The Source of Morality: Religion or Humanity Within Us

Religious people  claim that morality cannot exist without God. They also argue that Western secular societies do not have their own moral foundation. According to them, these societies are only copying the moral values that originally came from religion.

To find out whether these claims are true, we first need to understand what modern science says about morality.

In the first part of this article, we will look at morality through the lens of modern science.

In the second part, we will critically examine the religious theory of morality and point out the problems within it.

Table of Contents:

According to modern science, human morality does not depend on a divine rulebook. Instead, evolution has given us three basic qualities. The interaction between these three qualities gives rise to morality.

They are:

1. Our instincts and hormones
2. The social influences around us
3. Our human ability to reason

When these three work together, they form the foundation of human morality.

Let us look at each one in detail.

1. Our Human Instincts and Hormones

Human beings are not angels sent down from heaven. We are biological creatures who reached this point after millions of years of evolution. During this long journey, our bodies developed a complex chemical system. This system, made up of hormones, creates different emotional and behavioral responses depending on the situation.

If we look closely, we can see that two opposite tendencies exist inside every human being.

A. Self-interest and Aggression

Religious people often describe this darker side of human nature as the evil self, sin, or temptation. Science describes it differently. It calls it our survival instinct.

According to science, when we face danger, our bodies quickly release hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones prepare us to react immediately. They make us ready to fight, defend ourselves, or escape.

In the ancient world, this instinct was essential for survival. Without it, our ancestors would not have lived long enough to pass on their genes.

However, when this instinct becomes too strong or goes out of control, it can lead to cruelty, oppression, and exploitation. A person may begin sacrificing the well-being of others simply to protect or benefit themselves.

B. Compassion and Cooperation

At the same time, human beings also possess another powerful tendency. We naturally feel kindness, love, compassion, and the desire to help one another. This is what many people simply call our sense of humanity.

Because of this inner feeling, people sometimes sacrifice their own interests for the sake of others.

Religious people often say that this compassion comes from spiritual training. Science, however, shows that empathy is already built into our biology, whether a person follows a religion or not.

Humans are social creatures. We cannot survive completely alone. Throughout evolution, cooperation became essential for survival. As a result, evolution favored people who could trust one another and work together.

When we show kindness or help someone, our brains release chemicals such as oxytocin and serotonin. These chemicals strengthen trust, emotional attachment, and compassion. They also help us feel the pain of others and sometimes motivate us to sacrifice our own comfort for someone else's well-being.

[Reference: Zak, P. J., Stanton, A. A., & Ahmadi, S. (2007). Oxytocin increases generosity in humans. PLoS ONE, 2(11), e1128. And: Decety, J. & Cowell, J. M. (2014). The complex relation between morality and empathy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(7), 337-339.]

Human Nature Contains Both

Human beings are not born completely good, and they are not born completely evil. Both of these opposite tendencies exist within us from the beginning. They are not miracles from a supernatural source. They are part of our evolutionary inheritance.

Religion often teaches that every person is born pure, and later Satan leads them toward evil. Modern science presents a different picture. It tells us that we are born with both of these biological tendencies already present within us. Our lives are shaped by the constant interaction between them.

2. Social Influences

Modern psychological research shows that even very young children, who have never received religious or moral instruction, naturally prefer helpful behavior and dislike harmful behavior. [Reference: Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450(7169), 557-559. In this study, 6 and 10-month-old infants who could not yet speak, and had received no moral teaching, consistently preferred the puppet that helped another puppet over the puppet that hindered it. Later studies by the same lab showed infants also prefer puppets that punish unhelpful behavior. This suggests a rudimentary sense of "good" and "bad" exists before culture or religion.]

Similarly, a small child becomes upset after seeing their mother in pain, even though nobody has taught the child this feeling from a book or religious lesson. This is another example of the natural empathy that comes from our evolutionary heritage.

However, as children grow up, the outside world begins to shape their thinking:

• Their family teaches them what is considered right and wrong.
• Society passes on its own traditions, rules, and values.
• Religion also tries to shape them according to its own teachings.

From the perspective of psychology, these outside influences are like a double-edged sword. They can work in two very different ways.

When Social Influence Strengthens Our Natural Compassion

Sometimes, education and social values reinforce the compassion that already exists inside us. Helping poor people, telling the truth, or respecting elderly people are common examples. In these cases, our natural empathy and our social upbringing move in the same direction.

