I have long expressed that empathy is a key factor in a person’s morality. Empathy is a state that the human brain evolved a capacity for. Guilt is another. Our social upbringing also comes into play, but only because an ability to experiences these things first evolved within the brain.

Gregg100 sent me a link to an article that tells of a recent study on this subject. I’ve pulled out a few statements that summarize the main points of the article but I recommend you read the whole thing so you know the specifics and the limitations to how far the study extends.

Damage to the part of the brain that controls social emotions changes the way people respond to thorny moral problems, demonstrating the role of empathy and other feelings in life-or-death decisions.

“Part of our moral behavior is grounded … in a specific part of our brains,” said Dr. Antonio Damasio, one of the study’s lead authors and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex processes feelings of empathy, shame, compassion and guilt. Damage to this part of the brain, which occupies a small region in the forehead, causes a diminished capacity for social emotions but leaves logical reasoning intact.

Researchers found no difference among groups in their responses to scenarios with no moral content, such as turning a tractor left to harvest turnips.

This study is not in isolation. Without even looking for them I come across studies with similar or related conclusions quite regularly. The conclusions have perspective-altering implications that might challenge the way religious believers expect their god to hold people accountable for their “sins.” Or the way societies deal with criminals. Such implications and how we should deal with them are complicated. But I think this is an extremely important area to learn more about if we are ever going to understand human nature and hope for a more peaceful world.

During a recent airing, talk show host Dennis Prager spoke to a man who apologized to his son for “giving a worse America to you than my father gave to me.”

A worse America? This wasn’t a new concept to me. Having grown up all around conservatives, I’ve heard this complaint many, many times. People lament what they perceive to be a decline in American values over the last forty years.

Although there may be a small amount truth in the statement, I have to wonder if it is really so, overall.

I mean, I’m sure the African Americans who, at one time, had to drink from different water fountains and go to different schools would disagree. And I’m sure the women who weren’t able to vote or leave abusive marriages would disagree. I’m sure the hispanics in my hometown, who were not allowed in the public swimming pools, would disagree.

I bet the girls who were blamed for their own rapes would disagree. I bet the parents of depressed suicidal teens, who were told their children had lost their seat in heaven, would disagree. I bet the children with ADHD, who were smacked with a whip in school for not controlling themselves, would disagree.

I wonder if the “love children”, the “bastards” who were labeled dirty for coming too soon, would agree? Or what about those permanently paralyzed by polio, before there was a vaccine? How about the single mothers who couldn’t get a decent enough job to feed their family?

We could go back a few more generations, to the lawlessness of the old west,
the ruling gangs of New York, the slaves of the south. Child labor? Public education by way of the Bible? Or what about no public education?

Oh, I know we could come up with an entire second list of injustices we have overcome. Improvements in American values.

Yes, there may be spots where America has done a nose-dive. But does it really balance out to a net loss? I don’t think so. I’d say that for many, America is a much better, safer place. It is a wonderful time to be raising children.

The scientist, Ramachandran, describes this experience as literally dissolving the barrier between two people because the neurons do not know the difference between poking yourself and poking someone else. He concludes, “it provides a basis, almost a neuro-basis, for ethics.”

He then goes on to explain that many children with autism are missing these neurons, “which is one reason they lack empathy…and are unable to look at the world from your point of view.”

Here is the link to the particular session with Ramachandran. You’ll have to get through the first speaker and some discussion before the speech I am referring to. And I’ll warn you if you try to watch the first speech, none of the scientists in attendance understood the guy, nor did they seem to accept his premises. Ramachandran’s speech was quite interesting.

I’ve been watching videos of the entire conference for a couple weeks now. It is was a recent conference called, Beyond Belief, with other well-knowns, such as Dawkins, Shermer, Sam Harris, and many others I am getting to know. It’s been completely interesting. It is essentially a debate about the stance atheist scientists should should or should not take on religion. There are very many view points and it’s great to see that the scientists have no problems giving and receiving criticism to one another’s opinions. There is a lot of discussion on the morality question as well.

Note: If you click on the link to the entire conference, you will need to scroll way down until you see the big black box with titled, “Beyond Belief.”

In fact, the article may relate in some way to a comment/question that Angel posted last week. Angel: If you are still here, the article I linked to may interest you. I do plan to address your specific concern about having raised your children without religion in the next few days.

I also promise to respond to Mommy Window soon, who had a question others have asked regarding social situations as a minority unbeliever.

Enjoy!

“How are humans being classified as non-animals in Social Studies class?”
By teaching that animals have long been used to, say, work in the fields, regardless of their choice. Doing the same thing to humans is usually presented as wrong, thus making a distinction between animals and humans. The double message is that humans both are and are not animals.

“No one is being made to make ethical statements based on science in school.”
I don’t agree with that in all cases. I suspect that some would like ethical statements based on science to be made in schools. Within the context of this blog, I understand people to have been attempting to base ethical statements on science.

I agree that faith(s) can be discussed in school. I disagree that it should be taught. Perhaps this has changed, but when I was in school, slavery was presented as wrong. I think this is a faith-based teaching.

