Download Mackay, H. 2005. Morality and Religion File

CHAPTER 4: MORALITY AND RELIGION
Hugh Mackay
Religion will always appeal strongly to those people who yearn for supernatural explanations
of the meaning and purpose of life because it offers us a way of acknowledging and ritualising
our bewilderment in the face of life's mysteries. But it can be dangerous to confuse religious
faith with a moral code, as if you can't have one without the other. Religion addresses the
metaphysical question: ‘Why are we here?’ Morality tackles a more practical question: ‘How
should we live together?’
For some people, those two questions seem to merge; religious believers often claim that
their moral code is directly linked to their religious faith. Yet religion and morality can be treated
quite separately: one is about making sense of your very existence; the other is about how to live
your life. Religion does its work in the interior, spiritual realm, whereas morality is an exterior,
social construct.
One way of distinguishing religion from morality is to say that in a secular society like ours,
you can believe anything you like, but you can't do anything you like: we have developed a variety of
sanctions to restrain uncivilised behaviour. There is no need to artificially inflate the worth of
these sanctions by linking them to some supernatural imperative, since human beings are quite
capable of devising their own moral codes: when religion claims the credit, this can easily lead
to rigidity and zealotry based on the idea that certain acts are right only because they are the
will of God.
The trouble with religion as a basis for morality
Apart from the unnecessary complication of attaching morality to religion (or even confusing
one with the other), there are three problems with looking to religion, or religio us
institutions, to prescribe the answers to specific moral questions.
First, religious dogma evolves more slowly than society and culture, and if you stick to
outdated religious dogma, chapter and verse, you can find yourself obeying rules that no
longer make sense. Why do Jews still avoid pork, for instance? And why do some
Christian fundamentalists still cling to literal interpretation of parts of the New Testament to
support the idea that women shouldn't become priests, or that men are destined to be the boss in
virtually every context, or that women should not speak in church, or that Christianity is the only
authentic pathway to God? Another example: why should religious prescriptions against
homosexuality, devised at a time of relative ignorance of the biological and cultural issues
involved, remain valid long after these matters have become better understood? You can easily
track the historical contexts for such moral prescriptions, but treating them as if they are
divinely ordained represents an abdication of personal responsibility and moral sensitivity.
It’s worth remembering that religions like Christianity and Buddhism, at their purest, are
based on the rejection of explicit moral rules in favour of personal disciplines and morally
sensitive states of mind. When Jesus said, ‘If you love me, keep my commandments’ he wasn't
referring to rules at all, and certainly not to the hundreds of commandments contained in the
Old Testament; he was referring to his own ‘law of love’ that transcends specific moral
prescriptions: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. Presented with a clear case of a woman
who had breached Jewish law, Jesus urged forgiveness rather than judgment or punishment:
‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’ (though he wasn't advocating moral anarchy:
he did urge the woman to ‘go and sin no more’).
Second, although there are some remarkably similar moral principles enshrined in the dogma of
different religions, there are also some major differences. For instance, Jews lay heavy emphasis
on revenge as a morally justifiable strategy, whereas Christians advocate forgiveness rather than
revenge. Buddhists and Christians praise humility as a virtue; Jews and Muslims don't. Most
religious believers who attach an explicit moral code to their faith would say that their
morality – like their faith – is right, and others are wrong. They would say that this is
borne out not only by the strength and persistence of their religious tradition, but also by
their own personal experience of living in tune with their particular ‘rules’.
The attempt to equate religious faith with particular moral positions is fraught with difficulty,
especially when, as so often happens, people in the same religious tradition come to
different conclusions about what is right or wrong in a particular situation. The case of
euthanasia is instructive: many people of strong religious faith would say they are opposed
to euthanasia because of their respect for the sanctity of life and their belief that human life
should never be terminated by human agency. Others who share the same religious faith
would say they support euthanasia because of their compassion for a terminally ill person who
is suffering intolerable pain or a humiliating loss of dignity.
Similar differences of opinion about war, homosexuality, divorce or biotechnology may be
found among people who are apparently operating within the same religious framework. If their
faith (or even their interpretation of Scripture) were able to determine their position on such
issues with the clarity they each claim, there would be no disagreement between them about
moral questions. Although those in both camps might regard their faith as illuminating their
convictions, the differences between them only emphasise the gap between faith (our response
to the mystery of life) and morality (our convictions about how to live together).
At the same time, it must be acknowledged that much of the practical moral advice
dispensed by religious institutions coincides with the sort of advice that emerges from purely
secular discussion of ethical issues. Killing, stealing, cheating, lying and exploiting other people
are not wrong because this or that religion says they are; they are wrong because societies can't
function harmoniously unless such actions are discouraged or prohibited.
