Atheism, morality, and why I left organized religion

The first time I heard the question, "where do atheists think morals come if they don't believe in God?" I was baffled. Despite being raised Catholic and associating particular moral codes with particular religions - with gods telling their followers what is the best way to behave and have a meaningful life - I never associated the existence of morality in general with the existence of religion. I never thought people couldn't or wouldn't come up with a moral code on their own (after all, society existed and functioned before God gave Moses the 10 Commandments, and all societies have some sort of ethical guidelines no matter who or what they believe in).

Now that I have a better understanding of what the question is essentially asking - "Why do atheists think it's wrong to hurt others if they don't believe there's a God to punish them for doing so?" - I feel I can answer this question fairly, and it's directly connected to why I left religion in the first place.

The simple answer for me is "reasoning": I don't like to be harmed, unfairly criticized, treated poorly; I care about my relationships (however I define them); I think my interests, thoughts, and inner experiences are valuable. I see absolutely no reason to think anyone else in the world feels differently about themselves, their feelings, their experiences, their relationships, etc. And I can't assign a relative value to my experiences compared to everyone else because I can't experience someone else's life to compare. Therefore, I think we're all equal, and can't think I or anyone else has a right to hurt another (I suppose I might be defining "harm" as "dening the legitimacy of their own experience." I'll tentatively go with that definition until I think more about it).

Essentially, I take a rationalized approach to The Gold Rule* and equality, and combine in with the evolutionary reality that humans survive best in a society (meaning we work together and need to find a functional way to do that).

This all came after I left religion, though. Initially, I simply felt that for me to stay a Christian, I had to believe my inner experience of God was more "correct" than my non-Christian friends' experiences of God or whatever else they believed (otherwise, why wouldn't I be their religion instead?), and I personally didn't feel I could take that position while still fully respecting the legitimacy of their inner self. Leaving religion allowed me to fully participate in equality by acknowledging that what makes us different may not be what we feel, but simply how we interpret our feelings.


*Just because I don't believe in a particular religion or don't see their teachings as the literal word of God doesn't mean I don't think they can have valuable philosphical insights.

Government as a moral code in NC's Amendment One

North Carolina recently passed “Amendment 1,” which changes the state constitution to ban gay marriage (as well as civil unions for both gay and straight couples). What many people outside the state don’t realize is that the passage of this amendment is very odd because gay marriage was already illegal in the state. In hearing the explanation from the few people I know who supported it, I think I’ve gotten some insight into why they find it acceptable for the government to step in to limit some personal decisions, but not others.

I don’t particularly like talking about what I think other people think, but I am trying to understand this and how to reconcile differences of opinion, so feel free to leave comments at the end.

First, the people who proposed the amendment acknowledged not only that gay marriage was already illegal in NC, but also that people’s opinions within the state were changing, and less people were as opposed to gay marriage (despite the news reports that North Carolinians “overwhelmingly” voted in favor of Amendment 1, the reality is, there was very low turnout at the polls and most people had no idea what was being voted on; a large number of those who did know didn’t even realize it would ban all civil unions, despite being in favor of those). Their stated reason for this amendment was specifically to make it more difficult for future generations to change the law and one day make gay marriage legal in the state. (I realize I need to find the source for this, but it’s difficult to find records of things said at small-town meetings or on local news). Second, an acquaintance said in defense of the amendment that whenever government tries to decide morality, some people (in this case gay marriage supporters) are going to object or be unhappy with the decision.

That second point is where his reasoning suddenly became clear to me: he seems to view the government as a moral entity, and any decision they make is going to “take a side,” and cannot inherently be anywhere near neutral. Allowing gay marriage along with heterosexual marriage is not a neutral position that allows for people to live their life according to the moral code they believe, but one that tells everyone that being gay is morally acceptable. He doesn’t seem to distinguish between legally acceptable and morally acceptable, and seems to view the legal acceptance of gay marriage as the extreme opposite of only accepting marriage between one man and one woman.

I believe it was Aristotle who wrote that in order to find the median, the extremes must be found, but by that logic, the extreme opposite would be only recognizing gay marriage. While this socially seems irrational and impossible, it is the logical opposite, and identifying that indicates that allowing both is the middle ground that allows people to live according to the moral code they believe. After all, people opposed to gay marriage can continue to oppose it, teach that to their families, go to church where it is not recognized, and nothing will change for them (just replace “gay marriage” with “divorce” and you realize that’s the same situation Catholics face in the US, and it’s not a big deal for them and their lives).