Do you see humans as animals? If yes, is it wrong to own animals as pets or use them for work against their obvious choice?

One of the themes on this blog that I’m interested in is: Assuming a purely materialistic universe, is there any way, based solely on the physical evidence that we can observe, to build a moral or ethical system that is not relative to the individual? I understand Noell to be saying yes, there is, and I disagree. If you haven’t done so already, you may want to check out Noell’s post: http://www.agnosticmom.com/2006/08/02/evolutionary-psychology-and-materialism-as-a-world-view/ and my response, which is approx #12.

I will now quote Dan in italics and then make my response.

“The double message is that humans both are and are not animals.”
I will agree with this statement. Humans are animals. And at the same time, humans are not animals. The statements only contradict because of semantics. The truth is, we evolved from animals, we are part of the animal kingdom. We share many similiarities with animals. We are animals.

And yet, we evolved a few other capabilities that distinguish us from animals. The greatest factor in this is the human development of advanced language. It is language that allowed us to form the communities that we have, allowed us to develop a capacity for empathy, allowed us to have an awareness of others, allowed us to have some choices beyond our instincts, allowed us to think about ourselves and evaluate.

Humans are the only animals we know of that can act against even our greatest instinct, which is to spread our genes (procreation). We have, for example, invented birth control. Daniel Dennett likes to point out this fact as he explains how language has made the human species unlike any other animal.

(Note to Dan: If you really want to understand this viewpoint, Daniel Dennet, atheist philosopher who knows his science, is the person to read or listen to.)

“Within the context of this blog, I understand people to have been attempting to base ethical statements on science.”
There is a distinction to be made here. Science must do its investigating and be kept wholly separate from ethics. Learning that nature selects that which is “most fit,” for example, does not mean it is ethical for humans to favor those most fit and allow to die those who are less able. Humans must make decisions on ethics from a philosophical stand-point. But many of the findings in science can direct us to a greater understanding of how things work, giving better clarity and accuracy to our philosophy about ethics.

For example, it will take science to better understand what is going on when someone is in a vegetative state. Science does not tell us whether it is ethical or not to take someone off life-support. But it might tell us whether someone has any chance for survival, whether there is any level of consiousness, whether there exists any pain or desire within the person. We can then take the scientific evidence to help us decide the ethics of whether to leave a person on life support or take them off. Science gives us the information we need. It does not give us the ethics. That is why, yes, we have discussed a link between science and ethics on this blog. And yes, I would submit that scientific findings are crucial information as we make choices in ethics. But there is still a vast separation between the two. Science gives us factual information. Ethics must derive from philosophical discussion with the facts at hand.

“Perhaps this has changed, but when I was in school, slavery was presented as wrong. I think this is a faith-based teaching.”
It does not take faith in a being that no one has seen to come to the conclusion that enslaving someone who desires freedom is wrong. Faith and ethics have nothing to do with each other.

Do you see humans as animals? If yes, is it wrong to own animals as pets or use them for work against their obvious choice?
This is an example of where scientific progress may shape our ethics on treatment of animals. It seems that my dog is in pure bliss living with us, even with our rules that he not leave the house without us. If it were to be discovered that dogs are unhappy as domesticated pets, that they have a will and desire currently unknown to us, then I would conclude that it is unethical to keep them. It’s not about the fact that they are animals (as we are, too). It has only to do with their ability to be content or “happy,” as far as animals can be happy. It appears that dogs are happy as pets. It is unethical to treat animals with cruelty, even if they are animals.

I do not allow my kids to cage up wild insects, as much as they would like to, because I know insects have a need to be free.

Cows were bred to live the lives they do. As far as we can tell, cows have no need to run free and pursue other interests in the wild because they were not bred to desire that. But, if it were discovered through science, that cows were, in fact, unfulfilled and depressed on the farm, it would become a matter of ethics whether we keep them there or not. Arizona just dealt with these issues politically as we passed a law that farmers give more space to pregnant cows and calves raised for veal (previously they had no room to even turn around).

Humans are animals that are extremely different from all other animals. Our particular difference requires we have more autonomy in order to be happy. Other non-human animals just don’t have as many needs for personal fulfillment as we do because they did not evolve in the direction we did.

So, I hope you see, Dan, that there is nothing contradictory here with the view of humans as animals. And there is nothing shady in terms of the relationship between science and ethics.

I’ve had some time to read some of the earlier posts. I’m interested in the idea that “nature is all there is”. [I’m thinking, nature = the physical world] If I understand post #8 correctly, this is a position you hold.

I see two, somewhat different, implications:
1) the universe, as a whole, quite likely produces a consciousness; something that might be called “a god”
2) there is no meaning or value in life, other than what a particular individual attaches to it. And related: concepts of good and evil must be relative to the individual.

So, would you be interested in a conversation in that direction?

(Disclosure, if it matters: I hold a Christian worldview.)

Dan, you are accurate to sum up my position that “nature is all there is.” I am a materialist.

