Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column that provides a new framework for thinking about ethical dilemmas and philosophical questions. This unconventional column is based on value pluralism, the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but often conflict with each other. This question was submitted by a Vox reader and has been condensed and edited for clarity.
I was raised as an evangelical Christian and was very devout until my 20s, when I left religion. Now I don’t believe in the Christian doctrine I was raised with. But I think being raised that way gave me something very valuable: a scaffolding of spirituality and morality. Thanks to this, I was able to acquire values such as kindness and charity, which helps others even when it is inconvenient.
I’m currently pregnant with my first child, and I’m worried that I don’t know how to instill morality in my child if I don’t have the scaffolding to do so. Should I raise my children as Christians and take the time to make them understand even if I don’t actually believe in Christianity anymore? Or can you reap the positive effects of being raised in a religion without actually being raised in that religion?
Dear Spiritually guillotined Ones
First, can I just say “I feel you”? As someone who grew up in Orthodox Judaism and no longer identifies as Orthodox, this dilemma hits close to home for me, although I still find much to value in the religious tradition. Therefore, the answers I give you are supported by research. I talk about history, psychology, and philosophy, but I’m also backed by personal experience.
I’ll leave my cards on the table. I don’t think religion is necessary to live a moral life. I’m sure you know this too. Because if you think about all your friends and colleagues, you will probably find that many of them are very good and kind people who were brought up in a secular way. All of them are proof that one can be good without God.
And that is the basic premise of the movement known as humanism. Its roots go back to the ancient Greeks, who emphasized the role of human rationality in finding ways to live a good and prosperous life. But by the Middle Ages, Greek philosophical texts had become largely inaccessible to European Christians who believed that humans were too miserable to find goodness without a supernatural God.
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When translations of Greek texts entered Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, their influence changed dramatically and the Renaissance was born. From scholars to the pope, people gained an appreciation for the human body and mind, and that pride was reflected in the art of the time (think Michelangelo’s Statue of David). Although they did not abandon their Christian faith, they began to value both faith and reason, and became more confident in the human ability to uncover truth and improve the world through science.
Modern humanism includes both “religious humanists” and “secular humanists.” The former are generally atheistic, rejecting the idea of God intervening in human affairs, but still drawing inspiration from religious rituals, the wisdom of scripture, and the structure of congregational life. For example, many Unitarian Universalists fit into this category. They won’t say you need Jesus to save you, but they will gladly flock to church to hear morally uplifting sermons and songs.
Then there are secular humanists who have no religious affiliation. Think of people like Salman Rushdie and Steven Pinker, or the 28 percent of Americans today who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular.”
Both of these two broad paths are valid options to consider. What unites them is the belief that one can be good without God.
There is some data to suggest that religion helps promote prosocial behaviors such as tolerance toward strangers, but religious ideas and institutions sometimes promote violence against certain groups. I also know that. And if you look closer, the evidence on prosocial behavior is actually quite mixed.
The association between religiosity and prosociality appears to depend largely on how they are measured. If religiosity is measured by simple belief in God or self-identification as religious, it is unlikely to be a strong predictor of moral behavior. However, if we examine the behavior of people immediately after engaging in a specific religious practice (such as prayer), we find that they tend to exhibit more prosocial behavior, perhaps because the practice evokes moral emotions. .
Therefore, religious practice may be an effective technique for cultivating morality. But that’s not all! Psychologists have discovered that you can be moral without religion if you set up conditions that regularly and effectively evoke moral emotions.
One of those emotions is what is called elation. Whether it was Mahatma Gandhi, who led a nonviolent civil disobedience movement, or Susan B. Anthony, who campaigned for women’s rights, I heard about people who did things that I thought were truly noble. It’s the exhilarating feeling of inspiration that you get sometimes. When we feel elated, we also want to act nobly and are inspired to act morally.
Another such emotion is awe. This is the feeling people often feel when they see towering mountains or a starry sky in nature. It takes you away from focusing on yourself and your own problems by reminding you that you are just a small speck in the universe. You shift into what psychologists call a “small me” mindset. And we find that it helps us feel more connected to others and act with more integrity.
The third emotion is gratitude. When you are grateful for all that you have been given, your attention naturally turns to the source of those gifts. Very often that source is someone else. Research shows that eliciting feelings of gratitude not only makes us want to give back to those who have directly contributed to our well-being, but also makes us want to be more generous to people in general. .
So my suggestion to you is that as your child grows, find ways to regularly use feelings of elation, awe, and gratitude to build moral character. Of course, you’re not limited to these three, but I think they provide a good starting point.
