Machines Like Us – Science News

By Bishop Richard Harries

Philosopher Michael Ruse has written: 'The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist.' But in all the hype and embarrassment over geneticist Professor Richard Dawkins's anti-religious arguments, there is an important strand in his argument that has been overlooked: his views on morality. These are interesting and significant, and well worth weighing very seriously.

Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov said: 'If God did not exist, everything would be permitted.' Sartre agreed. Dawkins disagrees. Morality belongs to us as human beings. I agree too. I do not believe that a society without a religious basis for its morality will always collapse. But I do think that the relationship between morality and religion is more complex than either Dawkins or religious believers usually allow. Take an analogy: someone hears a great piece of music and responds to it in itself. But someone else knows that the piece is part of a symphony and can be even more appreciated when heard as part of the whole in which it has a crucial place. As human beings we can recognise and respond to particular moral insights. But a religious believer claims to understand these as part of a much larger whole in which they have a vital place: in particular, there is a fount and origin of all our moral insights which is good, perfect good, all good, our true and everlasting good. For a Christian, this is above all shown in the willingness of God to enter the flux of history, to redeem it from within.

Religious people have been at fault in the past for slagging off moralities that did not have a faith basis. Today, it is the other way round, with religion being widely criticised for stopping people acting with moral maturity. But the crisis of moral values is such that we should simply recognise and rejoice in the good wherever it is to be found, while continuing to converse about whether it has its place in a larger scheme of things.

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