The Origin of Values

I've just had a conversation about the origin of values with a couple of ladies I know on twitter. Actually, I think they misinterpreted the idea of 'values' and are instead talking about morals, but I'll just stick with the former. It started off relatively light-hearted but it's now left me with a rather bad taste in my mouth.

The two of them were originally commenting on the following quote from the Dalai Lama (see, absolutely everyone is on twitter now!):

There must be a way of promoting human values without involving religion, based on common sense, experience and recent scientific findings.

Of course, the joy of twitter is that if you're following both people, you get to be a voyeur and see their entire conversation. They claimed that his holiness was in denial: "denying values through religion", whatever that's supposed to mean. They think that it is impossible to think of values without tracing them back to God, specifically the "G-d" of the Torah. To quote woman 1: "Without G-d the very concept of evil is gone. There is no standards of good or bad."

As a staunch atheist, this sort of thinking obviously doesn't sit well with me. I jumped in and asked them both if that meant that atheists couldn't have 'proper values'. Woman 1 responded:

Personally I think they can have proper values. A so-called atheist will have indeed lived in his or her country and acquired cultural values. Our discussion is about the philosophical concept of values. Those values are deistic. And while you can have an atheist live the values you can't have them explain those values philosophically without become entangled in the question of the origin of values, which is clearly deistic. All brought to you by the Jewish G-d.

Clearly deistic? Really? Is that where all of the evidence points? My mistake then. I'll apologise profusely and take my leave. (Damn, blogger doesn't support the sarcmark.) As for woman 2's reply:

Nope, values like the sacredness of ALL life of ALL ages, gender equality, environment, animal welfare etc etc. They're values we all enjoy right? They were brought to you by Judaism, totally foreign alien concepts at that time in history. You don't have to believe in G-d or Torah to enjoy those values. They exist. So they are. Also, Jews revolving values around G-d was totally novel at the time - immovable values originated with Judaism.

I'm not very familiar with history pre-Judaism, but I find it hard to believe that all men were raging, vicious, homicidal animals before some guy offered them a couple of books about a big man in the sky. As far as I see it, our values are merely the product of the brains of a social species. In order for us to survive and prosper, we must know how to cooperate with other humans. We must be able to build cohesive and reliable societies. To do this requires us to have a certain level of respect for each other. Why don't we kill each other for fun? Because that negatively impacts our tribe. I suppose such views aren't so relevant today as we are now very well established as a species, but in the beginning it would have been important. But my point is - and I told them this - that values are a product of human nature and culture, not religion. If the Abrahamic religions are the basis of today's values as listed above, then why do all of them promote slavery in their sacred texts? And why does Islam insist that women are inferior? 

They had no answer for this, apart from "Islam is different and needs to be taken in cultural context". That's all very well, but shouldn't all of these religions be promoting the same values regardless of the culture in which they were formed? All of these religions worship the same god, regardless of his name, so why would his values not be universal? I've yet to hear an adequant answer for that.

Religion doesn't necessarily stop bad behaviour because it internalizes cultural aspects. But pls understand that cultural aspects also internalises the religion it has been based upon, hence our aversion to murder. Hence the fact that all of our laws are based on the 10 commandments and other biblical bits...

 

 So, in other words, religion is only sort of responsible for our values? And the rest is ... culture? In other words, the institutionalisation of human nature? Isn't that exactly what I've been saying? Also, just how many of the ten commandments have actually made it into our current laws? Since we're talking about Judaism, I'll use the Jewish interpretation of them. Let's see:

I am the Lord your God.  

Prove it.

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol.  

Nope

Do not take the name of the Lord in vain.  

Jesus fucking Christ. Oh my god. Oh, for god's sake!

*waits*
...

Believe it or not, the police helicopter is not circling over.

Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Are you kidding? Have you seen the casual loading rates on Saturdays? No right-minded person would take that off.

Honor your mother and father.

Nope. You can be as obnoxious as you want because you know they can't hit you, and then you can move out and divorce them when you turn 16. Sweet.

You shall not murder.

Ah, there we go. We've finally got one.

You shall not commit adultery.

You may be risking your life if your wife catches you, but the law has no problem with you sleeping with your attractive secretary. Just don't expect to keep the house when the divorce goes through.

You shall not steal.

And we have another winner.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

And another.

You shall not covet your neighbour's wife. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Hell no, go for it. The grass is always greener on the other side and your mind is your own domain, so covet away.

So out of the ten, we have three that are law. And to be fair, those are really just a matter of common sense. Or perhaps even along the lines of John Stuart Mill's harm principle. But the point is, this country is nowhere near as Judeo-Christian as these people like to imagine it is. Although, at the same time, it's nowhere near as secular as I would like it to be, but it's an ok compromise. But then woman 1 threw in an example:

Let's talk about this in an abstract way. If I live in a tribe and all the people of that tribe believes that a particular tree holds the world together. I may not hold any particular view about the tree but I won't hit it...I won't let other people do that..just in case.

Apparently this was the actual belief of the Tupi-Guarani people in Brazil, but I can't seem to find any sources on that. Is it bad that the empiricist in me would want to take a chainsaw and cut down the tree just to see what happens? I wonder what sort of defence mechanisms it would require to resolve their dissonance created when the world doesn't end. But that's not the point. In fact, I'm not sure what relevance this example had to the entire discussion of values, but it's interesting nonetheless. 

This was the point where I brought up mirror neurons. What is the true reason why we don't harm others? It's not because we fear eternal damnation; it's not because an ancient text told us that it would anger a great deity. It's because we don't like to see others in pain. We feel what they feel. It's empathy. It's not there just so we can cry when we're watching sad movies. It's what makes us who we are. It's what allows us to coexist relatively peacefully. It's what forms the basis of so many of our values today. But did my dear friend see that?

It is a beautiful world yours Nikki. And I bet you are so young. You sound very young. I won't say any more words. You know I could debate this point with you. Show you proof of the contrary...but I have a 7 year old little girl... I wouldn't want more experienced people to do away with her beautiful beliefs...she asked me..does Santa really exist?? I said Of course darling!! I want her to believe as much as she can...belief is a beautiful thing. I want you to hold on to..your belief that the human nature evolved for many years...and now we feel the pain of one another.

Of course not. 

I normally get along very well with this woman, and she's lovely. But that was just incredibly condescending. Right, I'll just hold onto my silly childhood beliefs of hard, evidence-based, falsifiable science and hope that no scary intelligent person comes along with their uncomfortable theistic proof and bursts my bubble.

Now that would be a sad day.