Theism and Morality, any Correlation? Apparently Not!

One of the sillier posts from the Discovery Institute's Evolution 'news' and Views site is this: "On Atheism and Morality, Study Confirms Voltaire?"  The basic question is "Can you be good without God?"  Michael Engor, one of the DI's talking heads has a lot to say about it.  I do enjoy his opening line:

"Can you be good without God? Of the various questions raised in the theist/atheist debate, this question has, I believe, occasioned more witless commentary than any other. "

You can find a wonderful example of 'witless commentary' than the rest of Michael's post.  He begins with a discussion of what 'without God' means -- and he starts that with an assumption:

"If God does not exist, you cannot be good. You cannot be evil."

I think he missed the metaphysical boat on this one -- but then with how often the DI claims not to have religious roots, they, and all their talking heads, love to discuss theistic subjects.  That aside, where I think Micheal blew it by not really addressing what it means to be 'good' or 'bad'?

If those concepts are really driven by religious beliefs, then Michael might have a point, but if they are not, then the whole 'with and without God' discussion is -- as Michael would say -- 'witless commentary'.

So, just what is the source of Morality?  Let's do something the DI hardly ever does and define our terms:

"Morality (from the Latin moralis "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness"." (Wikipedia: Morality)

Look at this line in particular:

'Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal.'

So the source of what is determined to be 'good' or 'bad' may or may not come from a religion, it could just as easily come from many other sources.  What that tells me is that the source is unimportant.  That might annoy some, but think it through.  Regardless of the source, the key is how it's defined by society, not a particular religion.  And if you look at the things generally defined as 'moral' and 'immoral', what is the key?  Human impact!

Murder, slavery, child welfare, among many others have all been codified into a set of morals because of the impact they have on us as people.  Many groups, religious and secular, have defined similar codes.  Is the insertion of a deity required for such a code to exist?

To support that, look at all of the things we consider 'good' and 'bad' and tell me is there one religion that holds all of those same standards?  Many of today's moral improprieties are not against religious beliefs, but societal ones -- human ones.  Plus many religions conflict on matters of morality.  Is Birth Control a sin?  Depends on which set of religious beliefs to which you subscribe.  What about alcohol?  Some religions call any alcohol immoral, others only claim drunkenness is immoral, and still other standards of morality don't bother with alcohol unless you are driving or acting up in public.  Was it moral to send children to work in coal mines?  Is killing a non-believer murder?  Pre-marital sex, often religiously immoral, but still practiced by many -- including theists. I went to a wedding a few years ago, music was allowed, but dancing was a sin.  Do you know how hard it is to prevent my granddaughter, who was 5 or 6 at the time, from not dancing at a wedding when every other wedding she had been had hours of it.  At my nephew's wedding there were nearly as many pictures of her dancing as the newlyweds. The definitions of 'morality' change from religion to religion as often as they do from country to country and culture to culture.

So, 'good' and 'bad' are determined by society, not by a religious tradition.  Some of our moral 'standards', for lack of a better word, can trace their history back to various religious beliefs, but that has little to do with those moral standards in place today.  It's the human impact, regardless of apparent source, that matters.  Add in the conflicts between religion and the enforcement of those standards on society, you really see that the source of a moral position matters little.  It's societies' acceptance of those standards that are important, many of them further codified into laws.

That being said, the question becomes are atheists as capable as theists of leading a 'good' life when the 'good' is not based on a religious tradition, even if a specific moral judgment may have historically been part of one.  So what else would support a contention that theism is a necessary part of such a life?

I know, how about US Prison populations?  Theists like to claim that without a set of theistic beliefs, usually their own specific set, you have no basis for the idea of good or bad, therefore Atheists are more likely to be criminals.  So the expectation is that Atheists will have a higher percentage within the prison population than Theists.  If it's not true then Theists are just as likely as anyone else to commit crimes.  I know many would like to think their religious beliefs place them on some sort of moral high-ground, but there doesn't seem to be much data to back that up.

The first question I wanted to know was if there are specific instances of religion having an impact on certain types of crimes.  With one exception, there doesn't seem to be a correlation, and that is fraud, it's apparently a high percentage problem with many non-profits, including churches.  Churches seem particularly susceptible to fraud and embezzlement, mainly because they are exempt from filing annual reports to the IRS.  Forbes discusses it in a 2013 article.  The other reason is religious groups try to keep their legal and moral issues internal . . . yea, we saw how well that works a few years back for the Catholic Church, didn't we.  Other forms of crime, theists seems to commit them more often than atheists.

In a Wikipedia article, "Correlations of Criminal Behavior", there are few studies that hint people with strong religious convictions may be less likely to commit certain types of crimes, there's not enough evidence to back up that claim.  A 1997 study found little correlation between religion and a lack of criminal activity, or drug use.  Funny it found a much more statistically relevant connection between religion and alcohol.  How about Prison Statistics?

Hmm, interesting, "Mean religious affiliation of inmates in U.S. prisons, as reported by prison chaplains in 2011" has an interesting graphic:

It's a little hard to read, but you can see that over half the inmates are reported to have a Protestant religious affiliation, 50.6%.  Only 10.6% profess no religious preference, and only 5% are unknown.  There is no category for Atheists, so making a comparison is difficult.  But form the above statistics, you can see that those with 'no preferences' and 'unknowns' are are less than one-quarter of the total just comparing then to Protestants and Catholics (65.1% v. 15.6%).  While I believe I can safely assume some of those unknowns and no preferences are Atheists, all that would do would make the statistic even more lopsided, in favor of the Atheists being less likely than Theists in committing criminal offenses.

I found another set of stats from a study done in 2013.  This one actual identified a category for Atheists:

While the Protestant percentage dropped and Catholics nearly doubled from the previous stats, the percentage of Atheists is 0.1%, or 1/10 of 1%.  So far, the idea of morality requiring a religion seems to be taking a beating.  If being a theist means you were less likely to commit crimes, that doesn't seem to hold up when you actually start digging.  I guess theists simply like to claim it as a point in pride, but the reality is that is just doesn't seem to be true.

So, looking at the prison population, while Atheists represent 0.7% of the general population, only 1/7th of them are represented in the prison population.  Yet theists of varying types, represent 99.3% of the general population also represent 99.9% of the prison population.  So there really doesn't seem to be much to support the idea that you require a deity to have a standard of good and bad. Society lays out those standards, the historical source is immaterial.

So, based on all this, Atheists and Theists alike have the choice of what type of life they lead.  Being a Theist doesn't seem to offer any better chance the life led will be morally better than an Atheist.  At best the idea of religion may be a factor that weighs in a Theists mind before heading down a religiously forbidden path, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence to show being aware of that forbidden path actually stops people from treading on it.

One last thought, if Theism was a viable deterrent to immoral behavior, there should, not only be statistics to back that up, but then many types of these behaviors should be able to be handled by theistic groups.  However, looking the example discussed above, theistic groups don't seem to have a good record of policing themselves.  A quote from the Forbes article cited included this gem:

"Johnson [the author of the study] told me [the Forbes article author] that "part of it is a reluctance to see the bad side of a nice pastor, a secretary or a board member of the church." Johnson even cited one quote from a church member who knew of an embezzlement and said, "I know he stole my money but I still think he's a wonderful person.""

'he stole my money but I still think he's a wonderful person'?  And the DI thinks belief in a Deity makes a person more moral than someone who does not believe?  Seriously?  If Theism is a reason to still believe that someone who stole your money is still a wonderful person, then the impact of theism isn't on whether or not a theist can commit a crime, but on the gullibility of theists in general.  I think we are done here!