I have recently been deeply pondering the relationship between morality and society. The question driving me is whether society defines its moral precepts, or whether morality exists independently. In the end, I think it’s some combination of the two: the trolley car tests point to a universal moral compass, but in other cases we have more liberty to define boundaries — sexuality and drug use, for example.

Anyway, the conclusion I am leaning towards leaves no room for morality from god, or other supernatural source. This flies in the face of those who think god’s law is a moral standard, and that without it, our world would be some frightening combination of The Garden of Earthly Delights and Mad Max. These religious types equate god with morality, and therefore maintain that a world without the former entails a world without the latter. However, I think their line of reasoning is fallacious.

The religious person first looks at the world around them, and sees it is governed by moral principles, and then looks for a source for these principles. However, unlike a sociologist, anthropologist, or biologist, they default to “goddidit” immediately, and say “mystery solved.” They then say, “if you don’t acknowledge my hypothesized source of morality, morality will cease to exist.” This is insane.

If you know anything about history, it is readily apparent that the so-called “moral absolutes” of religion are bent to the trends of the era. Things like slavery, which the bible permits, are thrown out and judged immoral when society says they are, and things like divorce get reclassified as permissible when the bible cleary says they aren’t. This is strong evidence that our morals do not derive from god.

Further evidence that morality is not indexed to religiosity is the atheist, like myself. I am not running through the streets raping children and stealing VCR’s, and neither are my buddies over at Unreasonable Faith. The atheist understands perfectly well that morality just is. You don’t kill and lie, because it’s a dick thing to do, not because your imaginary sky-papa told you not to.

I know that what it really comes down to is religious people are unsettled by the “just is” part. Morality has to come from somewhere, they’re right, but we don’t have to immediately identify the origin, and build it an altar to keep it from forsaking us. Leave it to the philosophers and social scientists, and in the meantime, just be happy I won’t steal your cookies.