Posted on 03/20/2011 10:09:37 AM PDT by delacoert
Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted." The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, is that belief in God makes us worse. As Hitchens puts it, "Religion poisons everything."
Arguments about the merits of religions are often battled out with reference to history, by comparing the sins of theists and atheists. (I see your Crusades and raise you Stalin!) But a more promising approach is to look at empirical research that directly addresses the effects of religion on how people behave.
In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review showing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when others are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them.
Maybe, then, religious people are nicer because they believe that they are never alone. If so, you would expect to find the positive influence of religion outside the laboratory. And, indeed, there is evidence within the United States for a correlation between religion and what might broadly be called "niceness." In Gross National Happiness, Arthur Brooks notes that atheists are less charitable than their God-fearing counterparts: They donate less blood, for example, and are less likely to offer change to homeless people on the street. Since giving to charity makes one happy, Brooks speculates that this could be one reason why atheists are so miserable. In a 2004 study, twice as many religious people say that they are very happy with their lives, while the secular are twice as likely to say that they feel like failures.
Since the United States is more religious than other Western countries, this research suggests that Fox talk-show host Sean Hannity was on to something when he asserted that the United States is "the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the Earth." In general, you might expect people in less God-fearing countries to be a lot less kind to one another than Americans are.
It is at this point that the "We need God to be good" case falls apart. Countries worthy of consideration aren't those like North Korea and China, where religion is savagely repressed, but those in which people freely choose atheism. In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.
Denmark and Sweden aren't exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy. So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones.
The first step to solving this conundrum is to unpack the different components of religion. In my own work, I have argued that all humans, even young children, tacitly hold some supernatural beliefs, most notably the dualistic view that bodies and minds are distinct. (Most Americans who describe themselves as atheists, for instance, nonetheless believe that their souls will survive the death of their bodies.) Other aspects of religion vary across cultures and across individuals within cultures. There are factual beliefs, such as the idea that there exists a single god that performs miracles, and moral beliefs, like the conviction that abortion is murder. There are religious practices, such as the sacrament or the lighting of Sabbath candles. And there is the community that a religion brings with it—the people who are part of your church, synagogue, or mosque.
The positive effect of religion in the real world, to my mind, is tied to this last, community component—rather than a belief in constant surveillance by a higher power. Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others. This is the moral of sociologist Robert Putnam's work on American life. In Bowling Alone, he argues that voluntary association with other people is integral to a fulfilled and productive existence—it makes us "smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy."
The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. In fact, Zuckerman points out that most Danes and Swedes identify themselves as Christian. They get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community—they just don't believe in God. Zuckerman suggests that Scandinavian Christians are a lot like American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice, have strong communal feelings, and tend to be well-behaved.
American atheists, by contrast, are often left out of community life. The studies that Brooks cites in Gross National Happiness, which find that the religious are happier and more generous then the secular, do not define religious and secular in terms of belief. They define it in terms of religious attendance. It is not hard to see how being left out of one of the dominant modes of American togetherness can have a corrosive effect on morality. As P.Z. Myers, the biologist and prominent atheist, puts it, "[S]cattered individuals who are excluded from communities do not receive the benefits of community, nor do they feel willing to contribute to the communities that exclude them."
The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.
Utter nonsense. Atheism is a religion in the same way “bald” is a hair color. It’s no more on athiests to prove that there is no higher power than it is on theists to prove that their is.
While we’re at it, doing good because you fear going to Hell doesn’t mean you’re a good person, a good Christian, a good anything. It means your selfish desire to not face an eternity of torment outweighs your selfish desire to do what you please.
You should treat others the way you’d like to be treated because it’s a logical, beneficial way to live your life for everybody. Do I try? Yes. Do I fail sometimes? Of course, I’m only human. Do I ask forgiveness? No, I do my best to make it up to whomever I’ve wronged.
To say that I’m not moral just because I don’t follow a religious code is ignorant.
Your last sentence: Perfect!
Define religious nut.
Yeah, good point. Every time you read about one of these people who axe their wife or rape some little kid, the neighbors frequently do say how “nice” they are. Just watched AMW last night and some guy who is on the Most Wanted List for murder was referred to as the most helpful and nice guy... blah, blah, blah... guess God is the one who really knows.
This is a wrong understanding. Christians are changed by Jesus and no longer desire to choose evil. Sometimes this happens all at once to a Christian and sometimes it happens over time, one issue at a time. If Christianity did not change us from the inside out, we would all simply be Rotarian's.
In regard to atheism, I believe it was John Adamas who said “That’s their problem”.