None of this is to deny that religious thinkers and leaders may have a great deal to offer in
helping us clarify our own thinking about moral questions. Because religion is concerned with
holiness (another word for ‘wholeness’), the idea of personal integrity is central to most
religious practice. It is absolutely appropriate for religious institutions to offer guidance in
how to think about moral questions; the problem lies in their trying to tell us what to think, as
well. The what is precisely the thing we must decide for ourselves, if our moral lives are to
have integrity. For fully-fledged moral creatures, being ‘good’ is never about obedience; it is
about weighing up alternative courses of action and deciding which is best for all concerned, in
the present circumstances.
Third, people who confuse religion with morality often fall for the trap of thinking that
God has an active role in dispensing human justice. This leads them to blame God when
things go wrong for them, or to rail against God for the injustices of the world, or – most
dangerous of all – to believe that if they are ‘good’ in a religious sense, bad things won't
happen to them. Some religious fundamentalists, for instance, believe that God ‘blesses’
them with good health, or marital happiness, or even material prosperity as a direct reward for
their piety.
But the melancholy truth is that ‘good’ people are no more or less likely to suffer pain and
tragedy than ‘bad’ people. Devout parents produce deformed babies, just as non-believers do.
Deeply religious people contract cancer, are maimed in car accidents and lose their jobs. The
question ‘Why did God let this happen to me, when I’m a good [i.e. religious] person?’
represents a failure to grasp the role of religious faith ... though, to be fair, it's not very different from
the question often asked by non-religious people: ‘Why is this happening to me?’
On the available evidence, there's no such thing as a God who tries to ensure justice and
fairness in the world, nor a God who distributes pain and suffering as required, merely to test
the character or the patience of us mortals when we seem to be in need of ‘improvement’ or
‘growth’. If the concept of God is to play a helpful role in our lives, it won't be by creating a moral
policeman prosecutor/judge, all rolled into one.
Believers draw comfort from their faith in times of distress, solace in times of adversity,
inspiration and encouragement in times of despair and depression; why they suffer adversity,
distress or despair is a different question altogether. Many people (including me) would
argue that that's a question to which there's no answer, so it's pointless asking it – a bit like
asking ‘What colour is Tuesday?’ The challenge is not to seek an explanation for tragedy and
misfortune, but to decide how best to deal with it.
Rewards and punishments confuse the issue
When people try to use religion as a framework for morality, they often get caught up in
the idea of rewards and punishments, both here and in a yearned-for afterlife.
It's true that some of the moral choices we make do seem to be loosely based on the idea of
rewards and punishments: we'll be rewarded by happiness (or, at least, by some peace of mind)
if we do the right thing; we may be racked by guilt if we don't. Weighing up such private
consequences is a legitimate part of how we decide what's right and wrong. But if we
introduce the idea of rewards and punishments as a reason for acting well, we will have not
only added a dimension to the moral decision-making process that we don't need – one that
might actually complicate and confuse the issue – but we will also have missed the whole
point of being good and living well, which is that we ought to do the right thing because it is right,
not because we will be rewarded.
If you're operating according to a system of presumed consequences in the afterlife, this
might make you behave like an angel, but it might also make you feel somewhat above the
struggle, morally superior, perhaps even invincible. This is especially true if you belong to the
kind of religious group that believes your faith has ‘saved’ you from eternal damnation, regardless
of how you might behave on a day-to-day basis. The idea that God will forgive your bad
behaviour may be comforting, but, paradoxically, it can actually encourage bad behaviour.
Anticipation of religiously motivated rewards and punishments is a particularly shaky
basis for moral choice. What if your faith wavers? Does that mean ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ lose their
clarity for you? We shouldn't need carrots to encourage us to do the right thing, nor sticks
to discourage us from doing the wrong thing. We should need neither the promise of heaven
nor the threat of hell to motivate us. (In any case, most of us are perfectly capable of creating
our own heaven and hell, sometimes both at once, right here on earth.)
In fact, the whole idea of rewards and punishments – temporal or eternal – is ultimately
irrelevant when we are confronted by moral choices. Deciding what's right and wrong is a serious
business, not to be confused by considerations of ‘what I can get out of this’. If you offer your
children a reward for ‘being good’, they may learn how to win a reward, but they may not
learn what ‘good’ is, and they will certainly not learn about the intrinsic value in doing the right
thing. Perhaps we need to re-examine the wisdom that lies behind that old, old maxim: virtue is
its own reward.
Source: Mackay, H. 2005. Right & Wong. Hodder, Sydney. Pp 48-50