The Consequences of Morality

I think it’s very simple why people do “good” or “bad”: they have free choice.
It’s one of the things I find ridiculous about religion: How can you claim that your religion teaches people to do good, and keeps them on track if you acknowledge that they have free choice? Even if your religion tells people to do good, one’s relationship with their religion, or with God if you will, is an intensely personal thing, and there’s no way of knowing who’s sincere and who isn’t (my guess is no one is sincere, but that’s just me). Everyone is free to believe and act as they like, even if they’re told to do good, because remember, they’re free, so that’s no way to police a society. It’s kind of like saying, “everyone who goes to ninth grade is probably moral” but acknowledging they’re free to act immorally. It’s kind of absurd and cruel too, to tell people that certain people are *probably* moral, when you know good and well that they’re probably not, and you have no way of knowing if they are, in any case.

I think this is one of the greatest challenges to the absurd claim that religion makes people moral (I have yet to meet a single person who religion hasn’t made him *less* moral). What’s the point of free will? And also, what a cruel trick for God to play on humanity. He could have taken away our free will, and eliminated human corruption. Instead, he made us free to choose, and that explains why so many assholes exist. You know who’s fault Hitler is… Oh, silly me, I forgot. God only cares about Jews. Nobody else. Am I allowed to say goyim don’t count? Or is that a Chillul Hashem? Shhhh.

Snarkiness aside, humanists like myself often have a high regard for human nature, no religion necessary. Actually, we find religion often interfering with humanism. Say my father’s brother married a shiksa. Humanism would certainly tell you, by all means, to have a relationship with your brother. Yet religion might tell you to never speak to him again. Interesting. Or humanism might tell you to hang out with your family and break bread with them. Religion might tell you that their food is unkosher, they’re a bad influence on your children, and avoid them unless you can convert them to your faith. What fun!

As I said before, I have a high regard for human nature. You might even say I went from believing in God to believing in people. Decent tradeoff, if you ask me. You go from believing in imaginary (albeit powerful) friends to believing in real ones. I think humans (all humans, by the way. Probably not Garnel though.) have a highly developed moral conscience. We have the ability to teach ourselves to be kind and to treat others with respect. In short, I think we can and do teach ourselves and others morality. Unfortunately, it sometimes comes with strings attached, but even then, it’s all humans teaching humans. Sure, some believe in sky-fairies, but most don’t, and thankfully, no sky fairies are necessary for a healthy moral compass. (Although I’m sometimes tempted to think they *are* necessary for an ass-backwards, corrupt, insane, and above all, unjust one.)

There’s even support for this in the Mishna (Word of God, you know). In Avos (probably the only useful book ever penned by barbarians/rabbis) it says, “The reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah, and the reward for an aveira is an aveira.” Often, fear of death and hell is dangled in front of believers (do good, you go to heaven. Bad, you go to hell), and if the rabbis believed in the afterlife (and this might be evidence that it’s a later fabrication and plagiarization from other tribal myths) wouldn’t they say so in the Mishna? If you’re going to fry in hell for not praying hard enough, or checking your mezuzas often enough, and oh, also for killing other people, wouldn’t the rabbis say so? Instead, it says your punishment is the aveira itself? What the hell? What kind of morons wrote this thing? Hey, if I’m going to give you a million dollars for something, you think I would find it necessary to give you other reasons?

Perhaps the rabbis sensed a fundamental secret of human nature. Humans don’t need promises of an afterlife, or even divine/rabbinic orders to do what they feel is right and to not do what they don’t feel is right. Say I hurt someone; do something wrong. No one may ever know. But *I* know. And I’ll sleep a little less easy at night, knowing the awful thing I’ve done, and I’ll have a harder time looking myself in the mirror in the morning. Conversely, if I do something thought of as “good”, I’ll sleep a bit more restfully at night. I’ll feel better about myself. I’ll hold my head just a little bit higher as I walk down the street. The reward or punishment for a deed is the deed itself. If I do something bad, I’ll forever be haunted by the memory. If I do something good, I’ll forever be buoyed by the memory. The rabbis tapped into the great secret of human morality: our conscience and guilt. To hell with hell.

Of course, another point to mention is it’s often in my own best interests to do good. If I help a friend, it’s not only for selfless purposes that I do so. And if I feel a sense of connection with all of humanity, why would I want to hurt anyone? So much good can be done for purely selfish purposes as well. My company donates a lot of charity. I’m sure they do it for altruistic purposes, but I’m sure they also have an idea that it does great things for their reputation to be known as a corporation that’s active in the community. A lot of morality is simple win/win strategies, you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours. I put a smile on your face, you put a smile on mine. Remind me why we need religion again?

Update: I just repaid a sixteen year-old favor. I feel like a million bucks.