Morals, values debated

From Jim D. Shelton,
Conway:

Both Scott Harmon (Log Cabin Democrat, Feb. 26) and Jim Guinee (Log Cabin Democrat, March 7) miss the point of my letter (Log Cabin Democrat, Feb. 24). I accused people of hypocrisy who advocate that no one should be subject to coercive religious (or anti-religious) indoctrination and yet who systematically and deliberately do that very thing to children. Neither answers that charge. I did not argue that religious belief was not beneficial. It is a question of rights, not utilitarian benefits.

Both also seem to think that morality is not a matter of rational justification and that it, along with religious dogma, has to be coercively conditioned into a child. I grant them that the very basic moral impulses are acquired in a pre-critical stage, usually as a response to being loved by one's parents and learning to have tolerable behavior in the home. But beyond that, much of our morals are rationally justifiable in terms of being very valuable for free, just and well-functioning individuals and society. A rule that cannot be justified on such a basis should never be psychologically conditioned into a human being.

As a scientific thinker, Mr. Guinee should know that his inference from the correlation of religious upbringing and moral behavior to the hypothesis that it was "religious beliefs and values" that produced the moral behavior is a very weak inference. When a parent loves his or her child, provides a good moral example, and gives reasons for the desirability of honesty, kindness, and other virtues, the child will generally take on that morality regardless of (or in spite of) the particular religion being propagandized. So it is perhaps not religion and values so much as values alone that produce values in children. Mr. Guinee needs to produce more evidence to show that it is the religious beliefs and not other factors that are the underlying cause of one becoming a good person and citizen. His claim that religious belief is needed for psychological health may be true when the greater part of the society constantly expresses non-scientific religious beliefs. If one lived in a society of witches, he would be considered mentally healthier (especially by Wiccan counselors) if he too were a true-believing Wiccan.

I think that the habit of believing merely on someone's say-so is a very dangerous habit to instill into a child. It is one of our moral responsibilities to teach the habits of critical thinking to our children. And one of those habits it to try to make our belief conform to the weight of the evidence. This is mentally healthy and would have untold value in forming a better society.