From: perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry)
Subject: Re: Is belief in Jesus Necessary for a moral society?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 20:34:29 GMT

In article <2APR199217093163@jane.uh.edu> cosc143u@jane.uh.edu (91F9774) writes:
>
>I recently read Flannery O'Connors "A good man is hard to find."  In it she
>has the the main villain present the case that without belief in jesus there
>is no point in being decent to anyone else.  Since there is no definite promise
>of a big reward for living in a kind fashion, you should take advantage whenever
>you can.  If you can get away with killing someone and it is to your benefit,
>then you do it.  Obviously, it is written from a pretty small point of view
>(it only applies to America, not the world in general) but it does make me 
>wonder the following.  As a person of belief so weak as to almost be non
>existent, I wonder how other people of no belief (and perhaps as my self, low
>belief) live in a moral fashion?  If so, why?

Writing in the first century BC, Cicero wrote that belief in the gods
(as a group, the Roman pantheon) was necessary for moral behavior.  On
the other hand the non-theistic philosophies of Buddhism,
Confucianism, and Taoism all contain teachings more or less similar to
"do as you would be done by".  Morality seems to be pretty universally
agreed on in human history, though the details vary.  There is no
evidence that God-Fearing Christians behave more lovingly than
Buddhists, nor have they been historically less inclined to crime than
atheists.

>I suspect that I picked up most of my moral values from movies and television
>which were still promoting essentially christian moral values when I was 
>growing up.  Though less sexually moral than Xtians, I find that in many cases
>my standards of morality with regard to honesty are higher.   The sexually 
>moral statement is only relative to the Xtian religion tho.  Since I don't 
>believe particularly strongly, I don't have problems with just about anything 
>consensual and desired by both parties.  I worry about the fact that fiction
>these days seems to lack morality and celebrate evil.  If the only place that
>I picked up my basic morals was from fiction, then what is happening to my
>modern day counterparts?

Certain factions of Christianity have fixated on sexuality, rather to
the detriment of the religion and its followers, IMHO.  I rather like
to think your parents and early childhood teachers were instrumental
in teaching you basic morality ("Don't bite/hit your friends", "Don't
take what's not yours", "How would you like it if someone did that to
you?", "What if everyone did that?")  Those are basic moral values
that lead directly to not killing, stealing, and so on.

>The story (GMHF) features a completely amoral killer, and our teacher
>advanced the position that the number of psychotic killers has been steadily
>increasing ever sinces its "founding member", Jack the Ripper, showed on the 
>scene.  Do you think the increase of non-fear-of-god morality is contributing
>to this?  

It's been a while since I reviewed the details of the Jack the Ripper
case, but given the above-mentioned fixation on sexuality, I would not
be surprised to find that a killer who preyed on prostitutes was a
god-fearing type.  
-- 
Jim Perry   perry@apollo.hp.com    HP/Apollo, Chelmsford MA
Our show may not be fancy, but it's noisy and it's free.