Interestingly, this is not the first time I’ve heard this misinterpretation of “extremes” from someone who I’d previously gone to high school with.  In talking about societal changes, one girl at the time asked if there is a cycle or pendulum-like aspect to what we find socially acceptable, and placed a male-dominated society and one end, and a gender-equality one at the other, with the “pendulum” swinging between these two. However, she, and the teacher she was discussing this idea with, never mentioned what I would find as the true “opposite extreme”: a female-dominated society. This would place gender equality (however you define it), as the median or middle ground, and greatly changes the concept of a hypothetical social pendulum.

Having grown up partly in NY and partly in NC, I generally suspect cultural differences in explaining interpretations of American society by Americans from different parts of the country. In NC, I tend to hear a lot of support for the First Amendment of the US Constitution in regards to freedom of religion, but then I also hear a lot of claims that “separation of church and state” is not an “American value” because it’s not explicitly in the Constitution. I find these claims to be contradictory; how can we have the freedom to practice our own religion if the state recognizes and favors one over the others? Or more broadly, how can someone support limited government, but then favor laws that affect people on a purely personal level, such as “in the bedroom”? But if the perspective is that laws cannot avoid reflecting a specific morality and neutrality is not a possibility, then those contradictions are unavoidable and must be reconciled within the individual, who is rationally going to take the position he or she personally agrees with.

Needless to say, I personally disagree with the perspective that government cannot avoid taking sides, but I also suspect I was taught American history differently in NY than it is taught in NC. I often hear that “freedom of religion” came about because of religious persecution in Europe, yet that is not exactly what I learned about the origin of that part of the first Amendment. Why various religious groups left Europe and founded the original colonies was complex and sometimes involved escaping persecution, sometimes involved wanting to establish societies that excluded other religions not their own. When the states were considering uniting as one country, freedom of religion was included not because of the historical memory of past persecution, but because of the then-present-day reality. Today we think of the original founding groups as all Christian, but they didn’t necessarily see each other the same way (to me, comparable to how some modern Christian groups don’t recognize Mormons as also Christian), there were non-Christians around as well, and states did kick out individuals who were seen as not conforming to their specific religious views (this being how we got Rhode Island). People wanted to be absolutely certain that under the proposed government, they would still be free to practice their religions as they had been, and that as a nation, one religious group wouldn’t institute their religion over the others, negating what each state had established over the prior 100 or so years.

I’m not sure where this leaves us as a country, or even just a state, trying to decide what to do about social changes. I don’t say this often, but the idea that government must inherently be supporting a particular moral code to be wrong. There is a sort of morality in government-based decisions…one that values personal freedom, choice, and equality, and how exactly those things are interpreted it real-life situations does depend on the person doing the interpreting. But if freedom and equality are truly the basis and no one is harmed or infringed by the actions of another, then government has no place restricting them and is not “choosing sides” by acknowledging their decisions along with everyone else’s.

Discrimination and Identity

In many areas, such as laws and job listings, there seems to be an ever-increasing list of things people, government, company, or organization does not discriminate against, such as religion, gender, race, political affiliation, disability, sexual orientation, etc. And as we find new things to not like about each other, we add to the list, usually with at least some people disagreeing about whether anything new needs to be added.

So, instead, why don't we just say something like "does not discriminate on the basis of identity"? That would cover everything, including things we haven't thought of yet, and I can't really think of a reason why we would need to retain the ability to discriminate against some unforseen future identification.

Sure, there are times when a person's values or perspectives do no align with that of the group that they may potentially join, but that's not so much discrimiation as, say, not fulfilling the requirements of the job. And that would only be if the person actively goes against what is being asked of them, wouldn't it? I've seen a job listing for a reaserch assistant asking for someone with a preference for "conservative feminism." That's not discrimination against actual feminists, is it? I don't think so since it's asking for someone who supports a particular perspective because that's what they're going to be working on. It makes sense to me, just as requiring someone working in a warehouse to be able to lift 50 lbs isn't descrimination because it's something relevant to what they're going to be doing.

Or am I missing something here about why we need to explicitly state what characteristics of identity can not be discriminated against, implying other things can be?