From Filipino Congressman Mong Palatino…

“Immoral” rock concerts were banned in Malaysia. An “immoral” gay group was disqualified from participating in the Philippine elections. Immorality was blamed for the natural disasters that hit Indonesia this year. It seems public authorities are playing the morality card to uphold the dominant social order in many Southeast Asian countries.

To protect the morals of society, the youth arm of Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS Youth) proposed the banning of the Michael Learns Rock reunion concert in Malaysia last August. This is the same political party which banned the concerts of “indecent” music stars like Beyonce, Avril Lavigne and Gwen Stefani in Malaysia.

Malaysian Muslims also weren’t allowed to watch the Black Eyed Peas concert because the show was sponsored by an alcohol company.

PAS Youth accused the foreign artists of corrupting the minds of the public. The group claimed that these types of concerts “will not help motivate the people to become good citizens, but instead will weaken their morals and mental strength, and at the same time will drag them down to drown in the turbulence of lust.”

For promoting same-sex relationships, which are contrary to religious beliefs, the Philippine Commission on Elections has rejected the petition of gay group Ang Ladlad to be recognized as a party that can run in the 2010 elections. The poll body used religious texts like the Bible and Koran, instead of legal documents, to justify its ruling.

The Ang Ladlad group was described by the government election body as an immoral party because it espouses same-sex marriage and other equality demands of the Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender or LGBT sector.

Indonesia’s Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring surprised many when he asserted during a prayer meeting that the powerful quake that rocked Indonesia this year was due to declining public morals.

During an interview he said, “Television broadcasts that destroy morals are plentiful in this country and therefore disasters will continue to occur.” He cited the Indonesia-made porn DVDs which are available in street markets as proof of public decadence. His statement about the immorality-disaster link was supported by the influential Indonesian Ullema Council.

The concert ban in Malaysia, the anti-LGBT ruling in the Philippines, and the immorality equals earthquake thesis in Indonesia confirm the dominance of traditional and conservative values in modern Southeast Asian societies. Despite the economic and technological advances in the region, medieval thinking still reigns in many countries. Government bodies are still ruled by old bureaucrats who cling to feudal values and beliefs. Tech-savvy leaders like Tifatul Sembiring still espouse anti-scientific views.

Church leaders are expected to remind the faithful about the need to follow the teachings of their religion. On the other hand, public officials are not required to subscribe to a particular religious doctrine in fulfilling their constitutional duties. In fact, they are disallowed from using their power and position to advance and impose their religious beliefs on the public.

Secular institutions and public officials usurp the role of the church when they act as guardians of public morals. Their mandate is not to serve as spokespersons and proxies of church leaders. They should not behave like morality cops who dictate what is right and wrong for everybody. Asian countries may have won their political independence decades ago but many are still not free from the clutch of religious bigotry.

To maintain peace and order, governments always devise procedures to control the activities of their citizens. The morality card is being played to produce desirable attitudes, sentiments and behavior among the population.

Perhaps the morality issue is used today in response to the worsening global economic crisis. Governments are afraid that the jobless and hungry segments of the population will express their frustration through radical actions. By invoking morality, governments aim to discourage dissidence.

By banning concerts, denying equal rights and blaming immoral behavior for the occurrence of natural disasters, repressive governments with democratic trappings are hinting that they are ready to displease a certain segment of the population if it will serve their political interests.

Today, immorality is equated with rock stars, same-sex relationships and pornography. Soon the sin of immorality might be extended to all those who dare oppose the policies of the government. Moralist politicians want to normalize the practice of naming things they dislike as immoral. It is important to prevent the morality cops from monopolizing the debate on what constitutes moral and immoral behavior.

When hypocrites accuse our favorite rock stars of being immoral, we should advise them that they can choose not to listen to these immoral entertainers. When gay groups are disqualified from running for public office, we should appeal that all corrupt politicians should be prevented too from holding a public position.

Asserting equality demands is a moral right. Rejecting bigotry is a moral stand. Defying unjust policies is a moral act. If we are labeled as immoral because we refuse to surrender our principles, then by all means, let’s prove that sometimes promoting immorality can be the most subversive act we can achieve in our lifetime.

As the first week of Ramadan unfolds, more than a billion Muslims around the world are reminded of the greatness of God and a higher power than humankind. Like Easter for Christians and Hanukkah for Jews, Ramadan is the holiest time of the year within the borders of Islam; a time for worship, respect and family. An individual known only as “Harbortenor” chose this time to submit an article arguing that there is no such thing as God.

Sin is different for different people and different gods at different times. In some countries people love their neighbours, in other countries people eat them. In Mexico, one man may marry one wife. In Yemen, one man may marry many women. In Tibet, one woman may marry many men. In Holland, a man may marry another man and a woman may marry another woman. We learn, therefore, that sin is geographical and that morality changes from time to time and from place to place.

But what is morality? Put very simply, it is about how we treat others. In order to live with a semblance of harmony in a social setting, we need to show consideration for others. We know humans do this. But we also know that various animals do it as well: dolphins, chimps, wolves…the list is endless. Many species of mammals have rules governing how to fight and how to reconcile. Even gestures of dominance and subordinance can be seen in a moral light.

How then do humans know what is right and wrong. To paraphrase Euthyphro’s dilemma: Is something good because some God commands it? Or does this God command something because it is good? If it is the former, then right and wrong are the product of God’s arbitrary and capricious will, and to heed his will and surrender to his morality would simply be blind obedience to authority—beyond the scope of discussion or appeal. However, if it is the latter, then good and bad, right and wrong are independent of God’s will, and knowledge of God’s will is redundant and unnecessary. We can discover morality for ourselves.

