To those millions of you who are wedded to your religions, this is an insoluble question. It is probably to you, akin to that same venerable question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” There is probably no doubt in your mind that your morals and your religion are inseparable companions. In your thinking, one does not live without the other. That’s okay in the sense that this is what we were told from the very first moment we were taught our lessons in behavior from our parents and teachers. It did not stop there, either. If we went to church, morals and religious faith (mythology) were joined together in every sermon and every Sunday school lesson. When we went to school, we pledged allegiance to our nation, “under God,” thereby equating nationalism, morality and religion all together in one breath. It is okay in the sense that we certainly need morality in our religions and in our country. They belong together. It may seem pointless to argue whether they are or are not separate entities, because we have historically, without any doubt, needed both our morals and our religions, as well as our national pride, to guide us through our lives. Without all of them, we would not be successful in protecting ourselves against all the forces in this world that are constantly trying to take away from us all those things that are most precious to us.
We make a rather tragic mistake, however, by thinking that all our right and wrong decisions have to stem from our combined morality system and religion, whichever they might be. We get them all mixed up in our heads. We think that they are all in the same pot, so whichever part of that pot justifies what we want to do, is the part we cite as the reason for our actions. We don’t realize that this leads to a mass insanity. Muslim zealots fly airplanes into the World Trade Center towers, believing in their souls that this was the most moral thing that they could do with their lives, and the lives of all those who were killed in those towers. They believed that they would be rewarded heaven for an eternity by their God for this evil act. Our American president orders America to invade Iraq because his God told him to do so. He believes that he made the most moral decision he could make, to this day, in spite of leaving a bankrupt nation and millions of Iraqi deaths. Suicide bombers blow themselves and many others up, because it is what is “right.” Palestinians and Israelis invade and bomb each other, knowing in their hearts that these violent acts are “right.” If we think that acts of hate and destruction are moral acts, then our moral system is an abomination. If we think that our religions tell us to perform acts of hate and destruction, then our religions are evil.
Our morals and our religions are not inseparable. Not only do they define separate needs for the human species, but they stem from separate origins. Morals describe those rules of conduct which each society establishes for itself to maintain stability. Those morals vary greatly from one society to another. They also evolve over time, varying greatly from one century to the next. No society is stable without these rules of conduct, however. When there was one person, good and evil were born. Whatever helped that one person was good, and whatever hindered that person was evil. When there were two people, right and wrong were born. Each came to understand that if they worked together, they had a better chance of survival and fulfillment. What was most helpful to both of them was right, and what was most hurtful to them both was wrong. When there was a group, morals were born. The group soon realized that they all had a better chance of survival if they all worked together under certain behavior patterns that they all understood. Those are what we call morals – which are different for each community, and which evolve over time.
It is clear that there were religious expressions as soon as humans developed some form of language. In that sense, there is little point in asking which came first. There was both religion and morality as soon as we existed. There was no organized religion, however, to the best of our knowledge, until Homo sapiens had been present on this earth for some 400,000 years. Organized religion is indeed a very late comer to the business of deciding what is right and wrong. Most importantly, our religious faith, or mythology, is not primarily concerned about what is right and wrong. The major focus of each religion is to convince other people to share their religious beliefs. Morals are secondary. In Christianity, for example, you can be the most evil person in the world, having murdered, raped, plundered, destroyed and wantonly polluted all your life, but if on your death bed you state acceptance of Jesus as your savior, you will be granted an eternity of pleasure in the kingdom of Heaven. That is a moral system that is terminally ill with cancer. Nothing can be “right” about that ideology.
Our willingness to believe in the mythology of our religions appears to stem from our very great need to feel important. That is truly understandable. None of us has much desire to continue in life unless we have the respect of our peers. We feed on and need to feel some importance in our group. If we do not feel that we are part of something greater than ourselves, it is difficult to keep on trying. Life is full of vicissitudes, sorrow, loss, grief, pain and insurmountable obstacles. If we feel that, in spite of the many difficulties we face in life, we belong to a grand cause, we can continue through the worst of life. Our religious myths offer us such things as a Heavenly Father who always loves us, is always guiding us, is always looking out for us, who sent His only Son down to Earth to die for us, who will, if we behave, give us an eternity of pleasure. What is there not to like about this package? There is a whole lot to like about it. When we face danger or tragedy, our churches are full of followers.
The morals of our societies have been in place, in greatly varying form, since the beginning of human time. Organized religion has been a tardy late comer to the business of right and wrong. Yet each of these major religions has adopted a moral system of some description. They no doubt had to add something of moral value, in order to make the whole package palatable. Our religions have these two dichotomous poles: morals are at one end, and at the other, great intolerance for those who do not share their particular mythology. Whether we make a truly moral decision or not depends on which one of those poles we choose to make our right and wrong decisions. If we choose to use the compassionate pole of our religions, we will make the right decisions. If we choose our religious intolerance to tell us how to behave toward other members of our societies, we will always make the wrong decisions. That is precisely what we are doing in today’s world, which has suddenly been thrown together as one world. All of our religious intolerance has been thrown together into a giant collision. As those religious intolerances interact, we are making the wrong moral decisions today, in spades.
Maybe our ancient instructions as to right and wrong have lost their meaning over time. Jews who are told that they must fully emulate the goodness of their God before they will be granted supreme status over all other people, are not quite sure how to display that goodness. Christians who are told to do unto others as you would have them do unto you are not quite sure what that means. Muslims who are told they must care for those who are in need before they can go to Heaven do not understand that there is something wrong with that system when that concern only applies to Muslims. Maybe each of us needs to ask ourselves a more cogent question, when we are making our decisions as to what is the right and what is the wrong action. When we hurt, when we crave, when we are treated with disdain, when we have had a searing loss, how do we react? How do we treat those others that we think are responsible for our paIn? Granted, we all need to defend ourselves against aggressors who will strip us of everything that is precious to us, if we let them. But when should we strike out at other human life? When we are wronged, do we give that aggressor a second chance, or a third chance? When should we strike back in order to get that which we believe we deserve?
Perhaps there is one additional question each of us should ask ourselves before we make our choice between what we believe to be right, and that which we believe to be wrong. That question would be:”Do I want to go to my grave knowing that I always showed compassion toward all others; or do I want to go to my grave knowing that I showed destructive anger and intolerance toward other life and other beliefs?”
Compassion is moral. Intolerance is not.