Author: nh

I’ve struggled for a long time with the idea of good and evil. Clearly there are evil people. Just look at the news. And to me, clearly there’s more to deciding that something is evil than society’s opinion. But it’s just as clear to me is that the Bible (or any other religious tract) has no authority to define what’s good and what’s evil. That’s not to say that I believe religious people aren’t good, or there aren’t really good people described in the bible. When I read the words in the bible that are attributed to Jesus, I see someone who strikes me as a really good person. I’m not so sure about some of the other characters. Paul, for instance, seems pretty cranky and intolerant to me. And the old testament is just downright murderous and evil.

Still, what I think I’m doing is forming my own standard and then applying it. And if I don’t accept the bible, then what would I accept? I sure don’t trust people to vote on what’s evil or good. Just look at current events. Who would have thought this many American’s would support torture? No matter how conservative they are. And during the Cold War, there were many people (conservatives again. Is there a pattern? ) willing to burn millions of communists in a nuclear inferno. Nope. I reserve the right to trust my opinion and discount yours. So what do I base my opinion on?

I’m almost embarrased to say.

Way back in 1974 I read a science fiction novel that I now consider pretty awful. I was 15 and impressionable and had the same questions I now have. One of the characters had a collection of aphorisms and one was ‘Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense.‘ I think there was something else in there that hurting yourself couldn’t be a sin, it was just stupid. I latched onto the first part of that, and it’s carried me thirty three years with a couple changes. I believe that wrong for me is the intentional, negligent , or unnecessary harm of another “feeling” creature. Now all I have to do is define some of these words and I can quit worrying about this. Let’s see; “intentional” , “negligent” “unnecessary” and “harm”. And there’s the the rub. I still only trust me to decide if I’ve harmed someone, or if it was necessary. That’s can’t be right as a general rule. Or can it?

It seems pretty clear how this applies when it’s my individual actions and their physical consequences to another person. It seems absolutely unclear when I have to consider emotional consequences or diffuse responsibility. What if I hurt someone’s feelings? Sometimes that has more to do with who they are than what you did. Am I responsible for actions taken by society? When we execute an innocent? That’s a big hurt. How much of that am I responsible for? Am I off the hook if I don’t vote for Republicans? Killing kittens is clearly bad, what about eating hamburger? How much negligence makes me evil? Am I responsible for not directly opposing the KKK, the Taliban and over the top intolerant Christians?

I see the connection in all this muddled concern for “feeling creatures” to Buddhist thought, but I’m not willing to extend my concern to harm of mosquito’s and trees and probably not to shrimp. If I harm a forest, I’m worried about the people and animals that depend on it, not the trees.

So mostly I just try to not be a dick, to not vote for evil bastards, and to help the people I care about. I also believe I have a responsibility to be accepting and tolerant to avoid hurting people’s feeling unnecessarily. And to stay away from confusing moral choices and exuberant rationalization.

To a large degree I’ve stopped talking with people about my beliefs. It’s both safer and more interesting to hear them talk about theirs. But when I was younger I often would have candid conversations with people. Something I often heard was “If you don’t believe in an afterlife, what keeps you from doing whatever you want?”. This usually meant, I assume, “why don’t you do ‘bad’ things”. I’ve seen this same question in current public debates, and I can only assume that fear of punishment is how some believers think they enforce their personal behavior. I don’t believe that that’s how they really think on a day to day basis. Still, I’ve not been able to figure out how to explore the believer’s real decision process without perturbing the explanation. Once someone starts talking about how God fearing they are, they want you to know that happens for every moment of their life.

Let me explain what I think happens.

Everyone is tempted by illicit opportunities. I believe I’m pretty typical of atheists, and that I have as strong a motivation to rise above temptation as the pious.

Imagine receiving too much change from a checkout clerk. I (and I suspect all of you) have reacted both ways during my life, sometimes keeping the money, and sometimes returning it.

When I don’t correct the error I feel bad. I feel I’ve lessened myself and missed an opportunity to build integrity. I hope that over time I’ve made the strengthening decision more often than the other, The thought of Godly punishment never enters my mind.

I suspect that believers go through exactly the same process. It’s more of a “this isn’t who I am” rather than “God will punish me for this.” Now they can add something along the lines of “it’s not Christian behavior” but I don’t think that changes the decision process. Most of them believe if they succumbed that they could get forgiveness, just as I believe I can recover from my mistakes and trend better. Apparently victimless crimes, like cheating on taxes, and major crimes like murder have secular threats that are much more immediate than the afterlife. Crimes with a victim cause guilt for both the believer and non-believer, unless you’re a psychopath (or have somehow convinced yourself the victim is less than human or deserves this). And my observation is that believers are as suspectible to rationalization or psychopathy as anyone else. And they know there’s that forgiveness token on the table. Unless they get blown away during a big sin, they assume they can find atonement. In fact, many assume they’re in a perpetual state of sin and can only get into heaven as a sort of karmic charity case.

I want to be a person of integrity. I have no afterlife to work towards, and my personal strength and progress is important to my view of myself. I have as strong a motivation in every case to behave, and in at least one case, stronger.

I was discussing capital punishment with a fundamentalist. (I’m not personally opposed to the death penalty for murder) Before the recent spate of DNA evidence proving that some of those convicted were actually innocent I’d been comfortable with our justice system (naive me). Afterwards I became convinced we were executing some unnacceptable percentage of innocent people. I further think that it’s better for thousands of actual murders to live in prison than for one innocent person to be killed. After discussion this fundamentalist agreed that we were likely killing innocent people, but thought that ok because “if they are innocent God will sort it out.”

I think that this is condoning state sponsored murder. If we only get one shot at this life gig I think it’s horrendous to take someone’s turn away.

So a belief in the afterlife makes some people less moral than atheists.