would not seem an unreasonable conclusion that ethics will
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  Speaker 1: follow the same lines. In fact, it is following the
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  Speaker 1: same lines. There are few educated people nowadays who would
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  Speaker 1: claim that morality can not exist apart from religion. They
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  Speaker 1: are content to say, as my correspondent does, that in
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  Speaker 1: the absence of religion belief in the higher aspects of
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  Speaker 1: morality will suffer our Morality, we are told, is the
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  Speaker 1: outcome of all human ages. I go further than that
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  Speaker 1: and assert that it is the outcome of all the
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  Speaker 1: human and of all the animal ages. There is no
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  Speaker 1: break in nature, and to the evolutionist, the development of
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  Speaker 1: the human form from the animal is plain, and it
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  Speaker 1: should scarcely need pointing out nowadays that nearly every one
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  Speaker 1: of the fundamental qualities of man can be seen in
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  Speaker 1: germ in the animal world. I only emphasize the point
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  Speaker 1: here because it is so often forgotten that morality is
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  Speaker 1: fundamentally the expression of those conditions under which associated life
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  Speaker 1: is found possible and profitable, and that so far as
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  Speaker 1: an equality is declared to be moral, its justification and
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  Speaker 1: meaning must be found in that direction. The question of
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  Speaker 1: incentive we will come to later. For the moment, it
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  Speaker 1: is enough to insist upon the fact that morality is
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  Speaker 1: fashioned in its fundamentals with reference to facts, not with
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  Speaker 1: reference to speculative beliefs. Beliefs may influence morality for a while,
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  Speaker 1: but the persistent operation of social selection secures a general
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  Speaker 1: conformity between conduct and the conditions upon which life depends.
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  Speaker 1: That is the fundamental fact to be remembered in all
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  Speaker 1: discussion of morality, although it is the fact that is
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  Speaker 1: most often ignored. Ultimately, life determines moral teaching. It is
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  Speaker 1: not moral teaching that determines life. Life not alone determines morality,
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  Speaker 1: but it determines religion as well. What else is the
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  Speaker 1: meaning of all those discarded forms of religious belief, those
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  Speaker 1: bodies of dead gods that meet the student of history
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  Speaker 1: as the remains of extinct animals meet the geologist in
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  Speaker 1: its unravelment of the story of the Earth's vicissitudes. They
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  Speaker 1: are the result of a lack of adaptation to new
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  Speaker 1: conditions to which they could not accommodate themselves. Once the
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  Speaker 1: gods lorded it over man, as the gigantic dinosaur lorded
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  Speaker 1: it in his day over lesser animals, and in the
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  Speaker 1: one case, as in the other, a change in the
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  Speaker 1: environment brought about their doom. Natural selection determines the survival
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  Speaker 1: of religions as of animal forms, and a religion to
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  Speaker 1: survive must become increasingly utilitarian in character. Certainly, there is
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  Speaker 1: a point beyond which the opposite tendency cannot be carried. Assume,
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  Speaker 1: for example, that a religion existed of a grossly antisocial character,
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  Speaker 1: one that teaches doctrines that are subversive of the general
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  Speaker 1: social well being. One of two things must result. If
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  Speaker 1: the religion is strong enough to enforce its teaching, the
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  Speaker 1: society it dominates will disappear and the religion will die
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  Speaker 1: out with us. If, on the other hand, it cannot
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  Speaker 1: enforce its teaching or can get it accepted only in
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  Speaker 1: a modified form, then either the religion disappears in its
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  Speaker 1: original form or it is modified to get itself established.
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  Speaker 1: To live, religion must establish some sort of harmony between
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  Speaker 1: its teachings and the conditions of life. It may retard
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  Speaker 1: the development of life, but it must not retard to
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  Speaker 1: the point of destruction. This is all that is really
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  Speaker 1: involved in what is called the purification of religious teaching.
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  Speaker 1: In reality, there is no such thing. The purification is
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  Speaker 1: a modification, and it is modified in order that it
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  Speaker 1: may become acceptable to the society in which it is existing.