But when we look at the two implications you listed, I do not subscribe to either of them. The reason I don’t agree with either of the two optional implications is that I am aware of a third implication.

There is a growing science that says the human species evolved certain psychological traits. As a quote on my previous post on Darwin Day stated, our understanding of evolution is creeping into all kinds of areas. It is changing the way we understand medicine. And it is changing the way we understanding human psychology and human nature. While Evolutionary Psychology is still young in the field of science and has much work yet to do in substantiating its claims, it contributes a third implication to Dan’s list of only two; an implication to which I currently subscribe.

In his book, The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker explains:

In the study of humans, there are major spheres of human experience–beauty, motherhood, kinship, morality, cooperation, sexuality, violence–in which evolutionary psychology provides the only coherent theory and has spawned vibrant new areas of empirical research. Behavioral genetics has revived the study of personality and will only expand with the application of knowledge from the Human Genome Project. Cognitive neuroscience will not shrink from applying its new tools to every aspect of mind and behavior, including the emotionally and politically charged ones.

Later he clarifies what evolution means for psychology:

Natural selection works to homogenize a species into a standard overall design by concentrating the effective genes–the ones that build well-functioning organs–and winnowing out the ineffective ones. When it comes to an explanation of what makes us tick, we are thus birds of a feather. Just as we all have the same physical organs (two eyes, a liver, a four-chambered heart), we have the same mental organs.” (pg. 142)

What does this have to do with finding meaning in life or understanding whether concepts of good and evil are relative? Here is what a materialist view implies when combined with the view that evolution provided us a certain innate psychology:

To quote Pinker again on pg. 145:

Regardless of IQ or physical strength or any other trait that can vary, all humans can be assumed to have certain traits in common. No one likes being enslaved. No one likes being humiliated. No one likes being treated unfairly, that is, according to traits that the person cannot control. The revulsion we feel toward discrimination and slavery comes from a conviction that however much people vary on some traits, they do not vary on these. This conviction contrasts, by the way, with the supposedly progressive doctrine that people have no inherent concerns, which implies that they could be conditioned to enjoy servitude or degradation.

Do you see how this homogeny implies a certain generality when it comes to the meaning of life or ethics/morality?

We all have the capacity to feel pain and happiness. We all want to avoid pain and increase pleasure and happiness. We also all know this is true of one another (the ability to understand even that is likewise inherent in our natural cognitive abilities). These three simple facts are enough to provide us both a compass for ethics/morality and for meaning to life.

I find meaning in the fact that I can increase my own happiness and I have the ability to help increase happiness in others. So I guess in some ways a materialist point of view may imply that “there is no meaning or value in life, other than what a particular individual attaches to it.” But in consideration of a shared human nature, or the idea that humans share certain innate traits, I do not agree with the implication.

I find value in life from the mere fact that I have approximately seventy years (if I live an average life-span) of conscious existence. If that is all you think you have, and you do not imagine another life after, what can you possibly value more than life? Not only your own life, but the lives of others?

I personally find meaning in the fact that I can do things to increase my own personal happiness and the happiness of other people. The quotes from Steven Pinker above imply that this could be a universally human objective when it comes to finding meaning in life. It implies that all humans want to be free and pursue their own happiness.

But what about the other half of the implications you listed for a materialistic worldview? Dan said it was that “concepts of good and evil must be relative to the individual.”

Some materialists do hold this view, but it does not necessarily follow as the only consistent conclusion to materialistic thought. Many scientists, philosophers and atheist writers speak of an innate “moral sense” in the human species which evolved through Natural Selection.

A few of the more popular ones that I have been referring to recently are Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Robert Wright, Daniel Dennett, and James Joyce.

Wright lists a number of traits that combine to make up this natural moral sense:

Altruism, compassion, empathy, love, conscience, the sense of justice–all of these things, the things that hold society together, can now confidently be said to have a firm genetic basis (The Moral Animal, pg. 12).

I have to qualify this quote with my own statement that I would have to review his book to find out what Wright’s sources are for the “firm genetic basis” of the traits he listed. But Pinker agrees with him when he makes a similar list which he referred to as an innate “emotional repertiore–-sympathy, trust, guilt, anger, self-esteem.”

Pinker gave this explanation for the evolutionary endowed moral sense while discussing the dilemma of conflicting self-interests among individuals:

. . . there are reasons to believe that the solution to it–a moral sense–evolved in our species rather than having to be deduced from scratch by each of us after we’ve picked ourselves up out of the mud. Children as young as a year and a half spontaneously give toys, proffer help, and try to comfort adults or other children who are visibly distressed. People in all cultures distinguish right from wrong, have a sense of fairness, help one another, impose rights and obligations, believe that wrongs should be redressed, and proscribe rape, murder, and some kinds of violence (The Blank Slate, pg. 187-8).

And this is what I meant when I told Dan that there was a third implication:

The alternative, then, to the religious theory of the source of values is that evolution endowed us with a moral sense, and we have expanded its circle of application over the course of history through reason (grasping the logical interchangeability of our interests and others’), knowledge (learning of the advantages of cooperation over the long term), and sympathy (having experiences that allow us to feel others pain).