How would this work in real life? To increase your sense of elation, use great children’s books about both real and imaginary characters. One of my friends, who grew up secular, said that Miss Rumphius, in which the main character travels the world and plants flowers everywhere she goes, taught her both a fierce independence and a zeal for good deeds. I appreciate it. I love books by so-called “first women,” whether it’s about the first woman to discover pulsars or the first woman to become a rabbi. You may also want to check out this cool collection of spiritual role models from around the world.
If you’re awe-inspiring, you might want to take part in a devotional activity like going on a camping trip that includes a lot of hiking and stargazing. But let’s be real. You’re going to be busy from now on. So let’s think about ways to incorporate awe into small spaces in our daily lives, such as the walk home from school. According to a study published in the journal Emotion, an “awe walk” is a week in which people are encouraged to notice things that make them say, “Wow!”, like a gorgeous sunset or a giant spider’s web. Take a 15-minute walk outdoors every day. —You can effectively cultivate a “small me” mindset.
To increase your sense of gratitude, you can develop a habit of writing thank you cards with your child on a regular basis. You can also express gratitude for the food before you start the meal, like the prayers many religious people say before meals, but without mentioning God at all. Research shows that prayer can successfully elicit feelings of gratitude in children, whether they are internally thanking a higher power, teacher, or friend.
Such customs may feel familiar to you because of your religious upbringing. Your project is to modify them in a way that suits you. Yes, it will take some effort, but in your case it will be worth it. Because adhering to established religions comes with serious downsides.
C. Thi Nguyen, a philosopher at the University of Utah, uses a phrase I love to describe the downside. It’s “value capture.” This is what happens when technology presents a certain way of doing things and we adopt that way in place of our actual values. Instead of thinking about how to improve your overall health, imagine that you’re obsessed with getting an insane amount of steps on your Fitbit. Although there are convenience benefits to using such a prefabricated method, Nguyen believes that outsourcing decision-making to it creates an oversimplified or distorted view of values. remind us.
In this case, technology is religion, and many people outsource all their moral thinking to religion. But you can create more bespoke scaffolding that supports the virtues and ideas you actually believe in. In doing so, we honor the value of intellectual integrity while also respecting the value of effectively building a child’s moral character.
However, I would like to be careful. Prefabricated religions have great advantages. Unlike Fitbit, this is technology that has been debugged for thousands of years. Its rituals have gone through a long history, fine-tuned to meet human needs. As psychologist David DeSteno describes in his book How God Works, these rituals contain deep insight into those needs and how to meet them effectively.
Often it’s done by forcing us to do things that we don’t want to do, but that are probably good for us. For example, when I was grieving the death of my father, I didn’t feel like calling a bunch of people over to talk about him, but the Jewish ritual of Shiva forced me to do so. Community surrounds you when you desire solitude but need unity. I wish I could have benefited from that.
When we tailor our spirituality, we sometimes remove our lineage and inadvertently end up with something that feels flimsy. And this is where I think religious humanists have an advantage over secular humanists. They modify their faith to match their current beliefs while also maintaining as much of their lineage as possible.
So they spend a lot of time in community (something religions excel at, but modern society often fails at) and do things they might not do if left to their own devices. You can benefit from the traditions you demand. Technology (Sabbath is the original digital detox). It also allows them to maintain connections with their ancestors and the beauty of songs and customs specific to their backgrounds.
So even when building your own scaffolding, be sure to pay attention to older materials that are worth incorporating. There’s no need to completely reinvent the wheel. And you don’t have to surrender even the realm of spirituality or religion to the dogmas you encountered in your childhood community. It’s as much yours as it is theirs. I want you to have the confidence to own it, be creative and destroy it in a community with people who will realize your vision of a moral life for you and your children. I hope you have it.
Bonus: What I’m Reading
Sarah Bakewell, who wrote the delightful book At the Existentialist Café, has published a new book on humanism. It’s called “Humanly Possible” and I’m going to explain it here because I am too. Intellectual humility is usually extolled as a virtue, but in this Aeon essay, philosopher Rachel Fraser writes that even though her colleagues probably thought she was eccentric, she He provides an unexpected rebuttal by citing the example of geneticist Barbara McClintock, who relentlessly pursued the Now, this is more of what I’m listening to than reading, but DeSteno’s podcast How God Works has a great episode about “growing moral muscle” in childhood, and it’s one of my thoughts. influenced the department. This column. Listen to the voice of a little child telling you what God wants for them.
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