Morality Without God?
Gabriela Ortega
Growing up, my family attended church every Sunday. My Dad believed that us growing up in the Catholic Church would be the best option for us. If my parents thought it would be best, naturally it made sense for me to follow without asking questions. As I continued to mature, I began to distance myself from the Catholic Church. The lack of progressive ideas and oppressive culture made it difficult for me to justify attending any longer. Thankfully, my parents were understanding and allowed me to make the decision not to go.
Even after I stopped attending church services, I still considered myself religious. I felt that it would be horrible not to be religious since we do live in the Bible Belt. Not being religious or atheist was not something I familiar with, so I just stated that I was religious, but preferred not to attend church services.
This acceptance of my true beliefs made me consider what my morals would be based on. To me, developing morality without religion seemed confusing. Many people base their morals and beliefs on their religious beliefs. This is not the case, though. American Atheist states,
“Ethical behavior – regardless of who the practitioner may be – results always from the same causes and is regulated by the same forces and has nothing to do with the presence or absence of religious belief.”
Morals have existed far longer than religion. People have been determining between right and wrong before they were introduced to a higher power.
While I still do not feel completely comfortable with not religious, I feel more confident than in the past. According to Merriam Webster, being enlightened means to be freed from ignorance and misinformation. This definition particularly appealed to me because it did feel like a freeing moment to me. I knew that I did not want to be involved in organized religion and once I realized this, I was able to apply my energy in other parts of my life.
Thoughts to Consider
- Did your family allow you to make the decision about your involvement in religion?
- What did you find to be your biggest challenge when developing your personal code?
- How does religion effect your own moral code?
- Do you feel that Atheism 2.0 can help people struggling with religion develop a moral code?
- If you are a parent, how do you plan to incorporate religion and morality to encourage enlightenment?
1. They did, despite their own conventionally-conservative religious upbringings. Thank goodness.
ReplyDelete2. Trying to square my native desire to be good for goodness’ sake with the church’s insistence that my goodness could only be motivated by a public profession of belief in a supernatural god and some unimaginable eternal reward.
3. Not at all, in the doctrinal sense. But I do acknowledge that many good people have been inspired by religious ideals. Whatever elicits the best version of oneself “pays its way,” we pragmatists say.
Delete4. If by that we mean a form of atheism (or humanism) that acknowledges the value of certain practices we might associate with religion, like congregating and enjoying the “fellowship” of peers, then yes indeed. But my guess is that most people don’t come to religion in order to develop a moral code, most people already have one. Most of us internalize some version of the golden rule before we leave kindergarten, for instance. More likely, they’re searching for meaning and purpose. Religion has no monopoliy on that.
5. We’ve raised two virtuous, kind, caring, enlightened and freethinking young women, and would like to think our example did not present an obstacle to their becoming who they are.