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Let's look at secular humanism for a moment. A sampling of those Affirmations I mentioned earlier includes:
- We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence
- We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.
- We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.
- We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
- We are engaged by the arts no less than the sciences.
- We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
- We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.
Whenever I see these affirmations, I can't help but notice that they are all positive statements: We are. We believe. We affirm. How very different that is from "Thou Shalt Not." What reasonable person would look at this list and say, "Hmmm, justice, reason, compassion...sounds like a bad idea." Certainly, not every individual will accept every point - that's true even among avowed humanists. In fact, that's actually one of the strengths of humanism: no one requires you, in the name of orthodoxy, to believe anything that honestly goes against your conscience.
I should point out that these principles were formulated by people who felt themselves neither beholden to nor threatened by a deity. Some theists will argue that these statements derive from the morality of the predominantly Christian society in which authors were raised, and are therefore religious in nature. Aside from the fact that minority religions in America would find this idea deeply offensive, and also ignoring the similar principles espoused by the thriving groups of humanists in India, Norway, and all over the world, the truth is that some of these affirmations would not have come from the majority of organized religions. For example:
- We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise their reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health care, and to die with dignity.
There it is - homosexuality, abortion, and euthanasia, the three biggest hot-button issues in contemporary political and religious debate. No mainstream religion I can think of would have, as a matter of doctrine, left these matters open to individual conscience. Another example:
- We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
Isn't looking "outside nature for salvation" the primary thing which most religions concern themselves with? And even something as innocuous as the aforementioned principle of protecting and enhancing the environment, while not much in dispute today, has not historically been a Judeo-Christian principle - quite the opposite, in fact.
Finally:
- We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.
And therein lies the key. Moral principles do have consequences, and you don't have to believe in a deity to recognize and evaluate them. Just because you arrive at an ideal through personal empathy and compassion rather than divine decree does not make you any less moral - and many would argue that it makes you more so. Parents, do you want your children to do what's right because they agree it's right, or because you have to hassle and threaten them all the time?
After all, how does one arrive at a decision not to kill somebody if God is saying that it's okay? Compassion, perhaps? Empathy? The realization that if an action would cause harm to oneself, it would probably cause harm to another as well? These are all valid reasons to refrain from an act, and they are generally the grounds upon which nonbelievers base their morality. While the Golden Rule of "Do unto others" may be found in both the Christian and Hebrew scriptures, as well as many other religions the world over, it is no less true in the absence of divine endorsement.
In my humble experience, thinking people will usually do as their consciences dictate, regardless of the actual tenets of their espoused religions. I can't tell you how many theists I know who disagree with their churches on something substantive, whether it be abortion, gay marriage, the right to die, women's equality, birth control, or anything else. But generally, their consciences make reasonably good guides, and how they treat people does not differ significantly from ethical atheists I know. Conversely, I've noticed that people who lead unexamined lives and have little empathy or compassion for others will do whatever they please, regardless of the harm they do, and despite all attempts of religion and society to force them to do otherwise. In short, it is the person, and not the religion or lack thereof, which determines the moral depth of the behavior.
Role of Religion
One argument which I can see being raised is that some people who are troubled by addiction and other physical and emotional disorders do indeed lead very immoral, destructive existences; then one day they convert to a particular faith, and their lives are transformed. They repent and become tremendously caring, giving people, and it's all because of God.
Well, I never claimed that theism could not make a difference in a person's life, I simply maintain that it is not a necessary factor for all people who would be moral. But let's examine the case for a moment. People who convert under such circumstances are usually quick to disclaim all credit for their good deeds and insist that without God, they would soon revert to their former, destitute selves. "Not I, but God in me," as it were. Seemingly, these people have no volition in the matter, because according to them, if given half a chance they would do precisely the opposite of what God wants them to do.
Now, personally I'm disinclined to accept that God uses people as marionettes in this manner, but I'll assume this model for the sake of discussion. So, if God is solely responsible for the good these individuals do, as they claim, then they must by definition be coerced, since action imposed by an outside agency without the opportunity for choice is coercion.
The question then arises: Can these people still sin? If yes (and I don't know of any organized religion which would purport otherwise), then they must be choosing to do so, since presumably God would not be forcing a person to do something which is against God's will. And indeed, many devout believers maintain that the good they do comes from God, whereas the evil they do comes from themselves.
But you can't have it both ways. What does it say for God's ability to coerce if you can choose to go against it any time the mood strikes you? God doesn't come across as very omnipotent in such an event. Either God is forcing your actions, in which case the responsibility for both your good and your evil deed falls to the deity; or else you have an element of choice at all times, which means you choose both to sin and to follow God's perceived promptings to compassion. For those who insist that God does not force them, but that it is only through the strength they receive from God that they even have the ability to do good, I say that it is still your choice to use that strength to do good works, rather that simply going about your business and ignoring the needs of others. If it is not compelled, it is choice - there is no third option.
People can and do make moral choices on their own, whether they recognize it or not, whether they believe in a deity or not. Even when a principle is initially suggested by religion, it must be affirmed through human choice. Slavery, for example, is permitted in the Bible, and Paul even tells slaves to submit to their masters and not rise up against them; yet society has since decided that this is not, in fact, a moral thing, and slavery has been abolished. Not by religious or biblical decree, but by individuals coming to a collective decision about the morality of owning another human being. We do progress, however slowly. And thus though I am very much a theist, my humanism is secular, for I see no evidence in either principle or practice that one must believe in a deity to be ethical. I also see the power of human compassion in both the theist who does not kill when commanded to, and in the atheist who sacrifices generously when not commanded to. Most of all, I see the staggering potential of human choice, for it is only through our choices that we grow.
--Bonnie Cline
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