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  Speaker 1: The ascetic epidemic, the various disgusting sects that have sprung
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  Speaker 1: into existence from time to time during the course of
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  Speaker 1: Christian history, have all died out from this cause. As
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  Speaker 1: with the individual, so with society. The forces of which
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  Speaker 1: we are conscious generally move upon the surface of the
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  Speaker 1: underlying ones we are mostly unaware. The truth is, then,
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  Speaker 1: that behind all our consciously elaborated theories of life, there
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  Speaker 1: are operative the unconscious or subconscious forces of evolution. There
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  Speaker 1: is of course a certain area of conduct in which
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  Speaker 1: speculative opinions play their part, and where actions may be
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  Speaker 1: arbitrarily classed as good or bad. But this area is
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  Speaker 1: of necessity limited, and for the reasons that have been
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  Speaker 1: given above, properly understood morality is not something very abstract,
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  Speaker 1: but something that is very concrete. The underlying reason for
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  Speaker 1: morality is always the same, and we are compelled to
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  Speaker 1: hark back to it for justification, and no rejection of
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  Speaker 1: religion can alter the basis upon which morality rests. The
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  Speaker 1: proposition that atheist, agnostic and theist breathe the same atmosphere
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  Speaker 1: and are affected by the same influences, is there therefore
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  Speaker 1: one that is too edged. If our intellectual atmosphere is
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  Speaker 1: saturated with religious influences, it is also saturated with social
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  Speaker 1: influences of a much more fundamental character, and which have
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  Speaker 1: been perpetually correcting religious extravagances and it is at least
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  Speaker 1: open to the atheist to retort that we have to
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  Speaker 1: thank this circumstance that religious beliefs have not been more
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  Speaker 1: injurious than has been actually the case. If, for example,
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  Speaker 1: the ascetic epidemic of the early Christian centuries had increased
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  Speaker 1: in force and had continued operative, European society would have disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: That this was not the case was due to the
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  Speaker 1: strength of the sexual and social instincts against which religion
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  Speaker 1: was unable to maintain its hold. In the change of
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  Speaker 1: opinion over the better way to spend Sunday, or in
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  Speaker 1: the decay of the doctrine of eternal damnation, we have
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  Speaker 1: the same point illustrated right through history. It has been
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  Speaker 1: the social instincts that have acted as a corrective to
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  Speaker 1: religious extravagance. And it is worth noting that, with the
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  Speaker 1: exception of a little gain from the practice of causestry,
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  Speaker 1: religions have contributed nothing towards the building up of a
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  Speaker 1: science of ethics. On the contrary, it has been a
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  Speaker 1: very potent cause of confusion and obstruction. Fictitious vices and
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  Speaker 1: virtues have been created, and the real moral problem lost
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  Speaker 1: sight of It gave the world the morality of the
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  Speaker 1: prison cell instead of the tonic of the rational life.
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  Speaker 1: And it was indeed fortunate for the race that conduct
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  Speaker 1: was not ultimately dependent upon a mass of teachings that
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  Speaker 1: had their origin in the brains of savages and were
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  Speaker 1: brought to maturity during the darkest period of European civilization.
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  Speaker 1: In dealing with the first two propositions, I have, by
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  Speaker 1: implication answered the third, namely, that a wholly secular, authentic
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  Speaker 1: code of morals would be inadequate to form the highest
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  Speaker 1: type of character. It might supply a must, but it
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  Speaker 1: could not supply and ought. The first and obvious reply
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  Speaker 1: to an objection of this kind is that our working
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  Speaker 1: code of morals is secular already in life. If we
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  Speaker 1: observe without prejudice, it is not difficult to see that
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  Speaker 1: one's neighbour's friends, social class, et cetera, have far more
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  Speaker 1: force in shaping conduct than speculative theories. In its widest sense,
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  Speaker 1: natural selection determines what actions shall be declared to be moral.
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  Speaker 1: Of this we may take the universal feeling against homicide.
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  Speaker 1: This is but an expression of the truth that social
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  Speaker 1: life would be impossible were it otherwise, And when we
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  Speaker 1: pass from the general to the special, we meet with
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  Speaker 1: much the same principle operating in society. The average burglar
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  Speaker 1: pursues his calling with no special sense of its wrongness,
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  Speaker 1: although he may have a keen sense of its dangers.
