What? The godless can be just as moral and ethical as religious folks?

Stunning, I know, but hey, it’s true. As if it weren’t enough as evidence for atheists’ benevolence that godless folks make up the lowest prison population in America, that they have (and give to) charitable organizations just as well, and the fact that they don’t just walk up to believers in the streets and punch them in the face, here’s yet another bit of research that points to the already incredibly obvious: people don’t need religion to be moral or ethical, and a lack of religion does not transform people into evil soulless criminals. (If anything, I’d point out that the disproportionately small atheist prison population strongly indicates that atheists might actually be more moral – or, at least, more law-abiding – but that’s another story for another time.)

Atheists are just as ethical and have as strong a moral compass as churchgoers, new research shows.

People who have no religion know right from wrong just as well as regular worshippers, according to the study.

The team behind the research found that most religions were similar and had a moral code which helped to organise society.

But people who did not have a religious background still appeared to have intuitive judgments of right and wrong in common with believers, according to the findings, published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Dr Marc Hauser, from Harvard University, one of the co-authors of the research, said that he and his colleagues were interested in the roots of religion and morality.

"For some, there is no morality without religion, while others see religion as merely one way of expressing one's moral intuitions," he said.

The team looked at several psychological studies which were designed to test an individual’s morality.

Dr Hauser added: "The research suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments.

"However, although it appears as if co-operation is made possible by mental mechanisms that are not specific to religion, religion can play a role in facilitating and stabilising co-operation between groups."

He added that the findings could help to explain the complex relationship between morality and religion.

Despite what so many think, the relation between religion and morality is really quite simple at its core. Morality is intrinsic to all people (except some afflicted with certain psychological disorders, such as psychopathy). Every thinking and feeling person has this hardwired sense of right and wrong, and when humans bunch together and form societies, they create moral rules and codes of conduct and ethics to properly define these moral guidelines. All that different religions do is offer their own different moral laws and codes. This is why all religions have the same basics – killing is wrong, stealing is wrong, rape is wrong (well … usually), blaspheming is definitely wrong, etc. – and yet they can divert slightly from the moral path here and there, establishing themselves as individual and distinct faiths (eating pork is wrong in Islam yet Christianity couldn’t care less, and so on).

All this is exceedingly evident to anyone who has a shred of common sense, knows anything about the development of morality along our evolutionary history, and actually knows a thing or two about the world and our past. Of course, that doesn’t stop theists from squawking about how religion (read: their religion) is the only true way to be a moral person, and so on. You really gotta wonder how blinded some can become under the rule of faith.

But anyway, I digress. The point is: religion does not have the sole say on morality. It never has, and never will. It’s just one particular way (or more accurately, different ways according to different religions) to be what society perceives as “moral”. But people can be perfectly good and decent without religion – just ask your local atheists.

(via @religionnews)