Secular Morality: Contradiction in Terms, or Best Hope For Humanity?

Social conservatism and religion have been quite happy bed-partners in the US since the creation of the Moral Majority by the now deceased Jerry Falwell. But are their arguments scientifically sound? Is religion necessary to create a moral society, or is it instead an impediment?

It is quite possibly one of the most fundamental arguments for religiosity in society, that without God society will degenerate into soulless heathens. It's a common image that has been evoked over and over again.

But how accurate is this argument?

In a scientifically conducted (EDIT: conducted by/on behalf of Rabbi Myer and Dorothy Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Creighton University.) study whose results were published a little over a year ago, an attempt was made to judge the relative levels of moral behavior in comparison to how secular a given region was, in all first-world "industrialized" nations. The results might surprise many people: it turns out that where religion is less closely adhered to, things like teenage preganancy, sexually transmitted disease, abortion, murder, divorce, violence, rape, and theft are all less frequent occurrences, according to all available census statistics. In some cases, such as teenaged contraction of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia, that rate of incidence is over 300% higher in areas where the belief in the evolutionary theory of origin of species is held by less than 20% of the population.

Yet historically, the association of moral conduct & faith in deity have always been considered inexorably intertwined, very powerfully so. It is the holdover of such sentiment that makes it so very difficult, in today's society, to have what amounts to rational, 'scientific' discussion of morality, as opposed to teleological and idyllic; the two seem to possess radically different languages from one another, regardless of whether the same language be spoken. Some would even go so far as to argue that morality is inherently immune to scientific analysis; these break into two major camps: those whom argue that there is a single, absolute morality -- inevitably based on a theological paradigm -- and those whom argue that all morality is relative and hence it doesn't even truly exist at all.

But to both, there is an answer; and that answer is -- Evolutionary Psychology. There is strong argument that there is "universality" of some moral concepts; that one should not kill, that theft is wrong, that children are somehow more important morally to care for than are adults, etc.. It is through the evolutionary model of origin that analysis for these "universal" traits can be analyzed and reasoning behind their prevalence might be attributed to some survival perks; much like how herd or pack mentalities evolve in other animals, morality might be itself something that evolved in humans towards the same result. The body of work which specifically focuses on this sub-facet of evolutionary psychology is sometimes referred to as evolutionary ethics. There are, of course, now groups that specifically study this field, such as the Center for Evolutionary Psychology; it is through such groups' works that scientific discourse can be based upon, alongside the fore-runners and leaders of thought -- much like any other scientific body of work.

So; statistically speaking, in a very solid and absolute manner it has been demonstrated that where there is secularism -- the lack of faith -- there is typically a more moral society, all other things being equal. The sole argument against this, of course, is found in the histories of atheist/communist China and atheist/communist Russia. (Some attempt to accuse Nazi Germany of atheism as well, but this is clearly obviated by such practices as the Thule Society and their obsession with Aryans as the successors of such places as Atlantis.) The fact that those societies were totalitarian negates the element of "all other things being equal"; compare for example the ubiquitous murders and killings that happen under fundamentalist Sharia law.

So why is it, then, that so frequently when a society focuses so deeply, as all religions do, on being "upright" or "morally sound", that so few of them accomplish this? What common binding element do they all have in common? As an atheist myself, it is far too easy to simply accuse the faithful societies of a lack of reason or capacity for it; even though plausible to my beliefs, it does not seem quite sufficient, somehow. Instead, it might be almost more plausible to consider this the inevitable result of a created conflict between what might be called the "natural" morality and the "arbitrary" morality generated by faiths which mandate an underpinning of deity or external source; while this does not inherently make those of a secular nature more moral, it certainly explains the greater moral behaviors exhibited by those whom do not have anything but themselves to call upon when determining what is or is not moral -- when you are wholly reliant upon yourself; when you can only rely upon yourself to know if you have lived a decent, wholesome life; it is arguably this scenario which maximizes the moralistic lifestyle.