Religions Don't Own Morality

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo”

(H.G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman).

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame” (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

While some people, especially religious folks, often claim that it is not possible to be a moral person without religion, that is not true. Philosophers and scientists have proved this over and over throughout the ages. Religions aren’t the only source of morality, and I have the receipts.

According to Jim Davies of Carleton University, “Most religious people think their morality comes from their religion. And deeply religious people often wonder how atheists can have any morality at all. I’m going to use Christianity as my example, not because it’s representative of religion in general, but because there’s a lot of research on Christians, and because many readers will likely be familiar with it. Christians will often tell you that their morality comes from their religion (or from their parents’ version of it). And if you ask them about what their religion tells them about what’s right and wrong, it will likely line up with their own ideas of right and wrong…We see that people can choose religious beliefs, churches and even whole religions based on the morality that they already have. And this is the morality that atheists have too. Experimental evidence suggests that people’s opinion of what God thinks is right and wrong tracks what they believe is right and wrong, not the other way around.

Social psychologist Nicholas Epley and his colleagues surveyed religious believers about their moral beliefs and the moral beliefs of God. Not surprisingly, what people thought was right and wrong matched up pretty well with what they felt God’s morality was like. Then Epley and his fellow researchers attempted to manipulate their participants’ moral beliefs with persuasive essays. If convinced, their moral opinion should then be different from God’s, right? Wrong. When respondents were asked again what God thought, people reported that God agreed with their new opinion! Therefore, people didn’t come to believe that God is wrong, they just updated their opinion on what God thinks.

When you change someone’s moral beliefs, you also change their opinion on what God thinks. Yet most surveyed still clung to the illusion that they got their moral compass from what they think God believes is right and wrong” (https://carleton.ca/news/story/religion-morality/).

“There are several well-developed secular accounts of where morality comes from:

• Evolution and biology - Empathy cooperation, fairness, and harm-aversion appear to be deeply wired into social animals.  Primatologist Frank de Waal documented that chimps and bonobos show consolidation, sharing, and a sense of fairness that suggests moral instincts predate religion and culture (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763424001945).

• Reason and social contract - Thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that morality emerges from rational agreement: we follow rules because cooperation benefits everyone. Immanuel Kant pushed further, arguing that pure reason alone, not God, generated binding moral duties (the ‘Categorical Imperative’).

• Emotion and sentiment - David Hume and Adam Smith argued morality is grounded in natural human sympathy pointing out that we feel other’s pain and pleasure, and this is the actual engine of moral judgment.  Reason just helps us apply those feelings consistently.

• Consequentialism / utilitarianism - Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill argued that morality is simply about reducing suffering and increasing wellbeing; there is no divine command needed. The standard is empirical: does this action make things better or worse?

• Culture and social norms - Societies develop norms through trial and error over generations.  What works for human flourishing gets codified.  Moral progress, such as abolishing slavery and expanding rights, happens as we reason better about our own principles.

Religious traditions themselves often systematize pre-existing moral intuitions rather than inventing them from scratch. For example, most major religions independently arrived at some version of “the Golden Rule.”  The “divine command” theory was critiqued by Plato who identified it some 2,400 years ago: is something good because a god commands it, or does a god command it because it is good?  If the latter, then, goodness is independent of a god anyway.  The truthful answer about morality’s origin is that morality has multiple overlapping sources and philosophies that prove there are robust, well-developed secular accounts that don’t require religion as a foundation” (Duncan, Constructing Your Spiritual Life Without Religion).

I disagree that religions and the government are the ‘morality police.’  Banning books, for example, is an overt method of control under the guise of ‘morality.’  If religious people want to self-flagellate and deny reading certain books, that’s their right.  But, it is none of their business forcing their version of ‘morality’ on the rest of us.  And, the government, at least in the United States,  has no right to force religious principles, sacred texts, or religion/denomination/church ‘morality’ on everyone. As you know, Thomas Jefferson advocated for a separation of “church and state” and the First Amendment to the US Constitution states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  “Together, these two clauses safeguard religious freedom by ensuring that the government can neither favor nor disfavor a given religion. The American promise of freedom of religion has allowed a panoply of faiths—Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Shintoism, Islam, and more—to flourish in this country. This past term, the U.S. Supreme Court further undermined one of the most sacred tenets of American democracy: the separation of church and state. Unfortunately, over the past 4 years, and some say when Roe vs. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022, “Chief Justice John Roberts’ court has steadily weakened this cherished constitutional principle over the past decade, creating a system in which religion and government are not separate but instead increasingly intertwined.