Steven Pinker, then, made a comparison of a religiously endowed morality to an evolutionary endowed morality:

How can we tell which theory is preferable? A thought experiment can pit them against eachother. What would be the right thing to do if God had commanded people to be selfish and cruel rather than generous and kind? Those who root their values in religion would have to say that we ought to be selfish and cruel. Those who appeal to a moral sense would say that we ought to reject God’s command.

. . .The history of religion shows that God has commanded people to do all manner of selfish and cruel acts: massacre Midianites and abduct their women, stone prostitutes, execute homosexuals, burn witches, withhold medicine from dying children, shoot up abortion clinics . . .(pg. 189).

But let’s also compare the theory of an innate moral sense to the theory that morality is relative and should not be part of the human dialogue at all. Pinker gives one example (among others) of why it is dangerous to disregard and deny this innate nature that provides us with a moral sense:

Feminism, far from needing a blank slate, needs the opposite, a clear conception of human nature. One of the most pressing feminist causes today is the condition of women in the developing world. In many places female fetuses are selectively aborted, newborn girls are killed, daughters are malnourished and kept from school, adolescent girls have their genitals cut out, young women are cloaked from head to toe, adulteresses are stoned to death, and widows are expected to fall onto their husbands’ funeral pyres. The relativist climate in many academic circles does not allow these horrors to be criticized because they are practices of other cultures, and cultures are superorganisms that, like people, have inalienable rights. To escape this trap, the feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum has invoked “central functional capabilities” that all humans have a right to exercise, such as physical integrity, liberty of conscience, and political participation. She has been criticized in turn for taking on a colonial “civilizing mission” or “white woman’s burden,” in which arrogant Europeans would instruct the poor people of the world in what they want. But Nussbaum’s moral argument is defensible if her “capabilities” are grounded, directly or indirectly, in a universal human nature. Human nature provides a yardstick to identify suffering in any member of our species (The Blank Slate, pg.172).

This understanding of human nature is vital in preserving the freedoms of all people. White southerners justified their actions against black people, both while they were slaves and after, by pretending blacks were less than human in order to deny them the characteristics that would make their enslavement wrong. They created stereotyped caricatures of black people to portray a difference in the nature of black people compared to white people. A universality in human nature defines this as clearly wrong, not just morally but also factually.

To summarize, theories in Evolutionary Psychology regarding innate and homogeneous needs and desires across the human species provides its own implications to the materialist. In addition to the idea that humans can find meaning in life by virtue of the fact that we exist with capacities for pain and happiness, we can assume a shared concept of the meaning of life: the pursuit of happiness, both for ourselves and others. It also means that morality is not relative. The subjugation of and infliction of pain on another being is not acceptable and good to some people in some cultures. Human beings cannot be socialized to desire servitude and pain. Human beings, no matter the environment or culture, do not want pain or servitude. Therefore ethics and morality exist in real terms as revolving around this idea: we do not have the right to purposely cause others pain or deny them their happiness and freedom.

I quoted two AgnosticMom readers who contributed to the discussion about death in the comments section. Since it would have broken the flow of the article to name them, I wanted to acknowledge Jen and Hifi in this blog entry and thank them for their insight.

To begin reading HNN from the beginning, click here (and make sure you subscribe if you haven’t already!).

One of the other regular columnists, Doug Thomas wrote an article on ethics called, The Evolution Of Kindness, that is another version of the arguments I have been making about morality (no, Hifi, I have not had time to respond to your last three or so comments. I hope to get to them soon). Thomas uses slightly different wording than I do, words like “love” and “kindness” which he lifted from Bertrand Russell, where I prefer to use words like “empathy.”

But utlimately Thomas is making the same claim I made: that evolution provided us with some helpful characteristics in addition to some hurtful ones. We can use another of our evolved traits, rational thought, to choose the helpful characteristics (love, kindness, empathy) in our dealings with others. Here is a quote:

How do humanists explain their need or desire to perform charitable acts? Oh, of course, there is the pragmatic argument — what goes around comes around — a kind of “What’s in it for me?” approach. However, that does not explain the altruism performed without thoughts of pay back that I notice among my fellow humanists. I think it goes beyond a secular belief in “karma.”

Go enjoy some time with other humanists reading this week’s HNN. Feel free to start a discussion on one of the article topics in my comment area.

Note to the fans of my “Leaving The Church” series. I am glad that a number of you have been enjoying it and have expressed anticipation of part 3. Please be patient as I have a few topics to work on first. It’ll come, I promise.

Ben is right. Religious leaders did (do) not just throw a dart on the wall to randomly pick rules of conduct. But many of the rules sure seem arbitrary, especially when you see headlines like this one from the Los Angeles Times:

“Reverend equates kneeling at wrong time to ‘mortal sin.’”

Surely there is more to this story than what the title says, I thought when I saw it.

Well, there is! It’s not just a story of one power-hungry ecclesastical leader who believes that kneeling during the service “is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin.”

