Brittney at Nashville Is Talking raised a question about the relationship between religion and morality:

Because this is an attitude I’ve run across a lot as of late: Christians (not Muslims or Buddhists, now) are infinitely more moral and ethical, merely by virtue of their religion.

I think that sentence misses the point. I would never, could never, claim that all those who claim to be Christians are necessarily more moral than atheists. At the same time, I believe there is a key link between religion and morality.

That’s an assertion which needs explaining, I admit. I will try to defend myself.

Much of my thinking on this issue derives from the first few chapters of C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity.” Lewis makes, far better than I could, an argument that our notions of morality presuppose the existence of an ideal. We may, and do, disagree on what exactly is “good” and “bad.” We may fall short in our attempts to be good, or we may cast ourself as an agent of evil or chaos and attempt to reject good. But we seem to be in agreement that there is such a thing as “good” and “bad.” We believe, or at least we talk and act as if we believe, that there is what Plato called an “ideal,” something or someone outside our experience but which we aspire to follow or emulate.

One can, of course, argue that morality and ethics are simply Darwinian constructs. We have learned, over the millennia, that things go better for us if we treat each other well, if we follow certain agreed-upon codes of conduct and behavior, if we all drive on the right side of the road (or if we all drive on the left side of the road, depending on your location). We have learned that, to some extent, ethics and morality are in our long-term self-interest, even if we find them inconvenient in certain specific or short-term situations.

But I think there are limits to how much of morality can be justified on purely Darwinian grounds. Surely eugenics would be in our evolutionary self-interest as a species. But eugenics repulses us (I know it repulses me) because we have a notion that people have an inherent dignity and value apart from their genetic usefulness and because we have a notion that there are certain ways in which the individual should never be sacrificed for the sake of the greater good. I think it is religion, with its premise of a creator who gives value to his creations, which has bestowed these principles upon us. I think that even well-meaning atheists who hold such beliefs do so because our culture and its assumptions have been framed by religion. They may have rejected the trappings of religion, but they hold tight to that one aspect of it because it has been so firmly entrenched in us. But I believe that if religion were ever to be eliminated, those notions of individual worth and dignity would be at risk.

But Brittney raises a valid point: if morality comes from our belief in God, why are God’s followers sometimes just as immoral, or more immoral, than those who have no such belief?

I come from a background of Christianity, and I will attempt to respond to this question from a Christian world view. I will let others speak for their own faiths.

We must keep in mind that Christianity is the dominant faith in American history and culture. There are people who believe themselves to be Christians because of heritage and culture rather than because of any real commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ. There are people who participate in the language and culture of Christianity without internalizing it. These people may be Christian in terms of public opinion surveys, but I do not consider them Christian in terms of assessing the impact of religion on morality. If you are blaming Christ for everything ever done by someone who claimed to be a Christian, you are defaming him.

But even the people who truly follow Jesus Christ are flawed and human. Yes, I would like to believe that a true Christian faith has an impact on behavior, but I cannot promise that impact to be complete during this earthly existence.

I would also claim that the more Christ-like someone becomes, the more they tend to keep their good deeds quiet. I am far from being Christ-like in that regard. It is true that great evils have been committed in the name of Christianity. It is also true that hospitals and universities have been created in the name of Christianity. It is also true that great works of art and great scientific discoveries have been made by those who believed they were celebrating their Creator. (Walter Isaacson’s new book on Einstein, by the way, points out that Einstein, though he never committed himself to any specific religious doctrine or practice, had little patience for hard-line atheists, saying that they were unable to hear “the music of the spheres.”)

I have known atheists whom I would consider more moral and ethical, at least in the dealings to which I was privy, than some of their Christian counterparts. But I hold fast to the idea that ethics and morality stem from a religious root. I do not believe that America, founded on religious diversity, should ever place itself in the position of legislating Christianity. But I do believe that American notions of individual rights are based on the idea that man has value as God’s creation. I would say the same thing about morality.