Morality in Nature

My family already knows I am an atheist. My mother was not to keen about this idea. She asked me, "Paano na ang moralidad mo?" (What about your morals?) I told her, "I believe in the goodness of man." She said, "Ano namang klaseng paniniwala yan? Ano yun?" (What kind of a belief is that? What's that?)

I wasn't able to elaborate on this to her because I was already crying at that time. The confrontation between me and my mother was, simply said, intense and emotional. And while I had a rebuttal in my mind for this, I did not answer back.

I love my mother. I truly am grateful for all the things she has sacrificed and done for our family.

I guess people like her, and what I mean by that is people who are religiously active, assume that being an atheist means living without morals. Religion gives that illusion. They think that without their beliefs, morality cannot exist and be defined.

I think that's so egotistical. Religions actually complicate and twist morality around in such a way that killing people who aren't of the same faith as them is justifiable in the eyes of God. This isn't just an extremist perspective.  And the died-down version of this is the belief that people who don't believe in the same god as them will go to hell. These are actually explicitly written in religious texts. Explicitly written.

Morality far exceeds the existence of religions.

Nature has ethical principles far more fascinating, universal and humbling than all of the religious texts combined.

Let's take parenthood as an example.

In the case of mammals (we are part of this family), the animal mothers always take care of their young. Some fathers participate in this, too. They teach them how to hunt and survive until they are ready to be on their own. In the families of foxes and wolves, the fathers share the task of the mothers in hunting, feeding their young, cleaning up and protecting their cubs.

The basic notions on parenthood,  on nurturing families and on taking care of offsprings are actually innate in us as animals. That instinctively, we understand that in order to survive, we have to take care  of our young and teach them what we know about the ways of the world. The other animals do not need a god to understand this. Neither do we.

I know that not all animals function this way. Some have families and take care of their young. Some do not. It's amazing how evolution provided different ways and standards on our survival. And ethics does not stop or even begin in families for some animals, a thought I will further discuss in my next posts.

My point is that basic morality came from our need to survive as a species. That we should not commit incest because it produces weak and challenged offsprings. That we should not steal from others because we are territorial (possessive) ourselves. And that we should not kill the same species as ours because it will lessen our chance of survival as a kin.

Our definition of morality simply became more complex alongside evolution, the growth of our population, the permanence of our structures and the foundations of philosophy.

So to assume, no--to impose that morality is dependent on religion is a deluded notion.