Just because you don't believe in a traditional religion doesn't mean you believe in "nothing": Most of all, that's the idea sociologist Phil Zuckerman aims to explain in this book.
More
specifically, Zuckerman's book--which focuses on in-depth interviews
conducted with non-religious people--explores two main challenges
non-religious folks often hear from religious believers: (1) Without
God, where do you get your Morals? and (2) How do you find Meaning in a
world without God?
(1)
Morals: "
If there is no God," goes a famous claim by Dostoevsky, "
then everything is permitted."
Religious people often wonder where non-religious people "get their
morals" if not as part of a belief in a Deity who commands Right and
Wrong (and holds us accountable in an Afterlife).
So, then, where
do
non-religious people get their morals? Taken as empirical question,
Zuckerman replies that there's a clear, but complex, response: "I get my
morals from the people who raised me, the culture within which I live,
the kind of brain that I have, and the lessons I have learned from
things I experience in life" (page 36).
At this point, the religious person might have a follow-up question: "But what
inspires
a person to do the right thing, if not a love for God and His
Commandments (or, perhaps, the fear of Judgment in an Afterlife)?"
Well, Zuckerman (and the non-religious people he interviewed) would answer, how about a love for
other people,
inspired by the basic experience of empathy for others? "[M]orality--to
paraphrase philosopher Emmanuel Levinas--is based on the faces of
others. Our moral compasses flicker, calibrate, and adjust themselves in
relation to the suffering we may or may not cause in other people. We
soberly acknowledge the subjectivity of others, and try to treat them
the way we would like to be treated. This Golden Rule requires no leap
of faith. It is simple, clear, and universally intelligible--probably as
a result of our neurological capacity for empathy and our biological
evolution as social animals over so many thousands of years" (page 221).
From such a wellspring--the basic psychological experience of
empathy--conscience and moral behavior flow quite naturally. Zuckerman
and his interview-subjects elaborate on this idea to explain why
non-religious people don't become selfish cynical materialists (Chapter
1), how they can form loving relationships and communities (Chapter 5),
and how they pass empathy-inspired values on to their children (Chapter
4). Zuckerman also points out that, contrary to the predictions of some
American conservative Christians, non-religious societies (Scandinavian
societies, for example) get along pretty well--often having
fewer social ills and dysfunction than more religious societies (Chapter 2).
(People
who are interested in the question of how non-religious people and
societies get and practice morality, see Zuckerman's earlier books,
Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment and
Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion).
(2)
Meaning:
Religious people often wonder how non-religious people find Meaning in
life without a story weaving one's life into some larger Divine Story.
Without God, religious people wonder, how can anyone see life as
anything other than Shakespeare's oft-quoted "
tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" (
Macbeth)?
Well,
why not repeat the same answer we gave to the first question?
Non-religious people find meaning in the same place they find their
morals:
In sympathy with, and love for, other people: "It all
boils down to our connections with other people," observes non-religious
therapist Hilary Wells, "We derive comfort, meaning, and love from
those around us, the people we are connected to in our social
environment. That's where secular people look when life is hard, or when
they are suffering" (page 161).
Here, the religious person
might have a follow-up question: Yes, but what's the capital-M Meaning
Of Life as a whole? What's the Cosmic Big Picture? Or, as Leo Tolstoy
famously asked (in
My Confession: "What's it all
FOR?!"
On
one hand, many non-religious people freely admit agnosticism: "Life,
this world, existence... [t]he depths of the infinite, the source of all
being, the causes of the universe, the beginnings or ends of time and
space--when it comes to such matters, we don't have a shred of a clue.
And perhaps we never will" (page 200)
Such an admission might be
jarring to some people--it's difficult for some religious people to just
"[d]eal with it...[a]ccept it...[l]et the mystery be" (page 201). But
Zuckerman (and others profiled in his book) would testify that such a
Way of Life can be a happy one, in the truest, fullest sense of the word
Happy: "A lack of belief in God," Zuckerman insists, "does not render
this world any less wondrous, lush, mystifying, or amazing. A...secular
orientation does not mean that one experiences a cold, colorless
existence, devoid of aesthetic inspiration, mystical wonder, unabashed
appreciation, existential joy, or a deep sense of connection with
others, with nature, and with the incomprehensible...One need not have
God to [have all this]. One just needs life" (page 212).
Phil
Zuckerman's wonderful book is insightful and inspiring--an attempt to
explain the psychology and sociology of the Moral, Meaningful, and
Fulfilling life without religion. And, through its personal interviews,
Zuckerman's book allows us to experience inspiration right alongside
those non-religious, but richly spiritual, people.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1834671073