The Diocese of Orange is in on it, too! There are two of them!

According to the article, members of a dozen different U.S. parishes are committing a mortal sin RIGHT IN CHURCH despite the Vatican’s new instructions of four years ago allowing bishops to play god to decide whether worshippers should kneel or not.

The article begins, “At a small Catholic church in Huntington Beach, the pressing moral question comes to this: Does kneeling at the wrong time during worship make you a sinner?”

What lies at the heart of this problem is change of time and culture. What may have seemed appropriate at one time in one culture can be inappropriate to another because of customs and associations.

And I’d add the power-hungry need to control dominions is also responsible for the standing dilemma.

So while rules of conduct may have made sense at one particular time in history and were not actually arbitrary at conception, they can sure appear arbitrary to an outsider. At the very least, they become meaningless over time. This is especially problematic since we have become a global society. Many of the rules of various sects conflict with each other.

Plus, some people become obsessed with rules. Why is the pressing moral question of any group something as miniscule as kneeling versus standing? Are there not more critical crises to worry about?

Many people lose sight of what is important because they are so worried about the rules.

And it is not just specific rules that cause a problem. Even more general principles about lying, gossiping, “going the extra mile,” etc. can, in certain situations, do more harm than good when we place them in a context of morality. We have to make all kinds of exceptions for those principles.

For example, we have no qualms about publicizing the residence of a child molester even though to do so is public gossip that causes real social and financial harm to the perpetrator. How do we justify this gossip when religion says gossip is a sin? Because it helps decrease instances of even worse harm to innumerable innocent children.

Even not-so public gossip can be important and helpful in personal situations and small group communities.

These rules, and even principles, do not stand the test of time or specific situations.

This is why I propose a system for morality that is based on situational analysis rather than rules.

We can teach our children to use their powers of reason and empathy to evaluate whether their choices would increase overall happiness or pain. Including their own. (There is a balance).

So going back to the topic of this post: Religious ideas of morality can become irrelvant and meaningless. But was my use of the word “arbitrary” inaccurate, as Ben suggested? I think so.

Can anyone come up with a better way to phrase it so I can improve my article (before I submit it to ClubMom)?

Leave your ideas (about a better word choice, or about the concepts of this blog entry in general) in a comment, please!

We’ve gone into some more complicated specifics and I feel I the need to break my system down into its smallest parts. Please excuse the nature of this post as it is more of a brainstorm than a concise article.

I think there is some confusion between what I am trying to say and what I am NOT trying to say. Maybe I can clear it up.

What do I mean when I refer to right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral? And what about that extreme word, “evil?”

Wrong: Causing another person unnecessary pain or increasing the amount of pain and suffering in the world.
Bad: Causing another person unneccessary pain or increasing the amount of pain and suffering in the world.
Evil: Causing another person an excruciating and horrific amount of unnecessary pain or increasing the amount of pain and suffering in the world.
Immoral: Knowing you are causing another person unnecessary pain or increasing the amount of pain and suffering in the world. And doing it anyway when you have a choice to do otherwise.
Right, Good, and Moral: The opposite of the above.

I did NOT say anything about violating the laws of a diety, nor did I say anything about a universal “force” of good. I don’t believe in either one. Morality comes from our ability to perceive, reason, analyze and be aware of others.

In the tradition of Existentialism and materialistic thought, it all breaks down to this:
We exist.
We can have pain and suffering. We can have happiness, peace, and joy.
We have the capacity for empathy: we are aware of others’ pain and suffering.
Morality and ethics are about experiencing happiness in ways that do not unnecessarily add pain to the world or others.

I am NOT saying that we have the ability to do this perfectly. I am not saying that there are not times when it is impossible. I am not saying that life is simple and without tricky dilemmas. The system is still the most reliable.

We need to nurture empathy to be able to better recognize pain and suffering in others.
We need to nurture wisdom to better recognize HOW to avoid causing pain.

What else did I NOT say? I did not give a list of specific rules regarding what I think is right and wrong. Religion does that. There are major problems with trying to tell others what actions are right or wrong (what I call “Rules for Morality”):

1. Life is far too complex to reduce every varying situation into an absolute list. For example, sometimes it is moral to be dishonest (think Holocaust, the Underground Railroad). Therefore, dishonesty, in and of itself, is not bad.

2. Science continues to discover new facts, so we must always be open to reevaluating our understanding and assumptions. For example, do chickens feel pain when we kill them for food? Do their fellow siblings miss them when they are gone? If science can conclude that the answer to both questions is no (and that is my understanding, but I am not sure), then MAYBE it is not immoral to eat them. Unless we find that chickens are more like us than we thought. Well, then it might be moral to learn to use tofu!

3. Cause and Effect is too vast for us to accurately draw absolute conclusions. For example, Hifi and Ron talked about how our economic structure, and most everything that we buy, relies on the pain and suffering of others (for example, child slavery, but go read the comments of the above post to see the specifics).

