Via the Humanist Symposium, I found one of the clearest and most concise descriptions of natural human morality that I’ve ever read. Here’s a bit:

Our concept that there is such a thing as right and wrong is hardwired into us by our evolution. We have a sort of universal “moral grammar”, but not a universal “moral language”. For instance: The notion it is wrong to harm an innocent person is universal, but specific notions of who is innocent and who is not innocent are far from being universal.

Read the rest here. As a non-theist who frequently hears from family that it’s “impossible” to find morality without God, this makes so much sense to me.

Rather than coming up with a title on my own, I’ll steal the title of the post I’m linking. Via Carnival of the Godless, I came across Holy Smoke at A Load of Bright. He compares quitting religion (as I did through December, then formally announced as of the first of 2007) to quitting smoking (which I did almost instantly in January 2004, even before I knew I was pregnant). It’s a striking comparison to me — one that resonates with me.

A sampling:

One question that is often asked of atheists is, “how are you going to replace religion? People need religion. If you take it away, what are you going to put in its place?” Many atheists answer this question on face value, normally with an outline of secular humanism. This is correct in a sense, but the question is actually heavily loaded. It assumes that people need religion. Do they really?

I used to think I needed cigarettes like I needed food. At times, when I was broke in university, I would scrape pennies from the floor of my car and the backs of couches to buy cigarettes while my cupboards were bare. “I need a cigarette”, I’d tell my bemused housemates, “I need one”. When you smoke, you are imbibing poison into your body. If there is one thing that, by definition, your body never needs, it is poison. I didn’t need a cigarette. I needed food. If you don’t eat, you die. If you don’t smoke, not only do you not die, you live longer! It’s easy for me to say that now, but at the time I was convinced that it was an essential.

Just as we are all born atheists, we are all born non-smokers. Do people really need religion, or do they just not know any better? Obviously, not all people need religion – the existence of happy atheists proves that. So why would some people need it and not others?

Over time, I’ve found myself filled with nearly zero angst about my walking away from religion in general, Christianity in particular. When I first even contemplated (not out loud, even — just in my head) the idea that God might just not be, the emptiness wasn’t unlike the craving for a cigarette — a loss that, had I not fed an addiction, I wouldn’t have ever recognized.

These days, when I consider religion, it’s largely in relation to how I’m raising my daughter, and how I can coach her to think critically about everything she encounters, even “truths” that I might tell her. Someday, she might be atheist/agnostic. She might be Christian. She might be Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, or a New Age flake. Whichever she becomes, my wish is that she will have spent time genuinely considering *why* she believes what she does.

Via Kate:
Boy, do I wish we had more role models who did feel like this:

“It’s completely understandable as a teenager to fret about your body,” she says. “It’s scary because you don’t know how it’s going to wind up. But I’m not a teenager any more; my body’s chosen its shape. I’d rather be strong than skinny for most roles.” (Anne Hathaway)

Read Kate’s thoughts on women and our need to continually be small.

I’ve touched on this subject before, and now that I’ve formally declared as agnostic, if not outright atheist, it’s something I feel even more strongly about.

One does not need to have a religion in order to behave in a moral, ethical manner.

Here’s a little reading on the subject, since I’m lacking time for a comprehensive post at the moment:

Living in America, this discussion usually plays out in terms of Judeo-Christian beliefs. The most common criticism about atheists is that without belief in God, we have no ethics or morals. A recent letter to the editor said, “No system of ethics … can stand alone. To make [ethics] understandable to a child, it must be clothed in religious terms, such as having an omniscient, omnipotent father in Heaven.” I completely disagree.

When a child hits another and the second child cries, the first one doesn’t need to have read the Bible or gone to Sunday school to know his action was wrong. Nor does he need to fear eternal damnation to discourage him from doing it again.

I try to teach my children right from wrong with a simple principle that most Christians will recognize. “How would you like it if Johnny took all the toy trucks and wouldn’t share them with you?” It’s not as eloquent as “do unto others,” but the message is the same and it gets the point across.

hat tip: Friendly Atheist

Somewhat related to my issues with the type of prayer mentioned last week:

In other words, individuals who are said to have an internal locus of control believe that they control their own destiny and that they make things happen, while those with an external locus of control believe that their successes, failures and other events in their lives are caused by luck or fate, and that circumstances are beyond their control.

There are advantages and disadvantages with both, but secular psychology generally considers an internal locus of control the healthier position of the two. Those with an internal locus of control tend to take more responsibility for their behaviour, while those with an external locus of control tend to be more anxious about the world around them.

Read the rest here.

Miscellany from today’s Humanist Network News:

Is Humanism a Religion?

Humanism, at least in any of the groups that I have joined — The Humanist Association of Canada (HAC) and the Society of Ontario Freethinkers (SOFREE) — does not require any oath or initiation ritual outside of filling in a contact information form and a check. If that qualifies humanism as a religion then I also belong to the Church of the Credit Union, The Holy Order of the Curling Club and The Divine Path of Too Many Credit Cards.

Oooh. The Divine Path of Too Many Credit Cards *snort*. That one is entirely too familiar — though not currently, and I plan to never rejoin that one again.

First:
Via the Progressive Blogger Network, I found The Mindful Mission. I haven’t had time to delve into much of his writing just yet, but if his bio and reading list are a hint, I will soon add him to the daily reading list.

Next:
From Mindful Mission, I found this post. Wow…just, wow.

“christians” taught me…

to fear what is different
to attack what you fear
to validate deeply held cultural values while critiquing surface “values”
to live with the hypocrisy of it
to deny the hypocrisy of it
to have an allergy to honesty
to resent this list because the shoe fits
to label as “liberal” anything contrary or critical of Christians, especially when it’s deserved
to downplay any and all legitimate criticism
to wrap our cookies in barbed wire and then excuse it by saying “the Gospel is offensive”

That’s only the beginning. Man, it reminds me of church from while I was growing up. Take a look at the rest.