By making morality a matter of acting according to rules purportedly set by a divine being, faith-based ethics ignores the most important component for developing moral consciousness or awareness, that is, making children learn appropriate moral principles through practical examples from parents, teachers and adults generally. If the humanist approach to morality, which gives primacy to the well-being and happiness of individuals on earth not to an imaginary blissful existence in paradise, becomes widespread, eventually a new generation of more reasonable human beings would emerge equipped with inner conviction that the rightness or wrongness of a given action cannot be rationally decided without considering its effects on sentient beings that might be affected by that very action.
Moral absolutism, which posits God as the ultimate foundation of morality, is clearly untenable. Thus, it is essential that each individual should periodically re-examine the moral principles he or she lives by, based on the recognition that morality is the product of human evolution and does not transcend the existential conditions peculiar to human beings in this world.
It is important to observe that religion is a double-edged sword the sharpest and most penetrating side of which oftentimes cuts deeply into our capacity for tolerance. This is especially true of those religions that claim exclusive right to the one true God because God either founded the religion in question or sent a prophet, sometimes an avatar, to proclaim the doctrines that were written in the “holy scriptures.” The problem here is that the scriptures tend to condemn as sin unconventional behaviours and practices that do not really harm anyone, thereby providing a convenient alibi for fanatics to unleash violence on others in an orgy of religious purification.
Consider, for example, the harsh laws against blasphemy and apostasy, which exemplify the dark side of religious absolutism. One of the most bloodthirsty punishments in the Old Testament is the one enacted for blasphemy. In some Islamic countries, people are still being sentenced to death and executed for blasphemy. But come to think of it, if someone commits apostasy or blasphemy, who is the victim of that offence such that the offender deserves to be killed? If I say negative things about God or make caricature of a prophet who died more than a thousand years ago, can anybody reasonably accuse me of a criminal offence deserving capital punishment? Who really is the actual victim of that offence? Supposing God is omnipotent and omniscient, as believers claim, why should religious fanatics arrogate to themselves the right to kill for God who, if he is indeed a merciful God, can decide to forgive the blasphemer? And what harm could one possibly have done to a dead prophet if he publishes a hilarious cartoon or irreverent comments about him? The whole thing about punishing someone for blasphemy is clearly absurd, mainly because it is an offence without a genuine victim.
The way I see it, blasphemy and apostasy laws are relics of primitive human abnegation, and the punishments they impose are just the sublimation of cruel impulses and desire to inflict severe punishment on those bold enough to challenge religious orthodoxy without the natural feeling of revulsion that usually accompanies the taking of human life for no good reason. Secular humanists have questioned the obdurate opposition of religion to masturbation, homoeroticism and euthanasia, which reveals much about the sort of moral orientation inspired by faith. Of course, a humanist can articulate or accept reasonable criticism of these practices especially when cases of abuse are established. However, to proscribe and severely punish masturbators, homosexuals, and doctors involved in euthanasia just because some passages in an ancient literature designated as “holy book” condemns those practices is, to put it very mildly, ridiculous. Take the case of homoeroticism: for a secular humanist, what two consenting adults do in private sexually, which harms no one, is their private business.
But for a purist moraliser operating under the canopy of Christianity or Islam, such activity assumes a transcendental significance, because he or she is obsessed with what others do (or even think) in private that is not in conformity with the suffocating morality of religion. Former President Goodluck Jonathan was actually responding to the wishes of Nigerian Taliban when he signed into law the ill-conceived legislation passed by the National Assembly, which outlawed homoeroticism and stipulated stiff punishments for those found guilty of the offence. In this connection, the tragic suicide of Alan Turing, the British mathematician who helped the Allies defeat Adolf Hitler and his murderous Third Reich by cracking German Enigma military codes is a permanent indictment of religion-motivated legislations that subordinate human interests to the whims and caprices of an irascible anthropomorphic deity.
All this stems from the distorted worldview explicitly stated in religions that man was created in God’s image. The cosmologies of Abrahamic religions in particular present an exaggerated picture of our place in the universe by making us the centrepiece of God’s creation. Leaving aside the contentious assumption that God exists, research findings in cosmology and biology do not support the idea that humans are the pinnacle of evolution.
In otherwords, every organism is unique and special; none is exempt from the mechanism of evolution. Therefore, dogmatic belief in the pre-eminent position ascribed to humans by religion reflects anthropomorphic conceit inherent in our being, borne out of fear and refusal to take seriously the important results from the relevant sciences. Bertrand Russell, in his book, Unpopular Essays, described an imaginary but highly plausible scenario of grazing cows in a field near a railway line which, in my opinion, accurately captures the silly mentality created and nourished by religion. According to Russell, if you pass in a train a field containing grazing cows, you may sometimes see them running away in terror as the train moves on. One of the cows, if it were a Christian or Muslim, would argue: “Everything in my own desires and hopes and fears has reference to myself because God created cows in his own image. Hence, from the revealed word of God I can conclude that everything in the universe has reference to myself. This noisy train, therefore, intends to do me either good or evil.
I cannot suppose that it intends to do me good, since it comes in such a terrifying form, which represents the purpose of the Evil One against children of God. Consequently, as a prudent cow, I shall endeavour to escape from it.” If someone explains to this religious ruminant that the train does not intend to leave the rails and is totally indifferent to the fate of cows, the animal would conclude that the devil is out to deceive him. A train that wishes him neither well nor ill would seem more cold and horribly terrifying than a train that wishes him ill.
Similarly, the flow of life sometimes brings good fortune, sometimes misfortune, to human beings. But religious and superstitious people generally cannot believe that this happens by accident. Going back to the cows and train analogy, one of the cows, having known of a companion who strayed onto the railway tracks and was killed by a passing train would reflect, like a typical believer, that the unfortunate cow has been punished by the God of the railway.
To prevent such misfortune occurring in future, he would begin to worship the God of the railway so that his priests or imams can put a fence along the tracks. Over time, generations of cows would continue the tradition of worship, and persecute those who refuse to acknowledge the railway God as their personal lord and saviour.
It would take several large volumes to describe in details why secular humanists tend to dislike religion, especially the Abrahamic variety, so much. The main point is that religion has done more harm than good since it was invented over seven thousand years ago. Therefore, secular humanists should continue to chip away at irrational faith: the survival of our species is at stake
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