Where then do we get our morality if not from God? Morality has nothing to do with theology or philosophy. Morality is a product of biology. Scientists now talk of a moral grammar that is programmed into our brains and hardwired into our genes. There are certain schemas of behaviour that we are born with. We have an instinct for morality in the same way we have an instinct for language.

To say that people had no way to distinguish right from wrong until that precise moment Moses came down from the mountain with his ten commandments is to do a great disservice to humanity.

Some people may be prompted to ask why then, if we all have a moral compass, are there so many criminals?

There is a difference between deciding what is right and wrong and associating such an evaluation with the relevant emotion. Most criminals know instinctively that murder is wrong or cheating is wrong. But they do it anyway. So what is hampered in their case is not their moral compass, but their ability to make the appropriate emotional response. Knowing what is right and doing the right thing are two separate functions of the brain.

A crucial role in morality may also be played by memes: those non-genetic, cultural units—represented by an idea, value, or pattern of behaviour—that are passed from one person to another by imitation or instruction. To put it simply, memes are the cultural counterpart of genes.

Assisting a wounded member of the tribe, caring for an elderly relative, or showing reverence for one’s parents are examples of memes. Memes are just as useful in promoting this or that morality. The finer details may vary between communities, but in general, it has been found that the communities that survive are the ones that promote cooperation, negotiation, respect for authority, and so on. It is not in the tribe or community’s interest to waste valuable time, resources, and energy in in-fighting.

Our opinions on issues of morality are based on emotions, rational thought, or instinct. Consider the following newspaper headline: Mother kills her own four-year-old child.

Such an act would evoke disgust in most people regardless of time, place, or milieu. There would be calls for her to be severely punished.

But if we were to read the article further, we would discover that the mother was Akeda, a woman from Congo, where mercenaries from a rival faction had raped her repeatedly and killed three of her children. She was told that the only way she could protect her two-year-old infant was to pull the noose around her four-year-old child. It is a grotesque and unimaginably difficult thing to do. If she hadn’t done it, both her children would die. If she killed one, the other would survive. Akeda made the choice and did the deed. In doing so, she ensured the survival of her infant.

Most people, on being confronted with these facts, would feel an instinctive sense of pity for the mother’s plight. Even those who feel she acted wrongly would not call for a harsh punishment against her. Again, this reaction will be true regardless of time, place, or milieu. This is a classic moral case of emotion being overruled by instinct.

Another often-quoted example is of a train hurtling down, with a young man asleep on the tracks. The only way the driver can prevent a tragedy is to change tracks. But he notices there is a group of five children standing on the other track, and they will undoubtedly be killed if he changes tracks. What is the driver to do?

Most people from diverse cultures agree almost immediately that, in such a scenario, the driver will have no choice but to sacrifice the one man and save the five children.

However, consider the following scenario often quoted as a companion story to the previous one:

There is a doctor in a hospital. On one particular day he receives a patient who has had heart failure and needs a new heart. A short while later another patient is admitted who has had kidney failure and needs new kidneys. Shortly later, another patient is wheeled in who has liver cancer and needs a new liver. As the doctor contemplates how to go about treating these diverse patients, he notices a young man in the waiting room reading a newspaper and minding his own business. He looks in good enough condition. The doctor then wonders if he should sedate the young man, wheel him into the operation room, and harvest his kidneys, heart, and liver. In doing so he would save three people at the expense of one.

Most people from diverse cultures agree that to do so would be unethical. When pressed to explain how it is different from the previous case where one man is sacrificed for five, they were unable to justify their response. This is a classic moral case in which logic is overruled by instinct.

Things become more complicated in the example of the train if we assume the single person lying on the track happens to be the driver’s wife or mother or brother. What then should the driver do? What if there was a bridge above the tracks with a huge, heavy man sitting on the side of the bridge? If this heavy man were pushed upon the tracks he would die but the weight of his body would stop the train in its tracks. Should we push the fat man and save the five people?

Most people—in fact, almost all people—agree that it would be morally wrong to push the fat man off the bridge in order to save the five people. However, many are unable to articulate why they think so.

Marc Hauser, the Harvard biologist who came up with these thought experiments, backed up with statistical surveys, tells us that the responses to these case studies did not change if the person was religious or atheist. This is clinching evidence that one doesn’t need either God or religion to be moral. Morality is built into our minds and our genes. And because the moral faculty depends upon specialised brain systems, the failure of which can lead to moral deficiency, we would be compelled to treat criminals more humanely.

If we are moral, we are fortunate enough to have a brain that functions more or less “normally.” In many ways, this might be obvious, for it takes a seriously disturbed brain to direct a person to repeatedly kill, have sex with the dead victims, dismember the bodies, and eat them—as some serial killers have been known to do. It’s obvious that their brains are functioning very differently.

Seen in this light, it would seem that some of the religious strictures handed down to us are simply not powerful enough to stop us from disobeying if it goes against our instincts. A simple example is fornication. Centuries of flaccid priests and frustrated prophets have told us that sex before marriage is abominable in the eyes of the Lord—whether he be Allah, Jehovah, or Yahweh. They have been woefully inadequate in stopping people from fornicating. Fornicators instinctively see no harm in two unmarried consenting adults sleeping together. The only use religion has in such a situation is to make people feel guilty about what they’ve done, but it’s nowhere nearly persuasive enough to stop them.

For centuries we’ve had prophets, mullahs, and priests functioning as our morality bank, minting tokens of scruples and righteousness for us, crediting and debiting our piety account and keeping tabs on our collective conscience. It is my opinion that we don’t need religion to help us distinguish good from bad. We are born with this capacity. Morality is not divine, it is biological.

From Harbortenor…