This past term, the U.S. Supreme Court further undermined one of the most sacred tenets of American democracy: the separation of church and state. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Together, these two clauses safeguard religious freedom by ensuring that the government can neither favor nor disfavor a given religion. The American promise of freedom of religion has allowed a panoply of faiths—Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Shintoism, Islam, and more—to flourish in this country. Unfortunately, Chief Justice John Roberts’ court has steadily weakened this cherished constitutional principle over the past decade, creating a system in which religion and government are not separate but instead increasingly intertwined.

A majority of current Supreme Court justices now champion a vision of religion that diverges significantly from that of the founders. Instead of ruling that the Constitution requires church and state to be separate, the Roberts court has often held the opposite, repeatedly finding that the government must allow or even fund certain religious activities. The court has also regularly permitted private individuals to force their religious views onto others in the public sphere. In so doing, it has chipped away at the establishment clause in favor of an expansive vision of the free exercise clause. Today, the establishment clause seems to prevent little else than the government explicitly establishing a national religion, while the free exercise clause is so expansive that it permits discrimination and requires government funding for religious activities. Far from separating church and state, the Supreme Court seemingly would prefer that the two operate symbiotically—in clear violation of the founders’ vision for the nation” (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-the-supreme-court-is-dismantling-the-separation-of-church-and-state/).

Their premise is to force religions’, specifically Christian religions', ‘morality’ on everyone.  And, for those of us who are spiritual, not religious, we clearly see this as dangerous because those who who claim religious superiority toot the ‘morality’ horn and yet don’t behave in moral ways; they are supporting ICE, for example, supporting an authoritative fascist regime, supporting colonialism, denying children / people of color / newcomers basic respect and basic needs for food, shelter, safety, and a well-defined and protected path to citizenship.  What does all of this have to do with religious claims on ‘morality’?  Everything!

According to the respected Pew Research Center, “…according to the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS), …the survey finds that 68% of Americans say it is possible to be moral and have good values without believing in God. Just 30% say it is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values…Among every religious group analyzed, larger numbers say ‘practical experience and common sense’ and ‘logic and reason’ are important than say ‘religious beliefs and teachings”’are important in these kinds of decisions.

In many religious groups, larger percentages also ascribe importance to ‘scientific information’ than to religious beliefs in moral decision-making. The exceptions are evangelical Protestants, members of the historically Black Protestant tradition and Latter-day Saints. More people in those three groups consider religious principles than scientific information to be important in discerning right from wrong” (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religion-and-views-of-right-and-wrong/#does-belief-in-god-matter-for-being-moral-and-having-good-values).

The bottom line is that religions do not own morality, no matter what they preach, no matter how hard they force their version of morality on the public and on the government. “Texas state representative James Talarico about Christian nationalists: ‘Why is it that they ‘walk around with a mouth full of Scripture and a heart full of hate’ given that they claim to follow Jesus and hold to the authority of Scripture?’ Furthermore, ‘What is it about their spiritual formation that allows them to act so hatefully and yet claim to be Christ followers?’” (https://christianityandamericanculture.substack.com/p/a-mouth-full-of-scripture-and-a-heart).

I invite you to share your thoughts, insights, and suggestions by either commenting below this post if you are reading this on social media, or, if you are reading this through your email subscription, please share, by emailing me, at MissyDuncanPhdofficial@gmail.com .  And, if you disagree with the statement: Morality doesn’t only come from religion, be sure to provide evidence.  By the way, the bible isn’t reliable evidence. I invite you to subscribe to my blog at www.missyduncanphdofficial.com. My YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvddqOlfJbS0ypODwbmQ_JA.  Although my channel is just hatched and is not quite a fledgling, I will keep feeding it and encourage it to take flight.