Of course an omnipotent being could have arranged it so we would have all of the good but none of the bad.

Hi Dominic,

I actually agree with much of what you say–this is why this essay is about the “*roots* of pre-religion morality,” not “pre-religion morality.” By “roots” I’m only saying that the ideas of cooperation and caring for kin didn’t come out of nowhere. But yes, I agree with what you say about the line between morality which is inherited (animal ethics,) and morality – ethics prescribed in language. Non-human animals certainly don’t have “ethics prescribed in language.”

As for the question “Did our earliest human ancestors have moral guidelines independently of their religious beliefs?”–that’s going back some 30,000 to 50,000 years, so I would say it’s impossible to know. But if we somehow could go back in time and observe our stone age ancestors, I wouldn’t be surprised if their religious beliefs and morality were inseparable.

None of this, however, is evidence that these religious beliefs (that the gods disapproved of theft and adultery, or that deformed newborns were possessed by evil spirits and must be killed) were actually “true.” It only means that as we evolved from unintelligent apes to intelligent apes, religion was a practical (and often survival-aiding) way to establish social rules.

– Todd

I get that animals have ethics and don’t eat their offspring, kin selection and all that. No problem. But developed codes of morality begins with religious codes of morality. It’s no use saying “Animals have morality anyway”, because the main reason we’re interested in morality is precisely because we’re looking for codes of behaviour which structure our behaviour so that things like science, civil liberties and rock and roll possible. Kin selection doesn’t really do that. So I’m drawing a line between morality which is inherited (animal ethics,) and morality – ethics prescribed in language.

Now a notion is gaining currency, particularly among the New-Atheist community, that for large swathes of our human evolution, we were all really secular, and weren’t actually religious at all, or OK, maybe we were kind of spiritual, but not in any violent kind of way, just kind of sun-worship and group-sex adn listening to the Doors and then, and then suddenly… the Christian Church landed on our heads out of nowhere and a golden age was lost !!! And then everybody started believing in things that weren’t true and killing each other and just lots of bad things.

Well without wanting to get into any bible-thumping at all, just sticking purely with the scientific evidence, it totally sucks.

Lots and lots and lots of evidence available. Where shall we start? The Pyramids of Egypt 4,000 years old, Stonehenge 7,000, the Lasceaux Caves, 36,000 years… in each case, as in all the others, their purpose wasn’t military, it didn’t serve their economy… it was all religious. Sorry to break the news.

In fact inasmuch as we have any evidence of really developed culture, it was, without exceptions, religious in purpose. The Pyramids weren’t a car park. Stonehenge wasn’t a storage facility. The Lasceaux Caves weren’t a factory.

In each of these cases, what you have is a primitive culture devoting it’s best technology and a huge amount of economic resources… to religion. Hurts too.

Religion was right there at the beginning of culture, every aspect of culture, art, architecture, literature, pick your mark. It was always there in a major way. Evidence is pretty much tautological. Wherever we find major evidence of cultural development, we find major evidence of religion. All cultures were religious cultures. Evidence of culture is either axe-heads and arrowheads. Or it’s religion. What other evidence is there?

Try this – There was even a computer from 2,000 years ago, again, landmark technological achievement. One side of it calculated numbers. The other calculated star signs. So we ought to give magic it’s fair due as well. Nice try. But it all kind of fits with the general fact that no culture known developed without religion.

Not only is there a lack of evidence of pre-religious morality, in fact all the evidence is against it, but to push this thing frustratingly further, all the major landmark evidence says religion was leading technology. So was there pre-religious technology?

Well you could push back a bit and say that axe-heads are a significant leap of technology anyway. True. But. We we have tribes still extant who live in that stage of development. And guess what? None of them are secular. None. They’re all very religious. It’s not like they’re gentle, incense-burning hippies waiting for an Abrahamic religion to brainwash them into violence. Warfare is routine in primitive tribal culture the world over.

This isn’t to say that god exists or that religion was a good thing. Or even that culture or morality is a good thing. Because there’s no scientific way of testing that either. But the idea of a pre-religious morality is an idea based entirely on conjecture, where the rather obvious and abundant amount actual tangible observable evidence says the exactly the opposite in big letters. It’s an ideological position without any evidence to support it and as far as I can see, it’s going straight to the fires of hell.

If it’s going to be redeemed, someone has to produce actual material evidence for pre-religious morality – or indeed pre-religious any-culture-worth-calling-culture. Good luck.

Ask your therapist for receipts and I’ll pay the bill.