It would seem like the moral thing to do would be to only buy organic and grow your own food, make your own material and clothing, abstain from driving cars, and a whole number of other things. At least this is what Hifi and Ron both hinted at. Perhaps in another post or comment I will explain why I think this action will cause greater pain and suffering, while also not fixing the situation. Maybe at some point I will explain why I think there is a more effective approach to changing the system, one that already seems to be pushing things in the right direction (albeit at a slow pace). And if that is so, then THAT would be the more appropriate choice. (I don’t want to get off on a tangent by delving into that here).

But maybe I am wrong on the moral dilemma of buying the products of child slaves. Once I share my understanding with you, maybe you can enlighten me on why I am wrong.

Does this exemplify why I am not trying to outline a list of specific rights and wrongs?

I do not believe in Moral Relativism. There is one principle that stands true and transcends all cultures and religions: It is immoral to cause unnecessary pain and suffering in the world. This is the one moral absolute that exists and this absolute is not relative. All others are just RULES for morals that could be wrong depending on the situations. This is why I am a proponent of Situational Ethics.

When evaluating the ethics or morality of a certain action, we do not need a handbook of right and wrong. We must individually measure it by the one absolute I have outlined: Does it cause unnecessary pain and suffering? You and I may come up with different answers. That is okay with me. We also may not always have the willpower, or even the ability, to choose that action we think is right. The important thing is the general direction we are going.

Okay, now that I have outlined my views in their most basic form, does this clarify the topic or muddle it? What are your thoughts now?

If you are not subscribed to the Humanist News Network, this week’s installment hit our emails yesterday. You can read my latest article, A System For Morality.

Just make sure you come back here and comment.

I thought I’d start off with a bit of drama. Just to get your attention.

We can find a legitimate answer by taking the emotion out of it and giving it a good analysis. Do they hate us, or do they FEAR us? And do they fear us, as individuals, or US as a whole?

AgnosticMom reader, Hifi, twice emphasized an important distinction we have to remember as we discuss how to improve our atheist/agnostic image:

Speaking of the UofM study about the negative view and distrust Americans have for atheists one commentator had this to say, “Agnostics like myself…would very much like to be considered full citizens and participate in American public life. The study found that “negative views about atheists are strong,” but that “survey respondents were not, on the whole, referring to actual atheists they had encountered.”

I reiterate my earlier statement, “In that light, personal revelations will do little to change the dominant view of atheists as the least trusted demographic in America – including the way our friends vote on religious issues. The last thing they will do is consider how promotion of religion by government is going to affect us.”

While you and I may be (or become) successful at winning our neighbors’ hearts, friendship, and even trust, it’s an entirely different story if we are ever to consider a fellow secularist gaining the presidency, or even lower-level government position. A successful “coming-out-of-the-closet” will hardly help us make gains when it comes to public policy that affects us.

It is time to dissect the problem. What do they fear about a secular society and secular influence? I think it is three things.

1) They fear the “removal of God” from the public domain as an abandonment of God, which will result in either his wrath, or in a loss of his protection.
2) They think anger motivates us more than charity, and fear a loss of goodness and good actions.
3) They fear a decrease in morality in our country.

It is the bottom two fears that we have the most control over. If we focus our efforts to improve our image in these two areas first, if we can convince the religious public that the non-religious can maintain a charitable and moral society, the first fear may prove less difficult to overcome.

I want to address morality in a separate post. In fact, I may initiate the topic as my next article in the Humanist News Network. It is a massive topic and I hope to address it over a few different blog entries. Let me just touch on the subject with a skeleton overview and the statement that we need to have a system for identifying moral choices. I cannot think of many other things that anger and scare the religious more than the idea of “Moral Relativism.” Therefore, Moral Relativism is just as much our enemy as it is theirs.

Moral living makes sense for two basic reasons:
1) Humans feel pain and suffering (as well as joy)
2) Humans have a capacity for empathy

We can choose to be moral, not because we hope for eternal blessings and fear eternal punishment, but because we can relate to and empathize with another person’s pain.

We should base our moral choices, not on arbitrary rules from an old book (a few that come to mind: don’t eat pork, don’t drink coffee, don’t flip the lights on the Sabbath, don’t expose your shoulders except when swimming); we should base our choices on whether they will cause others pain. To take it further, we should ask ourselves whether the action we want to take, if everyone were to take the same action in similar circumstances, would increase the overall happiness or the overall suffering in the world.

We will discuss this in detail later, but ultimately we have to show the world that we have a reliable system for making moral choices, a system that will agree with and make logical sense to all people, no matter the religion. We won’t all necessarily agree with the exact choice in every situation. The important thing is that we can show that there are reasons to be moral which extend beyond arbitrary religious rules.

The other image problem has to do with the inaccurate portrayal that some of us project on a regular basis: Anger. I see it in some atheist blogs: Cries for the termination of religion altogether (is that really going to convince religious people that they are safe with us leading?). I see blame against the religious for all of the world’s problems. I see hyperbolic claims about religious people that are simply not true.

