“What I’m saying is that religion thinks it holds a monopoly on morality. No religion, no morality. I call bullshit. In fact, I would say it’s possibly a fear of having no morality — or rather, being told that one can’t have morality without being religious that drives people to religion. People instinctively understand that morality is important and so seek to obtain it. Religion does the hard sell and people fall for it. What I think most people don’t realize is that religion actually inherits its morality from the natural world.”
“The natural world…”
“Yes, the natural world. The golden rule.”
“What?!”
“The golden rule. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Or, more cynically ‘What goes around comes around.’ This is the basic rule that governs social organization among animals.”
“Pardon? Do you mean to tell me a lion considers other lions’ feelings when deciding how to act?”
“Yeah. Exactly. I mean, a lion doesn’t think in those terms, but basic social organization arises out of knowing that if you fuck your neighbour over you can expect that your neighbour will feel compelled to return the favour — probably at an inconvenient time. But help your neighbour and when you fall on hard times you may reap the benefit of someone or something feeling empathy for you.”
“Empathy.”
“Yes, empathy. You know, some people think that animals don’t feel emotion? Can you believe that? Any pet owner knows better. It’s a total cop-out. If you don’t think animals can feel pain in an emotional sense — or love — then you can abuse or neglect without guilt. It’s a sick perspective that forgives exploitation.”
“You lost me. Back to the lion. You mean to tell me a lion would/could share a kill out of altruistic feelings?”
“Not altruistic, necessarily, no. I mean, if I’m starving and you’re not and you give me some food, are you doing that just to help me?”
“Yes.”
“No, you’re not. You’re doing it to help you. You’re planting a seed that you think may benefit you at some point in the future. Maybe you’ll fall on hard times in the future. Sure would help to have a lot of people you’ve done favours for.”
“Okay, let’s say it’s both for you and for me. I feel good; you get helped; and I may reap the benefits of an investment at some future date. You’re saying a lion or some other animal can think in those terms?”
“Well, perhaps not like that, but I think it’s not unreasonable to suggest that those patterns of behaviour are simply built into animals — and I include human beings — because it has proven to be an effective strategy for survival. Those species that have practised it have had greater success at survival and therefore have propogated their kind. The golden rule, therefore, isn’t just something we humans have invented. We’ve only codified it. The real golden rule is literally encoded in our DNA and all morality derives from that. Religion claims morality as its own, but in truth morality is — in a very real sense — as old as the hills. Which is really old…”
Garth sat back and folded his arms triumphantly. But Sarah wasn’t quite convinced. “What about sharks?” she said.
Morality, I believe, is hard wired. A small child instinctively knows wrong from right and in many cases, in spite of his parents.
Religion, be it a tribal faith or popular world religion all seem to have the basic moral codes.
Athiests also follow some self styled code of ethics.
Perhaps it is not the ‘religion’ based on writings like the Bible or Koran but simply the followers of religions who create their own code of morality loosely based on books they have not understood and much of the time not even read.
As for sharks…I will give that a think.
[…] Suffer through the advertisement to see some incredible video footage. How any thinking person can believe that animals don’t experience feelings is beyond me. For something more on this topic see my previous article: The Golden Rule. […]