The Failure of Ethics in Classical Religious Traditions

Ultimately, the aim of religion should be to cultivate and maximize happiness. To understand what God is is fine, but that also requires a precise definition of what God is. To understand the self and our reason for being here is more useful for cultivating happiness, but there is an easier way still that is still within the scope of religion: ethics.

While ethics has its limitations, when forced to choose understanding God, understanding self, and studying ethics, ethics is the easiest, most straight-forward way to cultivate happiness...if the ethical system has no other purpose than to teach ethics, anyway. Unfortunately, established religion has the tendency to draw people in with sound ethical principles, and then prescribe other less sounds ones, that the religion's followers will adhere to none-the-less.

The heart of ethics is the golden rule. It has many incarnations in the texts of the world's great religions.

In Hinduism:
Do not unto others what ye do not wish done to yourself...this is the whole of the Dharma. (The Mahabharata)

In Judaism:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary; go learn it. (The Talmud)

In Buddhism:
Hurt not others in ways you would yourself find hurtful. (The Dhammapada)

In Islam: No one of you is a believer until you desire for another that which you desire for yourself. (The Sunnah)

In Christianity:
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. (The New Testament)

If the ethical prescriptions stopped at the golden rule, the religion would be less dangerous. However, there are many questionable ethical prescriptions scattered throughout the world's preeminent religious texts, notably in The Old Testament, The New Testament and the Koran.

One danger of ethical prescriptions in religious texts is that they might be just in the context of the culture in some past century, but no longer relevant today.

For example, the Koran, demands that believers "Cut off the hands of thieves. It is an exemplary punishment from Allah." (5:38)

While clearly cruel and unethical by today's standards, In seventh century Arabia, where food and water were not abundant, such a harsh measure might have been necessary to prevent starvation. However, it is no longer the seventh century, and most Muslims don't live in Arabia. No one living in a first world country, Muslim or otherwise, should be able to prescribe this kind of punishment for simple theft and call it moral.

And yet some people have convinced themselves that such a thing is just because they believe that the text that prescribes it comes from some infallible divinity. If the goal of religion is to maximize happiness, it has a lot of work to do in the area of ethics.

Perhaps the biggest danger of ethical prescriptions in religious texts is that they can be used to scare their followers into remaining faithful to their religion. In the Koran it says:

"Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers." 2:191-2

Historically, the Muslim world was far more religiously tolerant than homogeneous Christian Europe. Not surprising given some of the stuff in the Bible. The New Testament says:

Executing non-believers brings peace. (Chronicles 15:15)

And in the New Testament:

"God will kill those who believe and preach the wrong doctrines." (Jeremiah 5:12-13)

"Those who do not believe in Jesus will be cast into a fire to be burned." (John 15:6)

"God will set the entire earth on fire so that he can burn non-believers to death."
(Peter 3:7)

In this way (as well as others) religion has become self-serving. Traditions that begin with the goal of spreading human joy and happiness turn into institutions that are concerned with other goals. There is an important lesson to extract from this reflex: that we cannot take everything a religion prescribes as read. In the best case scenario, religion can point to a spiritual path. Since the path itself is esoteric and necessarily experiential, there can be no definitive description of what the path looks like, nor can there be a definitive prescription of how the to walk it. This would be true even if we had a single world language that never changed.

If a practitioner finds that religion's ethical prescriptions prove false to their experience, then they should not hesitate to discard them. The proof must be in the pudding!

There is no good reason for science and religion to be at odds with each other. One deals with the empirical: the measurable aspects of the universe, while the other deals with the experiential. The disciplines are not mutually exclusive. Religion, up until this point, has had the tendency of dictating that the holy texts are the unalterable and perfect as they are. As a result, religion lacks a coping mechanism for change. As result, religions have limited mechanisms for growth and adaptation and whenever too large a change takes place, there becomes a splintering off of new denominations, or even entire new religions.

This unwillingness to change is dogmatism, and it the reason why religion is becoming increasingly ignored. Modern society gives us a useful alternative to religion in philosophy, a discipline which does not suffer from religion's tendency to resist change. Unfortunately, philosophy tends to fall short when it comes to exploring the mystical. Philosophy, however, does work quite well when brought to task on ethics.

Since religions have traditionally not been able to change, without creating new denominations, they have been forced to deal with their flaws in bizarre and irrational ways. I'm going to pick on Christianity again, but only because I know more about it than the other major religions.

An all too common justification that Christians are apt to site as a justification for farcical beliefs (Eve was made from Adams rib, Dinosaurs existed only 4000 years ago, evolution is a lie, et cetera) is that it says so in the Bible and the Bible is the word of God. Of course they only "know" that the Bible is the word of God because it says so in the Bible. This is an obvious case of circular reasoning. The problem is that when people will have a powerful spiritual experience, as sometimes happens, they will take it as a proof that religion X is valid, and thereby get caught in the snare of circular reasoning.

For me, the most absurd argument of the uncompromising Christian is that the Bible is the infallible word of God. But this is absurd. For one, there are many different versions and translations of the Bible, which sometimes carry different semantic meanings. Which one is the infallible word of God and which is not? No one would hazard to make the fallacious argument that the Bible was written by Jesus, so how much more absurd to suggest that it is the infallible word of God? How doubly absurd when followers begin to conveniently forget the prescriptions that have absolutely no chance at being seen as ethical by anyone in their right mind:

"For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." (Leviticus 20:9)

"If you don't honor the Sabbath, God will burn you to death unquenchable fire." (Jeremiah 17:27)

The point is, when this kind of absurd reasoning starts to take place, reason is lost. Once people lose their faculty of reason, then they are able to be convinced of anything. This needs to change. Religion must become malleable and it must be made to incorporate reason if it is to survive into the 22nd Century and beyond.

After-all there are plenty of sources for ethics in the world of today. Art and literature can serve this function quite well. But why not draw upon larger traditions? Why not draw upon a systems of thought that provide theories about ethics and morality in the greater picture, one of a larger scope that considers what a pre human life state, and a post-human life state?

There is no good reason! We must learn to take the good from all religious traditions, work with them and build upon them. This line of thinking is staring to take root in the form of Universalism, and it has always been present in in Sikhism. We all recognize joy, we all recognize suffering. Religion can only comment upon joy and suffering, it cannot dictate what they are. We should use the commentary we find useful but never hesitate throw out the garbage that proves itself false. Ultimately, we must be our own arbiters of truth. The responsibility may be intimidating, but ultimately, it's the only way.