DO WE NEED RELIGION, MORALS AND ETHICS?

DO WE NEED RELIGION, MORALS AND ETHICS?


An individual is the product of the environment, including social environment. It is the responsibility of the society to institute a system whereby proper human values are instilled in the mind. Now-a-days, when often both parents have a working career, they have little time for children. Much of the responsibility for children’s education and training is left to the school teachers. However, the school curriculum is heavily biased towards science, information technology, management etc. and social sciences are often neglected. As a result, students are likely to develop into young men and women who do not have clear ideas and respect for morals and ethics.

The thoughts that came to my mind are summarized below in the form of questions and answers.

QUESTION ONE—What are religion and morals and ethics? What is the relation between them?

ANSWER— Religion and morals and ethics are related, but not identical terms. Definitions are given below:

ETHICS--—(Merriam-Webster dictionary)-- the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation

MORAL—(Merriam-Webster dictionary)--

As an adjective-- of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior.
As a noun—A moral practice or teaching.

RELIGION—(Webster’s collegiate dictionary)--

a. belief in a divine or superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and worshiped as the creator(s) and ruler(s) of the universe
b. any specific system of belief and worship, often involving a code of ethics and a philosophy the Christian religion, the Buddhist religion, etc.

It is clear that morals and ethics broadly have similar meaning. They are a subset of religion.
Religion holds no monopoly over morals or ethics. Yet, all religions have a high content of morals and ethics. The Ten Commandments are a well-known listing of ethics. Truth and non-violence are two well-known principles of ethics, made famous by Gandhi, a devout Hindu. Nonviolence is a sacred ethical principle of Jainism. Not living on unearned income (exemplified by interest charged by money-lenders), much abhorred by Muslims, and Zakat, giving a percentage of income, usually 2.5%, towards charity, are well known Islamic ethical principles.

Religion is often hounded and reviled. Those who are against religion may have reasons to do so and are entitled to do so. No religion is perfect or without evil. Some are possibly more/ logical / profound / philosophical / less fundamentalistic / resistant to challenge and change.

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QUESTION TWO--Are morals and ethics necessary for the survival of humanity?

ANSWER--My answer is YES, and I don't think many would disagree. Had it not been for the socially approved morals and ethics against stealing, killing, raping etc., the world would not have been livable.

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QUESTION THREE-- Do members of the society need education and training in morals and ethics?

ANSWER--Again, I think the answer is YES, and not many will probably disagree. Morals and ethics, though innate in a culture that has continued over a long time, are not innate in an individual when he is born. He needs to be given training in morals, just as a child needs to be trained in hygienic habits.


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QUESTION FOUR--Do we have a mechanism in today's educational system to impart education and training in morals and ethics?

ANSWER--The answer is, pitiably, NO. There is no teaching of ethics and morals in schools today. Ethics and morals do not form part of the educational curriculum. They broadly fit in the discipline of social sciences, but there is no subject, unit or sub-unit titled as ‘ethics and morals’ in social sciences as taught in schools in India. The same might be true in many other countries.

Earlier, when religion was not such a bad word, the lacuna regarding lack of formal inclusion of ethics and morals in educational curriculum was, to some extent, filled up by religious activities in the society, in which schools also participated without anybody objecting to it. However, it was expected of schools to encourage students to look at religion in a broad, tolerant, healthy manner, without converting them into fanatic narrow minded fundamentalists. The ideal was to inculcate respect for all religions and hatred for none. That ideal has been a casualty in many countries, most so in Islamic countries, followed by other Book Religion countries. India continues to be the country where the general population still has the highest tolerant and respectful attitude for different religions in general.


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QUESTION FIVE—What is the possible solution?

ANSWER—Here is my answer, along with a brief summary of the whole subject.

Morals and ethics are crucial to humanity. They are closely intermixed with religion, and, in fact, form a clear subset of religion. It is unrealistic and impractical to separate them from religion, at least in foreseeable future. However, it would be ideal to modify the school educational curriculum so that ethics and morals form a distinct discipline taught like other subjects along with theoretical and practical teaching and examination, with the educational and research stream going further up to PhD level. Till that becomes possible, religious preachers from different religions, enjoying the confidence and reputation of society, provided they fulfill the minimal essentiality criteria developed by the education department, should be invited to deliver teaching sessions to students. Such sessions should be interactive, with sufficient scope for questions and answers and problem solving. This may be buttressed by related audio-visual material, plenty of which is already available almost free.

There is urgent need for those who care for human society to ensure that we do not become slaves of science and technology to the extent that we do not lose human values represented by morals and ethics. That loss is the real cause of the incident portrayed above; terror attacks, and, aggression against a sovereign nation after having blatantly told the whole world a naked lie that American intelligence had determined that the nation in question had WMD. It is a different matter that even if this were true, the action could have been taken not unilaterally by a single state but collectively by the UN, under UN charter.

Till ways and means are found to separate and nurture ‘Ethics and morals”, YES, we need religion.


IN THE END, I would like to emphasise the following:

1. Ethics and morality are essential for a worthwhile human life.

2. There is no course titled as "Ethics and morals" for primary school students, which is the level where it is most needed. Children in that age group are left to religion to learn their morals and ethics.

3. Morals and ethics are influenced by religious practices and beliefs to a great extent, so much so that what they learn may be what they should not. For example, children in Islamic schools might learn intolerance towards other religions. Children in Christian schools might tend to develop an exclusive attitude towards Christianity.

4. I have suggested at the end of the article that till a pure course on ethics and morality can be developed, it would be best to expose the students to classes on ethics and morality taken by people from different religions.


M C Gupta
4 March 2009