When Social Influence Suppresses Our Natural Compassion

On the other hand, these same outside influences can also silence the compassion that exists naturally within us. A young child naturally loves other people regardless of their race, color, or religion. But imagine that from early childhood the child is repeatedly taught that a certain religious group, ethnic group, or non-believers are enemies, impure, or deserve to be killed. As the child grows up, that natural compassion can gradually be replaced by hatred.

Society and religion often claim to teach morality. In reality, they can also narrow, distort, or even suppress our natural moral instincts by replacing them with ideological beliefs.

3. The Role of Human Reason

The greatest gift that evolution has given human beings is our advanced ability to think and reason. Reason works much like the processor inside a computer:

• It does not create information by itself.
• It receives information from different sources.
• It analyzes that information.
• Then it produces an output, which becomes our final judgment or decision.

Reason mainly receives information from two different sources. Interestingly, these two sources often contradict each other:

• Inner instincts: One inner voice, which comes from our compassion, tells us, "Help other people." Another voice, driven by self-interest, tells us, "Think about yourself first." Reason has to decide which voice it should follow.
• External environment: Our family, society, and religion all give us instructions about how we should think and behave. Sometimes these messages agree with each other. Sometimes they do not. Reason is forced to decide which message it will accept.

Which Voice Does Reason Trust the Most?

Modern psychological research suggests that our minds naturally give greater weight to information that comes from certain sources, such as people close to us, authority figures, or ideas heard repeatedly since childhood. This is an evolutionary tendency; for our ancestors, trusting the tribe was often necessary for survival.

Today, this same tendency can be used for brainwashing. Religious and political leaders shape beliefs by repeating ideas generation after generation. Reason itself is a tool; if it is fed prejudice from childhood, it produces intolerance. If it grows in an environment of freedom, it produces a compassionate individual.

Religious circles insist that there is no real existence of morality without God. To prove this, they divide morality into two parts:

1. Objective Morality: Moral principles that are completely free from human personal desires and likes or dislikes, and are based on reality.

2. Subjective Morality: Morality that is based only on a person's individual opinion and preferences.

The website of a famous Islamic preacher, Daniel Haqiqatjou, states the following (link):

Morality does not exist in Atheism: The vast majority of criticism by atheists against Islam and religion in general is based on moral claims. However, for an intelligent person, this has no justification. How can those who have no moral foundation of their own dare to give moral arguments? In short, there is one "Objective Morality" and another "Subjective Morality." You can see that atheists do not have any objective morality at all. Atheism can only produce subjective morality. "Subjective" means personal opinion. While "objective" means "reality." And there is no third option. For example: "Red is the best color" is a subjective opinion, but "2+2=4" is an objective reality. In other words, atheists are criticising Islam based only on their personal and subjective opinions. Therefore, saying "I hate Islam because Muslims like green while my favourite colour is blue" is no different from their current nonsense.

However, this religious claim is based on fallacies. Let us examine these fallacies.

Mistake of Religious People: Not Differing between "Objective" Morality and "Absolute" Morality

The most basic fallacy in arguments for religious morality is treating Objective Morality and Absolute Morality as the same thing, even though these are two completely different concepts.

When a religious preacher says:

"If there is no God, there is no objective morality."

They actually mean: "

If there is no God, there is no absolute morality."

And this is where the whole debate gets tangled.

What is Absolute Morality?

Absolute Morality refers to a moral system that:

• Is the same in every era.

• Is the same in every society.

• Is the same in every situation.

• Has no room for change, reform, or revision.

Religious morality generally claims that because it came from God, it is considered perfect, eternal, and unchangeable.

But here a basic question arises: Does such a moral system really exist in the world?

The answer is no, while:

• The so-called "eternal morals" of different religions contradict each other.
• Even different sects and schools of thought within the same religion disagree on many moral issues.
• Furthermore, history contains many things that were considered religiously permissible and moral for centuries, but today they are considered immoral. For example, the institution of slavery.

Therefore, just because a moral system calls itself "divine" is not proof that it is actually absolute or perfect.

What is Objective Morality?

Objective morality does not mean that morality was sent from the sky, or that it is 100% perfect and beyond reform. It only means that moral principles are above an individual's personal desire, personal interest, or temporary likes and dislikes. If a person wants to exploit the weak for his own benefit, objective morality has the ability to say: your personal benefit does not make this act right.

Being objective does not mean being infallible. It means being testable. An objective moral judgement can be tested on the scales of logic, evidence, lived experience, and human welfare, and it can be improved over time. That is why objective and absolute are two different things. A principle can be objective without being absolute.

