Directly across Quadra Street from yesterday's photo is this large building, formerly the First Baptist Church. At some later point it was home to Nelson's Music and has now been transformed into trendy loft living spaces. The proximity of this former church to the large one featured yesterday reminds me that we are moving rapidly into a genuinely secular society. This has happened really within the last fifty years and I wonder how many of us think about the implications.
I am wondering, for instance, how people without any religious background develop personal moral codes. What's right and what's wrong used to be defined religiously, but for many people nowadays religion is no longer a valid way of defining morality. But what is the philosophy or ethical system that is replacing religion in our society? It doesn't seem to be explicitly codified anywhere but sort of patched together from rights-based pressure groups, media attitudes and the vague humanistic philosophies of psychologists and social workers, and I can't escape the feeling that we may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Aside from legal sanctions or religious beliefs, how do you decide what's right and what's wrong?
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Thursday, March 12, 2009
Old Churches
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7 comments:
Comparing my kids growing up in a non-religious household to my upbringing in an extremely religious household has been very interesting. I think they are much better for it--deciding what's right and wrong from a logical/what's-best standpoint rather than having it handed to them on a platter that they aren't to question.
Great question, and I am sure there is no right answer but I'd like to chime in nonetheless.
Moral compasses exist because they're part of human nature, the same way behavior and intelligence exist. I don't think you can prove that religion made up the human sense of right and wrong, so it's not logical to credit religion for keeping society morally intact. They may have written it down, but think about the number of non-moral things you do day-to-day that are not written down, yet you know they are the things you should be doing. If I write those things down and give you the list, do I get credit for making sure you eat healthy and brush your teeth three times a day? I should think not.
There is a flip side to your coin. How about all the people with religious backgrounds but no moral compass? Or shall we talk about those who see fit to do whatever they like so long as they confess at the beginning of the next week?
Anyway, like I say - great question and I get similar thoughts when I walk around and look at institutional things in the area - I live a block away from that intersection.
An interesting question indeed. But has religion really been the main moral compass before? What religion then? Even within a religion like Christianity, there are dozens of different sects that interpret the "moral rules" differently. Were these rules ever explicitly written down in a way that people can follow 100%? It seems like even within a single religion this is not possible.
I think people find and interpret their moral "codes" from the society around them. 100 years ago religion had a larger role in society, but today science and critical thinking are more important and drive our advancement. We have our laws that have been built up over centuries of a society living together and they act as a guidelines for our moral limits. And these change as time changes. 40 years ago abortions were not legal. Today they are. The rights of the individual have become more morally important it seems. Slowly but surely our society is moving towards morals that are defined by what is best for us as a people and provides rational human rights, rather than what is decreed by someone thousands of years ago, and interpreted and translated many times over. I'm not saying these rights/morals aren't still deeply affected by things like politics - as they've always been. Our morals today (in this society) are definitly an amalgation of religious beliefs, human rights ideals, philosophical ideas, and personal beliefs all intermingled and affected by political agendas and corporate greed. And we need to wade through that pool ourselves, without the hand of a church to tell us what to do. Are we better off for it? I think so, because it forces us to think more for ourselves.
This post has spawned interesting discussion.
The main core of what I think we are all leaning towards is that morals and taboos need to be able to adapt and change with society and the individuals with in it.
Graham, I wouldn't say that morals in the past were not based on what is best for us as a people and providing human rights. Some of the older codified rights (eg, the ten commandments), although antiquated by today's standards, still went a long way in the right direction. Don't steal, don't murder, don't lie. These are all taboos that are generally still valid.
Those that deal more specifically with religion can now be looked back on with a much clearer hindsight, but I would suggest that when these rules were created, there were very strong benefits to the people as a whole to unite around something like the church (this does not give the church a get-out-of-jail-free card for atrocities commited, however).
Michael Shermer has a great book out called "The Science of Good and Evil", and is an excellent starting point for learning about the evolution of morality. In short, morality is evolutionarily beneficial to us as a species, and (if you buy into the theory) can exist without the need for a divinely imposed set of rules. It's arguable that rules like the commandments are simply a manifestation or expression of that evolved morality anyhow.
It's probably most realistic to assume that the morality of an individual is a aggregate of their evolutionary history, the society they were raised in, and the society that they now live in. Many church-goers apply a mixture of their own sense of right and wrong with those that are provided by the church in order to enable them to see the world in shades of grey, rather than a binary good vs evil view.
In any case, it strikes me as a bit premature to suggest that religion is being replaced or losing it's need. There will always be a role in our society for simple answers to complex problems, and science and skepticism simply cannot provide this. (I'm not suggesting they should - being able to accept that complex problems don't have simple answers is a sign of enlightened thinking. It's just unfortunate that many people will not be able to breach that wall).
Oh gosh, that's a tough question and I don't think I'm quite prepared to write an essay! I'm a Catholic but there are some things I don't agree with (like their views about contraception) and that's where the long discussion comes in.
It's hard for me to imagine that this was a church. It looks more like a fortress and reminds me of old bank buildings. Wonderful windows though, and they must make for great apartments.
And I'm late, but congratulations on your blog anniversary! I bow to your 365 consecutive posts — I keep missing days because I don't want to use scheduled posts. Is that weird? I hope you'll continue posting for many more years to come!
Thanks all for your comments on this post. I'm glad to see that people are thinking about these things.
Al, I agree except that there's always some point where there is a clash between "what's best for me" and "what's best for the people around me" and logic may not enable one to get any unequivocal answer. Same with the conflict between "what I want to do" and "What I should do."
Davin, I'm not sure I agree about moral compasses being part of human nature. But whether they are or not, the content certainly varies widely between cultures and historical periods and it is the content that is critical. It's not so long ago, for example, that slavery was OK and pre-marital sex was not OK. The situation is now reversed. What concerns me is what are the guiding principals that underlay the new moral codes that are developing. I'm not saying new morality is all bad, only that its underlying beliefs don't seem to be either explicit or systematic.
Graham, Yes I think that moral codes were primarily provided by religions up until the last few hundred years. Different religions had different moral codes but they all had some kind of codified guides to proper and improper behaviour. Ideally, with everybody thinking for themselves, a new concensensus about proper social/personal behaviour will develop. However, unless people are conscious of the process and take control themselves it can easily be hijacked by business/media/politicians for their own ends.
Adam, Shermer's book seems like a good place to start, though I don't think I feel comfortable with a functional interpretation of morality. I agree that religion is not yet a write-off, nor is it likely to disappear. What I am noticing though is that it affects a much smaller proportion of the population than it used to and has little effect on the development of new moral codes/legislation.
Hilda, yes, this is a rather big topic for a little blog like this but occasionally one is reminded of the larger picture. I confess to using scheduled posts from time to time. It's OK. Go ahead and try it - you'll like it - and it's not a sin.
Thanks for reminding me about scheduling posts! I should take advantage of that feature more often myself.
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