richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

230 Mil- (.OP I") r I. I; '•> I O N
Systematic research if anything tends to support such correlational
data. Dan Dennett, in Breaking the Spell, sardonically comments,
not on Harris's book in particular, but on such studies generally:
Needless to say, these results strike so hard at the standard
claims of greater moral virtue among the religious that
there has been a considerable surge of further research
initiated by religious organizations attempting to refute
them . . . one thing we can be sure of is that if there is a
significant positive relationship between moral behaviour
and religious affiliation, practice, or belief, it will soon be
discovered, since so many religious organizations are
eager to confirm their traditional beliefs about this
scientifically. (They are quite impressed with the truthfinding
power of science when it supports what they
already believe.) Every month that passes without such a
demonstration underlines the suspicion that it just isn't so.
Most thoughtful people would agree that morality in the
absence of policing is somehow more truly moral than the kind of
false morality that vanishes as soon as the police go on strike or the
spy camera is switched off, whether the spy camera is a real one
monitored in the police station or an imaginary one in heaven. But
it is perhaps unfair to interpret the question 'If there is no God,
why bother to be good?' in such a cynical way.* A religious thinker
could offer a more genuinely moral interpretation, along the lines
of the following statement from an imaginary apologist. 'If you
don't believe in God, you don't believe there are any absolute
standards of morality. With the best will in the world you may
intend to be a good person, but how do you decide what is good
and what is bad? Only religion can ultimately provide your
standards of good and evil. Without religion you have to make it
up as you go along. That would be morality without a rule book:
morality flying by the seat of its pants. If morality is merely a
matter of choice, Hitler could claim to be moral by his own
eugenically inspired standards, and all the atheist can do is make a
personal choice to live by different lights. The Christian, the Jew or
* H. L. Mencken, again with characteristic cynicism, defined conscience as the
inner voice that warns us that someone may be looking.