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Religion and Morality, is There a Link?

The Utility Principle

I have come to the conclusion that all theories of rights are based on nothing but hot air. When you take God out of the equation the whole framework of rights falls apart. Human rights are a fiction. Sometimes a convenient fiction, or a placemarker, holding a fixed point in a heavily pitching sea of uncertainty, holding the spot where you want a fixed moral reference point to be; but a fiction all the same.

There is no absolute to be found in a creator but that is no excuse for total cultural relativism. There is such a thing as truth, I reject the idea that everything depends on the way you look at it and that all viewpoints are equally valid. The Earth was not sneezed out of the nostril of a great turtle or made out of cream cheese or found in the navel of a giant earwig, or any other similar creation myth. It didn't happen. If it didn't happen for me and for you it didn't happen for anybody, whatever they may believe. Relativity is an excellent bit of physics, but it is a poor analogy for the perception of reality. Thinking that you are the creation of the Sun God does not make it so, neither for you nor for anybody else.

We do not know all the details of the creation of the Universe, the Earth or the human race but we can rule out all these folk tales. Saying that all such stories have equal validity is only true in one sense; all non scientific explanations are equal, equally wrong.

There is a truth to be found and also an infinite number of falsehoods. I think the western scientific community should get off the fence and slug it out. Belief in a god is absurd. Man created the concept of gods to explain the unexplainable. Now science has shown that most of the unexplainable is not such a mystery after all. Darwin's contribution was the most telling. Without a special creation of mankind what was the purpose of God? All answers to that question seem like special pleading and rhetoric.

Evolutionary theory explains the biggest mystery, not quite "Why are we here?" but it shows that how we got here proves there is no reason for our existence, no purpose. We exist because our ancestors were good at surviving and reproducing. There is no purpose to our existence. No purpose is necessary to explain our existence neither is there any mechanism available to give us one.

Many people say things like There has got to be a reason for all this. No, there need not be, there cannot be. The idea that there must be an explanation for "all this" is a normal human reaction but it is wrong, it is not based on any rational evidence. Just as it is a normal human reaction to wonder how an aircraft stays in the air without flapping its wings. Our brains seek satisfactory explanations, explanations that feel right. Our brains are well tuned to the homunculus / Fred Flintstone theory of explaining how things work. Inside every mysterious thing there is a little man or something similar to make it work. No other answers feel right. Santa Claus makes sense to children, so does the tooth fairy. So does the idea of little men inside the television, a big man up in the sky and little devils and angels on our shoulders whispering conflicting advice into our ears. My brain is now well adjusted to accept more truthful, less humanly satisfying explanations.

If you have difficulties in accepting rational explanations and need a supernatural explanation instead that is just the way your brain has been trained to respond. Once you have retrained your brain to reject all supernatural explanations as flawed and unsatisfying you will begin to see the beauty in the natural and rational explanation instead. The power of large scales of space and time, probability and the non-random accumulation of change known as evolution; all these explanations can become much more satisfying especially when you begin to accept them as the truth.

I cannot accept any set of laws that is based upon the idea of Human Rights. It is a nonsensical idea to me. How can we have rights unless they have been given to us? As there is nothing to give them then I cannot believe we have them. We were not created, we just growed. At what point in our evolution did we gain these mystical rights? When we climbed out of the trees? When we stood upright? When we developed a sense of right and wrong? When we invented our first gods? I have an unfortunate habit of not believing in bullshit. Even when it is convenient to do so. It gets me into trouble at work and at home. But it is my favourite character flaw.

By denying the existence of basic human rights I am not saying that we should act as if the people we meet have no rights. We should act AS IF all people had rights. This is our responsibility. Responsibility is the flip side of rights. Neither is absolute but we should strive to act as though they were. This is the golden rule of do as you would be done by, and better yet, the Christian slant on the rule, do unto others first that which you want them to do unto you. There is nothing illogical in having Christian ethics at the heart of my atheism. I do not have to believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God to agree with many of the teachings that are attributed to him.

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© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

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