Morality without God
\r\nThe question of whether morality without God is possible will probably remain the subject of theoretical discourses as it cannot be tested in practice nor referred to by a certain historical event. No case of a completely irreligious community has ever been known throughout history, nor have we countries where generations are brought up in complete indifference or hatred toward religion to give us a sure answer to the question of whether there is morality without religion, or whether an atheistic culture and society are possible. Such societies, regardless of the walls with which they surround themselves, cannot remain beyond space and time. All the past is present here, radiating in innumerable ways; the rest of the world is also present, influencing it either intentionally or spontaneously. I dare to assert that the behaviours, laws, human relationships, and social order of a community in which the members were brought up in complete ignorance of religion would be drastically different from everything we know or encounter today both in the religious societies and in those which live under the predominant influence of atheistic ideas. Many nonreligious people would probably be shocked if they knew the views or laws of a truly atheistic society or if they were suddenly faced with the image of a consistently atheistic world.
\r\nThe morality of the nonreligious man also has its source in religion, but in an earlier, forgotten religion which still influences and radiates from all surroundings, family, literature, film, architecture, and so on. The sun has set, but the warmth that radiates in the night comes from the sun. The warmth is still felt in the room, although the fire in the hearth is out. Morality is past religion in the same way as coal is the sum of past centuries. Only by the complete destruction and elimination of the spiritual inheritance of the ages would it be possible to create the psychological conditions for the complete atheistic education of a generation. Mankind has been living for thousands of years under the influence of religion. Religion has pervaded all aspects of life: morality, laws, beliefs, and even language. It is therefore appropriate to ask whether it is possible today to "produce" a pure atheistic generation. The attempt would have to be made in complete isolation. The people of such a generation would have to be kept away from the Bible, the Quran, and all other religious texts. They could not be allowed to see a single work of art, to hear a single symphony, to see any drama from Sophocles to Beckett. All the famous architectural works that man has ever built and all the literary works that he has ever written would have to be hidden from sight. These people would have to grow up in complete ignorance of everything we call the fruits and expressions of human culture. Because of man's natural inclination toward religion, even one of Hamlet's monologues about death, a glance at Michelangelo's frescoes, or the knowledge of the legal principle nullem crimen . . . could bring before them the vision of another universe completely different from the atheistic one.
\r\nFirst, morality as a principle does not exist without religion, whereas practical morality does. However, practical morality exists by inertia and is very weak, being further from the source that gives it its initial force. Second, moral order cannot be based on atheism. Atheism, however, does not abolish morality, at least not in its lower form: social discipline. Besides, if atheism is put into practice when trying to form a society, it will even be interested in maintaining the existing forms of social morality. The socialist practice of our century confirms these facts. Atheism, however, has no means to preserve or to protect the very principle of morality once this principle is called into question. Atheism is quite helpless against the rush of purely utilitarian, selfish, and immoral or amoral claims. What can be done against this crippling logic? If I live only today and have to die tomorrow and be forgotten, why should I not live as I like and without obligations, if I can? The wave of pornography and the "new morality" of sexual freedom is stopped at the frontier of socialist countries only by force and by censor - that is, artificially. No moral order approves of that wave of the immoral kind, and even if certain arguments are heard in favour of it, they are an example of inconsistency and can endure only due to the lack of open and free criticism. In fact, only inherited old moral norms still exist in the consciousness of people, or the state maintains them out of necessity. Still, strictly speaking, this inherited moral order is in contradiction with the official ideology, and there is no room for it in the system. We can conclude that morality is nothing but another "state of aggregation" or religion.
\r\nCompiled From:
\r\n \"Islam Between East and West\" - Alija Ali Izetbegovic, pp. 134-139