Oh goodie, another essay about morality. And one that apparently challenges the standard conservative complaint that things (the state of society; morality) are getting worse all the time. It’s simply not true.
OnlySky, Jonathan MS Pearce, yesterday: We are becoming more moral, not less. So why all the moaning to the contrary?, subtitled “We shouldn’t rest on our moral laurels, but it’s worth reminding ourselves how far we have come.”
Of course, this begs the question of what “morality” is.
Before reading the essay, some coincidental context. As it happens, I’ve returned to reading “in and around” the Bible, as I began some ten years ago. By “around” I mean reading summaries and commentaries and exegeses of the Bible, especially, now, of the vast middle section of the OT, which I’ve never read closely. Even a superficial glance through those books, of judges and kings and battles by the Hebrews over every other tribe in sight, suggests what a barbaric time it as, and people they were. The Hebrews presumed their right to slaughter other tribes (well, the men, keeping the virgin women for themselves) because their god told them to. How is it so many people today think the Bible is a guide to morality? When the cite the NT, they usually quote Paul, who had his own distinct ideas apart from Jesus’: misogyny, hatred of learning. Where is the morality in the Bible? A handy list of commandments? Anything else?
So it’s no surprise at all that someone should point out that morality has improved, since then. Via, I would say, ideas of the Enlightenment, and more generally the necessity for cooperation and tolerance as the world population keeps expanding the people have to learn to get along with one another. This is why the regressive trend of MAGA and Christian nationalism is so troublesome.
There is no doubt that society is becoming less religious. Statistics from the US, the UK, and many other developed nations show that religiosity is in decline. As a result of this demographic shift, there are those in society (particularly among the religious) who claim that, as a result, we are becoming less moral. Science.org recently elucidated this feeling:
According to a recent Gallup poll, 54% of Americans say the state of moral values in the country is “poor”—a record number. Some 83% say they believe morals are in decline. They aren’t alone: Survey data from a study published this week in Nature suggest that people in more than 60 nations share a general sense that people are less moral now than they used to be.
Perceptions, however, don’t always track that well with reality.
These claims are nonsense. Why would this be? Well, it’s because the people who are saying this are Old Testament tribalists who see society as slipping away from the strictures for tribal expansion. As I’ve discussed many times before. They assume that unless people endorse their holy book, they must be immoral.
The writer goes on:
There are several ways to cast doubt on the notion that we are morally backsliding. First, we have always thought this. The idea that we are going to hell in a handcart because of the moral decay that has gotten hold of society is a ubiquitous trope witnessed through history and geography. I could point you to the lessons from the Hebrew Bible in Micah 7.
And 2 Timothy 3, which he quotes. And Socrates; “kids these days”. And how the argument is circular, since Christians see morality as synonymous with belief in God. So as society becomes more secular, they think it’s becoming less moral. (Whereas in fact, crime rates are going down, to cite that measure.)
Nonsense. There is plenty of evidence for an innate human morality, without which modern human societies could not have evolved. And this innate morality is expressed, differently in the details, in all the major religious writings. You don’t need a list from the Bible to know whether something is right or wrong. And you don’t have to believe in God (whichever one other people believe in) to understand innate morality, if only because most people want to live in a society that is not governed by it.
The end of the piece quotes Robert G. Ingersoll:
I, too, have my religion. It is this: Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now; the place to be happy is here; and the way to be happy is to make others happy. This is the religion of usefulness; this is the religion of reason.
Pursuing happiness, for everyone, is better than worship, like a slave of its master, but recently I’ve concluded that happiness is not enough. (See Bregman, for example.) Purpose, if you like, is not just being happy, but in making the world a better place.
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Here is an extremely simple-minded take on the same topic.
JMG, yesterday: Trump: Nobody Went To Church Before Me
Quoting Trump:
I think religion’s very important for a country. This country was built largely on religion. When you have strong religion you have less crime, it’s just a fact.
No, it’s not. In fact, there are virtually no atheists in prisons.
And:
Our country is hotter now than it’s ever been and I’ll tell ya, religion is making a tremendous comeback. You look at churches today, they’re full. You go back two or three years, nobody was going.
This is so absurd… who are these people who think Trump is virtuous in any way??
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This is to laugh at the MAGA gullible.
JMG (from Daily Beast), yesterday.
The Trump Organization’s long-delayed Trump Mobile phone has finally begun rolling out—but with a major blunder. The $499 gold-colored “T1” smartphone began shipping on Monday, nine months after it was originally due to be released.
The phone reportedly comes preloaded with President Donald Trump’s Truth Social app, according to NBC News. Trump Mobile CEO Pat O’Brien told USA Today that customers who pre-ordered the phones should receive them within the coming weeks.
But the rollout has already attracted ridicule over a glaring design error: the American flag printed on the back of the phone appears to contain only 11 stripes instead of the standard 13. The company has also quietly backed away from earlier claims that the device was “Made in the USA.”
It’s made in China.
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I’ll pass over the major news story from the past couple days. That for Trump to dismiss a lawsuit he brought against the IRS (which he runs), he’s gotten exemptions from any tax audits of him and his family forever, and somehow in all of this, a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay off people, including the January 6th rioters (whom Trump has already pardoned), who can claim that the Biden administration “weaponized” the DOJ against them.
NYT: I.R.S. to Drop Audits of Trump and Family
A get-out-of-jail free card.
NYT: Justice Dept. Sets Up $1.8 Billion Fund That Could Funnel Money to Trump Allies, subtitled “The arrangement was denounced by critics as a slush fund for supporters of President Trump, possibly including Jan. 6 rioters.”
Shameless.
Comment from Facebook: MAGA blamed Antifa, and the FBI, and now implicitly admitting they were Trump supporters, yet claims they were “unfairly” prosecuted.
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Religion vs. Enlightenment Values. Is this the morality that conservatives want to return to?
Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, yesterday: Joel Webbon Says The Only Hope For America Is ‘Less Freedom’
Earlier this month, racist, antisemitic, and deeplymisogynistictheocratic fascist pastor Joel Webbon predicted that he and others in the far-right Christian nationalist movement will “take over the GOP” by 2032.
Were this to actually happen, it would be rather alarming given that Webbon has openly declared that he wants to seethe Apostles’ Creed added to the Constitution; abortion, pornography, no-fault divorce, in vitro fertilization, and birth control outlawed; non-Christians kept outof his neighborhood and out of public office; Catholics relegated to second-class citizenship; immigrants shot for trying to enter the country; adulterers put to death; and womenbanned from votingand publicly executed for making false claims of sexual assault.
Given his ambitions, it is worth noting that Webbon, who has made no secret of his desire to see “virtuous, ambitious, masculine men” obtain political power and then “forcefully take away from the people” their rights, said during a recent podcastthat the only hope for America is “less freedom.”
