The topic of the relationship between religion and morality has been a debate for ages. Socrates famously questioned “whether goodness is loved by the gods because it is good, or whether goodness is good because it is loved by the gods”. With our nation’s right to practice any religion, or none at all, this question has gained even more popularity.
Although some people may believe morality is always guided by a higher force, it’s guided by evolutionary factors and psychology; therefore your ethics are not determined exclusively by your beliefs in religion.
According to a paper by the National Library of Medicine, humans evolved by passing traits down from parent to offspring, which could be physical traits, but also ways of thinking and learning.
For example, the sound of a bush moving could mean a possible predator, and not what it actually is, like the wind. Even though we don’t need these survival instincts anymore, they are still rooted in our evolutionary makeup.
In the modern age when we are no longer being hunted, this habit of assuming something is there could have led to the belief in a higher power, such as God. Assuming something or someone is watching would make a human behave in an inherently “good” way, stemming from the biological belief that if you don’t mess up, you will not be able to be hunted, therefore not prey. This ideology has always been psychologically engrained in humans, it has just evolved into religion as the threat of being hunted lessened.
“Carl Jung, a psychologist from the psychodynamic perspective, talked about universal principles that we’re unconsciously born with, [for example] good versus evil,” AP Psychology teacher Kristin Sander said, “and that we have motivation to be good and care for other people.”
The psychodynamic approach in psychology says that our ideas and beliefs are shaped by unconscious motives. This supports the idea that humans are born with morality engrained in them unconsciously from birth. Most toddlers, unless raised in a religious household from an early age, are not guided by a higher being in their decision making, however are still able to make good versus bad decisions. An example of this would be if a toddler were to decide to not break something when they could. This choice is not guided by a god, but instead by their inner sense of right and wrong that is passed down unconsciously from generation to generation.
According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, “65% of Americans believe it’s not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values, while 34% believe that belief in God is an essential component of morality”.
This supports another psychological approach, called a sociocultural perspective. This perspective in psychology says our thoughts are influenced by the social environment we are surrounded by.
According to an article by YouGov, “Almost half (47%) of Americans say that churches and religious organizations strengthen morality in society, 26% say they do not make much difference”.
Many of the 47% grew up heavily in a religious space, so their beliefs would align with that social environment. If someone was surrounded by a religion for most of their life, they would naturally attribute their moral code to that religion. While some may use this perspective to support their belief that religion guides morality, there are atheists who still have moral compasses, which would prove religion doesn’t determine if a human is good or bad. Instead, the psychology behind the idea of religion is what guides a person’s morality.
Religion has deep psychological and evolutionary roots, and morality existed back before belief in a higher being did. This proves that while morality can be affected psychologically by religion, it is not strictly run by it and is instead determined by deeper cognitive processes. Morality didn’t descend from the heavens, it instead evolved within us.
