Good Sans God

*This article cross-posted from Positivelyharmful.com*

In an editorial published recently at boston.com, columnist Jeff Jacoby shares his philosophy that God is a necessary component of human goodness. He cites historical examples to push his point that human beings cannot, without the word of God, know what is truly right or wrong. His editorial is a response to announcements that atheist groups in America are spending money to promote their non-belief around the holidays. In 2008, the message was "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake." This year, after expanding to TV and other media, the ads are going further, depicting the long-existing links between religion and violence.

Jacoby's stance, though ignorant, represents a pretty typical Christian-American viewpoint. These weak-minded people remove themselves from the responsibility of formulating their ownmoral identity. Jacoby writes:

For in a world without God, there is no obvious difference between good and evil. There is no way to prove that murder is wrong if there is no Creator who decrees “Thou shalt not murder.’’ It certainly cannot be proved wrong by reason alone. One might reason instead — as Lenin and Stalin and Mao reasoned — that there is nothing wrong with murdering human beings by the millions if doing so advances the Marxist cause. Or one might reason from observing nature that the way of the world is for the strong to devour the weak — or that natural selection favors the survival of the fittest by any means necessary, including the killing of the less fit.

I take grave offense to this statement as well as to the viewpoint it represents. Rather than rebut Mr. Jacoby myself, I'll let you read what Christopher Hitchens has to say on the subject.

I think our knowledge of right and wrong is innate in us. Religion gets its morality from humans. We know that we can't get along if we permit perjury, theft, murder, rape, all societies at all times, well before the advent of monarchies and certainly, have forbidden it...Socrates called his daemon, it was an inner voice that stopped him when he was trying to take advantage of someone... Why don't we just assume that we do have some internal compass?

Hitchens, of course, is a leading authority and spokesperson on the subject of atheism. Along withThe God Delusion author Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens is one of the most recognizable and outspoken anti-theists. He speaks worldwide and is known for having a standing offer to debate any religious authority who would care to challenge him of the subject of religion. Needless to say, he is smarter than Jeff Jacoby.

The reason I take such particular offense to this form of human subjugation to the idea of god is simple: I resent the notion that we could possibly need the "word of God" to make moral decisions. First, this idea robs humans of a precious distinction within the animal kingdom. It takes away one of our primary attributes, moral consideration. Second, this kind of thinking is patently and decidedly incorrect. Because human beings themselves invented the notion of God, a god, or many gods (depending on the time and place), they themselves are the originators and propagators of all morality, even the supposedly "divine." Third, by allowing ourselves to defer these decisions and considerations to invented deities, we dangerously transfer the responsibility and accountability of our actions to a fictitious source.

Not every human, be they atheist, Catholic, Muslim, agnostic, or of any other belief, is "good," and there may be no universal standard for what that very ubiquitous-but-vague term means. The most important thing to keep in mind though is that we MUST take responsibility for our individual senses of right and wrong. We all do this in different ways, and this is just fine--so long as it comes from inside yourself rather than the inapt, dusty pages of antiquity.