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  Speaker 1: But while burgling with a fairly easy conscience, he does
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  Speaker 1: flinch at breaking the code of honor set up by
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  Speaker 1: his fellow burglars. And at the other extreme we have
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  Speaker 1: the gentleman with his code of honor, which forbids him
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  Speaker 1: not to pay a gambling debt, but takes no count
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  Speaker 1: of keeping a poor tradesman out of his money. In
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  Speaker 1: each of these cases, the determining factor is not theory
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  Speaker 1: but fact, And the fact here is association with our
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  Speaker 1: fellow countrymen or with a special social class. Morality, in short,
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  Speaker 1: is social or nothing. Moral laws are meaningless apart from
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  Speaker 1: social life. Every moral command implies the existence of a
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  Speaker 1: social medium, and it is no more than a study
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  Speaker 1: in history to see how this social medium has been
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  Speaker 1: continuously shaping and reshaping human nature. The determination here is
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  Speaker 1: not conscious, but it is real, however much disguised it
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  Speaker 1: may be by various forms or theories, And when we
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  Speaker 1: realize this, it is non more than a truism to
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  Speaker 1: say that a change in religious belief can no more
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  Speaker 1: destroy morality than a change in government can destroy society.
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  Speaker 1: But in saying that the essence of morality is unreasoning,
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  Speaker 1: I do not mean that it is unreasonable. All I
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  Speaker 1: mean is that it can receive a reasonable justification, and that,
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  Speaker 1: no matter how lofty the development, it has its basis
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  Speaker 1: in the fundamental conditions of associated animal and human life.
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  Speaker 1: We may surround the subject with a vague and attractive
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  Speaker 1: idealistic verbalism, but we come back to this as a
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  Speaker 1: starting point. The love of family, with all its attendant values,
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  Speaker 1: rests upon the fact of crude sexual desire, refined of
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  Speaker 1: course during the passing of many generations, but dependent upon
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  Speaker 1: it all the same. Remove the sexual desire and the
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  Speaker 1: family feelings are inexplicable. Thus the reason for the existence
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  Speaker 1: of the sexual instinct is race preservation. But the end
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  Speaker 1: has been achieved in a quite unreasoning manner. In the
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  Speaker 1: animal world at large, there is certainly no conscious desire
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  Speaker 1: for the production of offspring, nor is there with the
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  Speaker 1: mass of human beings. There is the desire to gratify
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  Speaker 1: an impulse, and very little more. And for the strengthening
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  Speaker 1: of an instinct. There need not be nor is there
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  Speaker 1: any consciousness of its social value. All that is necessary
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  Speaker 1: is that it shall be useful. Natural selection attends to
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  Speaker 1: the rest. This will, I think, supply an answer to
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  Speaker 1: the contention that secular ethics can supply a must but
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  Speaker 1: not an ought. That is, it may show that an
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  Speaker 1: individual should act in accordance with its inclinations, but in
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  Speaker 1: cases where these clash with the social well being, it
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  Speaker 1: can supply no reason why the former should give way
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  Speaker 1: to the latter. The argument rests upon a dual confusion. First,
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  Speaker 1: the moral ought is no more than an organized and
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  Speaker 1: conscious form of must, and not something distinct from it.
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  Speaker 1: One may test the matter by taking a case. A
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  Speaker 1: man says, I ought so to work as to promote
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  Speaker 1: the general welfare of society. If we seek to find
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  Speaker 1: the source of this feeling, we come ultimately upon the
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  Speaker 1: feeling of tribal solidarity in virtue of which certain tribes
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  Speaker 1: survive in the struggle for existence. It is gregariousness struggling
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  Speaker 1: into consciousness. The moral ought is an idealized form of
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  Speaker 1: the primitive tribal must, and the must of primitive life
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  Speaker 1: is encouraged and developed because it is one of the
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  Speaker 1: conditions of survival. The second point of confusion is based
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  Speaker 1: upon a supposed opposition between individual inclinations and an ideal
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  Speaker 1: conception of duty. That the two are often as a
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  Speaker 1: matter of fact, and conflict must be admitted. And the
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  Speaker 1: cause is that while our inclinations represent a heritage from
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  Speaker 1: the past, our ideals are a projection into the future.