Some atheists also project a lopsided amount of anger in the way they choose to demonstrate. The recent “War On Easter” was an example. One blogger I read said she was treating Christians to a taste of their own medicine by putting anti-Jesus literature in the church pews for Easter Sunday. I have never known a Christian to defame another religion’s god in the other religion’s holy chapel. The War On Easter was not a tit-for-tat pay-back game. It was an outrageous assault unlike any actions I have ever seen a Christian take.

It reminds me of a recent “Smut for Smut” campaign where college students set up a booth where they offered to trade smut for smut: They handed porn to anyone who would give them a Bible. The idea was to bring awareness to smutty passages in the Old Testament regarding women, sex, and war. While a genuine discussion with the religious regarding these problems with the Bible could be enlightening and educational to many people, offering pornography in exchange for Bibles only make us look crude and hateful.

On the other hand, we have people like the Ebay atheist, who is actually reaching his hand across the aisle of differences and having a real and positive affect. He is showing concern and striving to understand the religious. In return they are trying to understand him. He is taking a non-offensive, but very bold approach to bridging the gap between us.

Just look at what this article had to say about Hemant Mehta, the Ebay Atheist:

The stunt has racked up several ad campaigns’ worth of exposure for the product he was actually marketing: atheism as a wholesome American way of life.

A dedicated nonbeliever, Mehta auctioned his soul on the following terms: For every $10 bid to win, he would attend an hour of services at a local house of worship of the winner’s choosing. He promised to keep an open journal of his experience and an open mind to the possibility of conversion. The bait was the chance to win him over for God, but only the purest of souls could fail to see the hook in Mehta’s own bid to sell atheism as just another strand in our glorious tapestry of beliefs.

I also liked the friendly “demonstration” that gay and lesbian families held for the Easter Egg Hunt at the White House. It was hardly a demonstration at all. No shouting, no accusations. All they did was announce that gay and lesbian families would have a large showing at the White House for the Easter Egg Hunt. And they did! They showed up early to get in. They wore the rainbow-colored flower leis to identify themselves. They were happy and friendly and participated like any other family. They put a good face on gay families. We need to do something like that.

I have an idea of something we can do right away. Something to identify us with our real values. Something that will show that we mean business when it comes to working to solve the world’s problems. And it will be positive! Just give me a few days to present it to you.

In the meantime, clear your calendar for May 4th. Pencil in a two or three hour block for an activity which I will later disclose. Begin thinking about a cause you feel passionate about. I’m not talking about a cause for atheists/agnostics/freethinkers etc. I’m talking about a real problem in the world: hunger, abuse, the child-sex industry, disease. Which one moves you the most? Hold onto that thought and that date. I promise I’ll get back to you later.

Silence filled the space that my loss for words left. I stared at Blake for a minute. What other heroes have I introduced to him? Rosa Parks died not long ago, and we discussed her. Black again. I searched my brain files for any other heroes I must have introduced to him.

A-ha! Benjamin Franklin! We have a video about Benjamin Franklin learning how to harness electricity. In the movie, Franklin had to battle a religious fundamentalist who was trying to impede his research. It took much perseverance and faith in himself to finally prevail. Blake loved that video.

“Well, they’re not all black, honey. Benjamin Franklin was a hero, and he wasn’t black.” It was a step in the right direction, but clearly I had failed to provide my son with more than three or four examples of excellent human beings.

Growing up, the hero of my childhood was Nephi from the Book of Mormon. Nephi was a perfect person, with the exception of one tiny flaw. Nephi’s one sin was that he sometimes felt anger toward his wicked brothers who were trying to kill him. No wonder I have overwhelming and unrealistic expectations for myself: the biggest childhood hero of my life was AT LEAST as perfect as Jesus.

When I had kids, and especially when I left my church and all of its out-of-this-world heroes, I vowed I would expose my children to the world’s many great real heroes. I am now facing the reality that I haven’t done so well.

Yesterday, as I analyzed, and over-analyzed, the situation, I realized what is missing. I realized one of the reasons we, as agnostic parents, are feeling such a great need for a guiding source. We are missing a system for imparting our values to our children, that religious families normally get from their church.

The Mormon Church is the master of systems for teaching children. This is why the community is so tight, their familes are so strong, and such a large percentage of them actually make it to marriage in pure and complete innocence!

Let me show you how structured the Mormon community is in regard to teaching their young:

• Weekly church and Sunday School lessons
• Weekly Monday night Family Home Evenings (lessons)
• Daily family prayer and scripture reading
• Monthly visits from Home Teachers (each family is assigned two men who come to the home to give a lesson.)
• Weekly activities for teens, monthly activities for the children
• Monthly children’s magazine with lessons, stories, and learning activities
• Multiple free handbooks for family lesson plans on various moral and doctrinal topics

It was SO EASY to be a Mormon parent. The church put material directly into our hands. Agnostic and athiest parents have to conceive our own system for providing “lessons” to our children. Even more difficult, we have to do our own research to find the material. No one is giving us free handbooks with activities to demonstrate our values, arranged in formats that appeal to children of all ages.

