Many of us internalized the ethical norms that guide our lives via our childhood religious training. We were taught the Ten Commandments, for example. We were not just taught about them, we were taught them. We learned them by heart, and we took them to heart. This early training, far from being the child abuse that A. C. Grayling and other militant atheists think it is, had a very positive effect on us in forming our consciences and making of us the basically decent human beings we are. I am not saying that moral formation is possible only within a religion; I am saying that some religions do an excellent job of transmitting and inculcating life-guiding and life-enhancing ethical standards. (By the way, I use 'ethical' and 'moral' interchangeably, as I explain here.)
Religion is worse than an irrelevance as regards the inculcation of morality, for the following reasons: in an individualistic society, where personal wealth is the chief if not the sole measure of achievement, a morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor, that says it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for the rich to enter heaven, and preaches selflessness towards one's neighbour and complete obedience to a deity — such a morality, wholly opposed to the norms and practices not just accepted but extolled in our society has little to offer. Most people ignore the contrast between such views and the universal instruction to go forth and multiply one's income and possessions; and obey the latter.
And when religious fundamentalists add a preparedness to incarcerate women, mutilate genitals, amputate hands, murder, bomb, and terrorise — all in the name of faith — then religious morality becomes not just irrelevant but dangerous. With such examples and contrasts, it has less than nothing to offer proper moral debate. (Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God, Oxford UP, 2003, p. 8)
Grayling's First Argument
The argument in Grayling's first paragraph can be fairly represented as follows:
1. In the societies of the West, "wealth is the chief if not the sole measure of achievement."
2. Religion preaches against the accumulation of wealth for its own sake.
Therefore
3. In the societies of the West, "Religion is worse than an irrelevance as regards the inculcation of morality . . . ."
The first premise is true, and so is the second if the religion in question is Christianity, which is quite obviously what Grayling has in mind. The conclusion, however, does not follow from the premises. Indeed,it is hard to see how the conclusion is so much as relevant to the premises. From two unexceptionable facts, Grayling leaps to the conclusion that religion is useless for the promotion of moral behavior. Now that is a non sequitur of mind-numbing propertions. It is like arguing:
4. In the Islamic world, intolerance is rampant.
5. Classical iberalism preaches against intolerance.
Therefore
6. In the Islamic world, classical liberalism with its enlightenment values is worse than an irrelevance for the promotion of moral behavior.
The two arguments have the same form, so they are either both valid or both invalid. Obviously, they are both invalid. Surely Grayling, a liberal, would reject the parody argument as invalid. So if he can for a moment rein in his hatred of religion he should be able to see that the original argument is also invalid.
The conclusions of both arguments are plainly false. What the Islamic world needs is precisely a good dose of classical liberalism with its Enlightenment values. The fact that these values go against the grain of the accepted norms in these benighted societies is obviously no argument against Enlightenment values! To think otherwise is to fall into an obvious fact/value confusion. You cannot discredit the value of toleration by pointing to the fact that people are intolerant. Similarly you cannot show that Christian values are untenable or irrelelvant or useless by pointing to the fact that they go against such modes of behavior as piling up loot to the exclusion of all higher pursuits.
Being something of a gas bag and a barbarian, Grayling is too unsubtle of mind — at least when he strays from his technical philosophical concerns — to appreciate what is meant in a verse such as the one about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The verse is directed against attachment to wealth, not the possession of it. The attachment, a spiritual attitude, is what is morally and spiritually debilitating, not the mere physical possession of wealth. Rich or poor, one can be attached to wealth, just as poor or rich, one can be nonattached. A poor person can be attached to what he does not in fact possess because attachment is an intentional state: if I own gold, then there exists gold to which I stand in the relation of ownership. But I can be attached to gold whether or not there exists any gold to which I stand in the relation if ownership.
Grayling's Second Argument
In the second paragraph quoted above, Grayling argues as follows:
7. Religious fundamentalists are prepared to incarcerate women, mutilate genitals, etc.
Therefore
8. "Religious morality . . . has less than nothing to offer proper moral debate."
This too is a howling non sequitur and Grayling cannot be so dumb as not to realize it. To tar all religionists with the excesses of some Islamic fundamentalists is too primitive a mistake to warrant further commentary.
The truth of the matter is that religion is one of the chief ways in which moral behavior is promoted and maintained. The Left's assault on religion is therefore in part and indirectly an assault on morality. I am not saying that leftists typically intend the undermining of morality, but that this is the effect they have when they assault without nuance or differentiation a chief vehicle of moral instruction.