It is not true that atheists are not as nice or kind or considerate. I have one best friend who does not believe in G-d but she is a wonderful person to people and animals. Her thing is like many atheists’ bugaboo: they think that if there were a G-d, He would have to have made Thr world with only joy and happiness in it. They think He should be Santa claus.
They can’t get over that bad things happen. They can’t get over that things are often unexplainable.
You just supported the argument that is opposed to yourself. You think that because you do good because it is beneficial to others and so on IS somehow a BETTER good than the good a person does because he fears damnation and hellfire? You might see the latter as more selfish but I do not see it that way at all. I know that I (and many others with similar beliefs) do what is right because we LOVE God above all things and want to be like him; just as children who love their parents try to do things that please the parents.
Why you don’t get this is lost on me.
You can be in three states.
Moral - morality is not defind by the individual but based on Godly laws.
Esthics - based in a moral code.
Legal - rules as defind by institutions.
Athisim leaves only a legal state as it does not have by definition God as its base.
These are my opinion, nothing more nothing less.
Are you referring to: "God made the world, but nice people feel that they could have done the job better." If so, I also think that sentence is pure genius too. :)
The bible doesn’t teach ‘niceness’, as being something to which Christians ought to strive.
It teaches that we are to love one another. Sometimes this means discipline. The bible says this in many places, “to accept correction as discipline, for God is treating us as true sons.”
If anyone believes that they are good, and not wretched scum, then they need to take a closer look at themselves. Everyone needs Christ.
As a former lifelong atheist who is a current agnostic I would answer both questions in the affirmative. Not categorically, but generally.
Yep...how many times do we see neighbors when some sort of unthinkable crime happens always say...”we had no ideas they were so NICE”...? I’m sure there are nice people as well as not so nice people in all areas.I’ve met people who were the meanest low down people you would ever met who called themselves Christian and have met many nice people who have never stepped into a church in their lives....
<<<<<The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. In fact, Zuckerman points out that most Danes and Swedes identify themselves as Christian. They get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community—they just don’t believe in God. Zuckerman suggests that Scandinavian Christians are a lot like American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice, have strong communal feelings, and tend to be well-behaved.<<<<<<<<<
That is so wrong! Religion is much more than just “behavior” among a band of brothers. I’m sure the SS troops supervising concentration camps in World War II were “well-behaved” and respectful toward each other.
Religion is essential to the survival of a culture. The highly secular American Jews may be well-behaved, but they are assimilating and dying out because they lack strong beliefs.
The godless Danes may be well-behaved, but they are safely isolated in the north. They are a lily-white culture living off the heritage of great (Christian) Danes of the past, and ready to crumble at the moment aggressive religious people like Muslims move in. England is about as secular as Denmark, but is not considered peaceful because multi-culti England is overrun by Muslim immigrants and would-be terrorists.
I am referring specifically to:
There is a code written in our hearts... to deny that code, is to deny the code writer, and to deny the code writer is to give lip service to the moral code itself and can it when it infringes on one’s preference to disbelief.
But I did think the line about nice people thinking they could out-do God was pretty funny.
"Not always actions show the man; we find, Who does a kindness is not therefore kind." --Alexander Pope
David Burns, author and Stanford psychiatrist of some celebrity a few years back, opined that "niceness" is a serious threat to the mental health of our society. He had a point, when "niceness" supersedes forthrightness and assertive honesty as a virtue. You can see this played out in real life nowhere more clearly than in the religious "Christian" community
Yes, I think the author's case about Danes was fair.
“Pharisees were the most overtly nice people”
Not in my Bible they weren’t. Pharisees were pretty obnoxious about not only their punctilious observation of all 613 laws extrapolated from Torah, but were constantly wagging a scolding finger at everybody else. When not heckling and challenging Jesus’ ministry (He was a threat to their own power and influence, after all) the Pharisees showed little compassion when demanding compliance with the Law.
When the cured paralytic was carrying his mat instead of being carried on it, the Ph’s criticized him for `laboring’ on the Sabbath instead of saying “Praise G-d! You’re cured!”
When the man born blind walked into the Temple and seeing with both eyes, the Ph’s questioned his veracity, summoned his parents, and then threw him out for his temerity in praising Jesus.
And never mind what the Ph’s were about to do to the woman caught in adultery when Jesus intervened.
Anyway, this atheist vs believer debate will go on until the trumpet is finally sounded and every knee shall bend before Him (guess you know where I’m coming from). BTW, everyone I’ve ever talked to who claimed to be atheist turned out to be agnostic. “I know Something’s out there, I just don’t know in what form”.
I’ve yet to meet a genuine in-your-face you-superstitious-peasant atheist demanding “under G-d” be expunged from the Pledge. And that’s after three years in graduate school in the humanities & social sciences.
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