Any poll asking a major moral and ethical question with few categories into which people may place themselves includes a diverse set of people under every category, but the findings for non-church goers were quite strong. Why did the non church goers do so well?
I think my discussions of Quakers, 'Biblical' Christians, and slavery provides a hint.
Here's another hint that made a great impression on me at the time. Still does. A few years ago I was in Salt Lake City to receive recognition for some work I had done in the social sciences. While there, I attended a session on philanthropy where the major speaker was a prominent Evangelical philanthropist. He explained that he regarded himself as God's steward, for his wealth was really God's. If he thought it was truly his, he said, he would not be so generous with it.
I was struck with his stated reason for generosity: not openness of heart, but underling to the Big Guy who would regard him severely if he did not act as instructed.
Conservatives and empathy.
Quakers. religion-by-the-bookers and slavery.
Evangelical generosity by command.
Atheists and torture.
Certainly a diverse group, but with something that links them together.
Those who regard their morality as coming from following commandments handed down from above, external to them, have little openness of heart or genuine moral sensitivity by comparison. They follow orders and presumably feel good for doing so.
Those who listen to their conscience because they have no orders, recognize no commandments, or open themselves to what the quiet voice of Spirit tells them, have demonstrably better results. Not in every case, but in enough that the pattern seems pretty robust. And the cases are important.
If the Sacred is immanent in the world, as we Pagans among others argue, I think this is what we would expect. Learn to look clearly within yourself, beneath the fear and anger and greed, and you find something very powerful and very good.
It was there all the time.
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Hootie1fan, thanks for being so open-minded. I have not been so fortunate as to meet Christians who believe as you do. The ones who have thrust their opinions on me have told me that any good done by people like me is actually the "work of the Devil" trying to deceive me and others like me. It seems to stem from the Christian "Jesus is the only way" dogma that shuts out all other religions and belief systems as being of their Satan.
I must tell you though, that the Christians I have met would not consider you to be a "true believer" because of your open views on the matter. Obviously you've been influenced by some Satanic reasonings that have put stumbling blocks in your path; you might want to watch out for those (teasing you with tongue stuck firmly in cheek).
Cheryl perhaps it's because I am Catholic. I've been told down here on more than one occassion that I am not a "REAL" Christian.
I've always believed that your action nad NOT your words defined who you are. Of course I also don't beleive that everyone who doesn't practice the same religion I do is automatically condemned to hell or wherever.
Glad to have found this blog!
I live in KS where everyone is, as I like to call it, "churchie." But strikingly, being "churchie" absolutely does NOT seem to coincide with simple politeness, kindness, thoughtfulness, or any other positive qualities one would assume it should. I especially agree with Jim's comment - the angry fundamentalists give "religion" a bad name. Unfortunately, I currently live surrounded by these types, and I often feel very isolated.
From what I gather, the argument is that there seems to be a correlation between whether one sees ultimate authority coming from without or within (whether Authority is transcendent or immanent) and moral development. I question this correlation, not because I think it is necessarily incorrect (I suspect there may be some truth to it), but because I think there is another correlation that may be made that does not necessarily coincide with this one.
I would argue that there is a correlation between the wideness of one’s ability to identify with the “other” and one’s moral development. Very simply, in order to treat someone “immorally” (whatever that means), one must first have an identity disconnect from the other that prevents empathy. On the other hand, the more one can say “I get you,” the less likely they are to act immorally toward that person.
My key point here is that identification with “the other” is a narrative event, not an event related to one’s ideology regarding the structure of Authority. I believe it would theoretically be just as possible to identify with the other if one viewed Authority as transcendent as if one viewed Authority as immanent. But it would not be as possible to act immorally toward one with whom one identifies, unless another narrative erodes that identification by creating a stronger identification that stands in opposition (such as the call to the patriots to save the world from “them”).
I could not possibly agree more that the degree one enlarges his or her heart to include others is key to acting in a good way.
But what leads us to enlarge our hearts? The more I think about it the more I am skeptical that commands will do it very well.
John Locke was the first important English thinker to advocate religious toleration ever for Pagans and Muslims. But he could not bring himself to offer similar toleration for atheists. Why? As he put it in his Letter Concerning Toleration, “Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist.” http://www.constitution.org/jl/tolerati.htm
Given Locke’s toleration for Pagans, he seems to have believed that belief in an outside power to enforce moral action.
Yet it appears we see no big difference between the behavior of atheists and believers in one transcendental religion or another, unless it be in favor of the atheists. I suspect this is so for several reasons beyond the one I mentioned – that thinking about the right thing to do leads more often to doing the right thing for the right reasons, than simply following what one regards as a command by an omnipotent force.
One additional reason addresses xiananarchist’s point. To identify with another is far easier from an immanentist perspective: we share at some level a common essence which is good. But from a transcendental perspective, we are fundamentally different from the good, and are so ‘all the way down.’ Further, if belief in original sin is factored in, (which is not required from a transcendental or even Christian perspective) what I most share in common with another is bad, and bad is defined in terms of self-will. I think this discourages trying to really understand another, and leads easily to their demonization.
Interestingly, I have heard a secular version of this argument. We are all descended from a common ancestor, and so we should be able to empathize with more than even the human, even. We should be able to empathize with all life, and so treat other beings with greater consideration. Darwin, for one, held views similar to these. He as also pretty clearly morally light years ahead of those Christians who supported slavery for Biblical reasons while Darwin strongly opposed it.
I am not saying that all people following an immanentist tradition will be more moral/generous/caring than those following a transcendental position. That is factually absurd. But one starting out point is probably superior to the other in this respect.
The only counter examples I can think of are the Amish and the Hutterites. But the strict rules they live by are enforced with the bonds of living in a tight knit community that minimizes interaction with the outside world.
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