Does Religion Make You Nice?--Does atheism make you mean?

Slate.com ^ | Nov. 7, 2008 | Paul Bloom

[Alex Murphy]

Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted." The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, is that belief in God makes us worse. As Hitchens puts it, "Religion poisons everything".....

....In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review showing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when others are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them.

[Jvette]

I think we are debating two different things. The original question, “Does religions make you nice...” itself begs the question, “Why do we even ask”?

I think you are saying that as humans developed into more organized societies the need to control interaction became necessary. The conscience is then trained to act and react to what society has deemed acceptable.

My question is why do we even think of this stuff. Animals don’t, not a single one. They live within a society and they interact with each other yet they do not ponder why they behave certain ways. They just do it. It doesn’t matter to them if it is nice or mean. Let’s consider again the example of dogs. They are domesticated, trained by man to behave in certain ways. If left alone, they would be wild. They would fight over food, females, territories etc...but they would not think about whether or not what they are doing is right or wrong. Similarly, humans fight over these things, but they wonder whether their actions are right or wrong.

I began by saying that this question is what led me back to God and religion. In all of creation, in all of the billions of creatures that inhabit this planet, why are humans they only living beings that think of things like this? I guess we have the classic which came first question.

I have not read any Freud in years, not a fan. And I’m not likely to start. If you haven’t guessed, I have my answers to these questions.

I appreciate that you have taken the time to respond like you have. This is one of the great things about the internet, that we can have a conversation like this, without knowing one another. Looking forward to your next post.:)