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  Speaker 1: But the contention is based upon their supposed permanent hostility,
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  Speaker 1: and that need not be taken for granted. For the
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  Speaker 1: whole course of social evolution tends to bring about a
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  Speaker 1: substantial identification of personal and social well being. More and
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  Speaker 1: more as the race develops, it is being recognized that
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  Speaker 1: there is no real individual life apart from social life,
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  Speaker 1: of which it is the creation and the expression. Such
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  Speaker 1: antagonism as exists, is the inevitable result of a conflict
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  Speaker 1: between an organism and its adaptation to a changing environment.
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  Speaker 1: And from this point of view, the whole growth of
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  Speaker 1: man is in the nature of an expansion of his
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  Speaker 1: sympathies and sense of duty over an ever widening area.
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  Speaker 1: The primitive egoism of the tribal individual is extended to
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  Speaker 1: the nation, that of the nation to the empire, and
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  Speaker 1: thence to the whole of humanity. There is no destruction
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  Speaker 1: or denial of self in such cases. It is a
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  Speaker 1: development of the sense of self over and unlarge area. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: if a secular code of morals will not suffice, it
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  Speaker 1: is sheer rhetoric to say that religion is powerful enough
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  Speaker 1: to operate where naturalism fails. On the contrary, in a
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  Speaker 1: civilized community, religious appeals tend to become secular appeals in disguise.
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  Speaker 1: On the admission of Christian advocates. The two most powerful
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  Speaker 1: appeals that can be made are, on the one hand,
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  Speaker 1: in the name of the fatherhood of God, and on
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  Speaker 1: the other the conception of the mother and the child.
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  Speaker 1: And what are these but appeals to the secular and
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  Speaker 1: social feelings of man in the name of religion. It
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  Speaker 1: may be granted that atheism in its appeals to mankind
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  Speaker 1: often fails, but in this respect is it any worse
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  Speaker 1: off than religion. Why One of the standing complaints of
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  Speaker 1: religious preachers in all ages is that their message falls
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  Speaker 1: so frequently on deaf ears. There is no more certainty
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  Speaker 1: that the religious appeal will meet with success than there
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  Speaker 1: is that any other appeal will be successful. And there
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  Speaker 1: is the unquestionable fact that morality has become stronger as
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  Speaker 1: the power of religion has weakened. The higher qualities have
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  Speaker 1: asserted themselves during a period of religious disintegration, and the
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  Speaker 1: student of morals sees in this a promise of a
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  Speaker 1: further development in the future. And to all prophecies as
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  Speaker 1: to the effects of atheism on the morality of the future,
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  Speaker 1: there is the apt reply that they are prophecies and
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  Speaker 1: nothing else. And in this respect it is dangerous for
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  Speaker 1: the Christian theist to appeal to history, For while the
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  Speaker 1: consequences of atheism can be no more than a forecast
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  Speaker 1: which may or may not be justified, the record of
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  Speaker 1: Christianity is before the world, and we know that the
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  Speaker 1: period during which the influence of Christian Theism was strongest
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  Speaker 1: was the period when the intellectual life of civilized man
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: was at its lowest, morality at its weakest, and the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: general outlook most hopeless. Religious control gave us heresy hunts
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and jew hunts, burnings for witchcraft and magic in the
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: place of medicine. It gave us the Inquisition and the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Otto da Fe, the Fires of Smithfield, and the Knight
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of Saint Bartholomew. It gave us the war of sects,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and it helped powerfully to establish the sect of war.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: It gave us life without happiness and death cloaked with terror.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: The Christian record is before us, and it is such
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that every church blames the others for its existence. Quite
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: as certainly, we cannot point to a society that has
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: been dominated by free thinking ideas, but we can point
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to their existence in all ages, and can show that
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: all progress is due to their presence. We can show
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: that progressive ideas have originated with the least and have
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: been opposed by the most religious sections of society. What
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: religion has done for the world, we know what freethought
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: will do. We can only guess. But we are confident
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: that as honesty is possible without the falsity of religion,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: as duty may be done with no other incentive than
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: its visible consequences on the people around us, so life
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: may be lived in honor and closed in peace, with
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: no other inspiration than comes from the contemplation of the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: human stream from which we emerge and into which we
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: finally go. End of Chapter fourteen