I actually have been developing a system of timing. I’ve been using holidays as a sort of schedule to trigger ideas.

Some examples of holiday-triggered values:

• New Year- goals, ambition, ability to change and improve
• Civil Rights Day- courage, accepting others, forgiveness
• Easter- nature, spiritual rebirth
• Independence Day- patriotism, democracy, liberty and freedom
• 9/11- awareness and gratitude of our local firefighters and police officers and their families, community

I think the holidays, regular reading time, play groups, and other day-to-day experiences provide an adequate scheduling system to cover all the important things we want to share with our children. The difficulty is coming up with the tools for sharing the ideas, such as activities and books. That is the part that requires so much research when you don’t have a handbook given to you from church.

Civil Rights Day was so easy, because the school recommended books. The other holidays will require much more research. And since many of those other holidays also demand planning for giant feasts, extra shopping, and other activities, that just doesn’t leave as much time for educational research, does it?

I am going to continue what I started this month, which is to share my ideas and resources for educational and values-sharing activities and books for our children. They will mostly happen around the holidays, but I will add some other topics in here and there. I hope some of you will share your ideas as well.

At some point, my parents began listening to Rush Limbaugh. He was on two different stations at different times of the day, so we had Rush for 6 hours every day. My parents played him on every radio in the house. No matter where you were, you could hear.

I really can’t live my life without these voices, at least at some point in my day. But I’m not into hearing Rush tell me that my rejection of a belief in God is because I want the ability to be immoral without guilt.

So I have found a more tolerant host. Although I disagree with him seventy percent of the time, I love Dennis Prager. He “prefers clarity over agreement.” And that is what I get from him. Clarity. Not as much agreement.

So this is my third time referring to his show. He provides me much brain food, therefore, you can expect to hear of him more in the future at AgnosticMom.

Dennis Prager spoke of a man who apologized to his son for “giving a worse America to you than my father gave to me.”

Although there may be some truth in the statement, I have to wonder if it is really so, overall. I mean, I’m sure the African Americans who, at one time, had to drink from different water fountains and go to different schools would disagree. And I’m sure the women who weren’t allowed to vote would disagree. I’m sure the hispanics in my hometown, who were not allowed in the public pools, would disagree.

I bet the girls who were blamed for their own rapes would disagree. I bet the parents of depressed suicidal teens, who were told their children had lost their seat in heaven, would disagree. I bet the children with ADHD, who were smacked with a whip in school for not controlling themselves, would disagree.

I wonder if the “love children”, the bastards, who were labled dirty for coming too soon, would agree? Or what about those permanently paralyzed by polio, before there was a cure? How about the single mothers who couldn’t get a decent enough job to feed their family?

We could go back a few more generations, to the lawlessness of the old west,
the ruling gangs of New York, the slaves of the south. Child labor? Public education by way of the Bible? Or what about NO public education?

Yes, there may be spots where America has done a nose-dive down a slippery slope. But does it really balance out to a net loss? I don’t think so. I’d say, for many, America is a much better, safer place.

“Then what DO you believe?”

At the time I was still trying to figure it out. Agnosticism is all about what we CAN’T or DON’T know. Agnosticism on it’s own is empty.

Through my studies of science, I grew fascinated with the nature of the human mind and our enormous capabilities. I began to consider how in a very short amount of time, humans figured out how to fly across the world, how to communicate with anyone in real time, how to cure all kinds of diseases.

The tsunami that affected so many millions of people last year? We knew about it here, on the opposite side of the world, within minutes of its occurance. Nations were able to gather resources and get them to the countries in need within days. We still have improvements to make (and we WILL make them), but imagine this same tsunami occuring only 100 years ago. How long would it be before anyone who could help would even hear about it? How much longer before we could get that help to the people? How much less help would we have to give?

Becoming agnostic, and reexaming my beliefs gave me greater hope in the amazing capabilities of human beings. I came to believe that we have the potential to solve the world’s greatest problems. Searching the internet for other secularists, I found a name for my faith in humankind: Humanism. Specifically, Secular Humanism.

Here is a definition from wikipedia:

Secular humanism is that branch of philosophy that advocates the use of reason, compassion, scientific inquiry, ethics, justice and a presumption of equality within a worldview centered upon human beings. The term was originally coined in the 20th century to make a clear distinction from “Christian humanism”. A perhaps less confrontational synonym is scientific humanism, which the biologist Edward O. Wilson termed “the only world-view compatible with science’s growing knowledge of the real world and the laws of nature”.

Its basic tenets may be simplified as:

* Humans have value and can solve human problems;
* Science, free speech, rational thought, democracy, and freedom in the arts go together;
* There is no proof for anything supernatural.

Below are some organizations that work toward the humanist ideals listed above. Their mission is to educate on humanism, and also work to affect public policy. The last one has links to local chapters who meet regularly. Maybe you have one in the area you live!

The Institute for Humanist Studies

The Continuum of Humanist Education

Council for Secular Humanism

American Humanist Association

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I have too much faith in the human race. Or maybe some people just don’t have enough of it.