Agnostic Mom

I’ve been reading this great book, and I wish I’d been blogging my thoughts on it all along as I read. The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright is a definite must-read. Wright re-examines behavior, motives, and basically everything we do and think, in light of evolution and natural selection. It challenges traditional psychological understanding, stating that our behaviors have less to do with our childhood, and more to do with how the primitive environment shaped us. It’s funny, because I remember reading a different book by a psychologist (I can’t remember the name or author) who interviewed the Dalai Lama on happiness: The Dalai Lama criticized Western Psychology for limiting behavior and the psyche’s roots to a person’s own life and childhood. According to Buddhism, a person’s current psyche has been shaped over thousands of years. That, of course, is because their belief in reincarnation, but it’s interesting that Robert Wright is making the same claim, except it has to do with our genes and ancestors, not our “past lives”.

Purposely giving up your religion, and your beliefs about life and the world, can lead to such an exciting, rejuvenating adventure with new paradigms and understanding. You have to decide what you believe and don’t believe about everything. As my views created new shape, I have gradually found names for my beliefs and values that others share with me: Humanism, Minimalism, etc. A big question many athiests feel a need to answer for themselves is the question of morality. Is it relative? Is there a source for it? Do goodness and evil exist in and of themselves, or is that defined by humankind? To me, goodness is anything that contributes to the overall happiness and well-being of the living as a whole, whereas evil is anything that deprives from the happiness and well-being of humankind. I cannot achieve my own happiness at your expense (ie. by stealing your property) and call that goodness, because it hurts “the whole” as a group.

In my reading of The Moral Animal, I found a name for this world view: It is called Utilitarianism. John Stewart Mill was the “premier publicist” (pg. 332) of this philosophy, and published papers with the very title, Utilitarianism. He and Darwin both embraced Utilitarianism as the answer to the question of morality in light of the harsh and brutal ways of Natural Selection. Mill saw a need for a moral code in order to “maximize the world’s total happiness’ (pg. 332). Jesus’ Golden Rule is the key to Utilitarianism. It goes hand in hand with Secular Humanism.

My next thought now is always, “what are some ways I can discuss these ideas with my children?” Before it was so easy: the Church had all kinds of materials and lesson plans for parents to use with their children. I am completely unaware of material on these subjects, designed specifically for parents to use with their children. Maybe the Universalist Unitarians have stuff. They are like a church for the not-necessarily religous. . . kind of. They embrace good parts of all faiths and their members are full of athiets, agnostics, liberal Christians, Jews, Pagans, Buddhists, etc. If I think of it later, I’ll do some research and see if they have library of books for children on this stuff. Otherwise, I guess these types of universal subjects can be pulled out of literature and discussed while reading to our children.