Evolution created in humans the ability to feel others' pain, cooperate, and show empathy. Modern psychology and biology tell us that the vast majority of humans have the capacity for empathy, conscience, and reacting to others' suffering. Importantly, this is not just a matter of personal preference. Just as pain is a real human experience, so too is the sense of empathy and humanity a real human truth.

However, this feeling itself does not provide a complete moral code, but it provides raw material. Then, human reason plays the role of creating morality from this raw material, which, again due to evolution, has reached this high level in humans. Human reason analyses this human experience, compares different results, and tries to test which actions promote human welfare and which cause unnecessary harm. This is where the sense of humanity and human reason come together to form a limited but real Objective Morality.

Therefore:

• This objective morality Is not based on one person's desire and personal interest.

• It can be tested with logic and evidence.

• It can be improved over time.

• But it does not claim to be infallible or perfect.

In fact, a big mistake of religious preachers is that they present only two possibilities:

1. Divine and absolute morality.

2. Only personal likes and dislikes (Subjective).

Even though there is a third option between these two: Objective but Non-Absolute Morality. That is, morality that is above human personal desires, but still open to human reason, experience, and constant reform.

Religious Objection 3: Empathy leads to Subjective Morality, as we see in case of Abortion

Religious people often object here:

"You say empathy/humanity is the foundation of objective morality. But that same empathy leads one person to support abortion and another to oppose it. Two opposite conclusions from the same source. Doesn't that prove it's just subjective opinion?"

Firstly:

No. It proves the opposite.

People on both sides of the abortion debate are not arguing like one person who says "I like blue" and another who says "I like red." They are not arguing about a taste.

They are arguing inside an objective framework. Both sides are trying to balance two real, competing interests: the bodily autonomy and welfare of the woman, and the moral status of the fetus. Their disagreement is about how to weigh those interests, and about a factual question: at what point does a fetus's interest carry significant moral weight?

This is exactly how objective disagreement works everywhere else. Two economists can look at the same objective data and models and reach opposite conclusions on policy because one weighs growth more heavily and the other weighs equality. No one concludes from that disagreement that economics is just "personal opinion."

Disagreement within a framework does not prove there is no framework. If it did, then science, medicine, and law would all be "subjective" too.

Religious apologists make a mistake here because they secretly define objective as "always 100% correct, unanimous, and absolute." No human field meets that standard. We don't need absolute morality. We need objective morality, i.e., a system that may be wrong, but can be corrected.

Secondly:

Moreover, if disagreement proves subjectivity, then what should we do with "absolute" morality itself? 

Despite claims of absolute morality, opposite verdicts exist inside religions too.

What will you do if two religions give two opposite final verdicts on the same question? Which one is the absolute?

And what will you do if a single religion gives two opposite verdicts?

For example, in classical Islamic jurisprudence, if an unmarried woman becomes pregnant and claims she was raped but cannot produce four witnesses to the rape, the recorded position of the classical schools is that she is to be punished with 100 lashes for fornication (zina). However, many modern Muslim scholars today completely disagree and say she should not be punished at all.

So what is the "absolute" morality of Islam in this case? Is it 100 lashes, or is it no punishment?

Similarly, classical jurists agreed that if a rape victim went to court to accuse her attacker but failed to produce four male witnesses, she was flogged eighty times for Qadhf (making a false allegation). However, many modern Muslim scholars completely disagree with these rulings today, recognising their injustice and refusing to flog women under such circumstances.If absolute morality means one eternal, unanimous verdict from God, then this should not happen. The fact that it does proves that even inside an "absolute" system, humans are still doing exactly what secular people do, i.e., weighing evidence, weighing harms, and disagreeing on the application.

The difference is this that in objective morality, we admit we can be wrong and we can improve. In absolute morality, you are not allowed to admit that.

1. Confucius and Buddha

Reflecting on figures like Confucius and Buddha offers profound insight into the human capacity for morality.

Neither claimed divine revelation. Neither said an angel brought them a sacred book of moral rules from a deity. Instead, they taught that their wisdom came entirely from human empathy for others, and then deep thinking and human reason.

Buddha, for instance, lived within and challenged the religious framework of his time. Without any divine intervention, his inner humanity and conscience alone were enough to realise that the rigid caste system was fundamentally unjust. He stood against the religious morality of his era using only his human heart and mind.

Both thinkers broke free from the heavy social conditioning and religious dogmas surrounding them, relying solely on their innate humanity and rational minds to guide people toward compassion and ethics.

Their legacies stand as living proof that when the gods are absent, human reason and empathy are fully capable of recognizing truth, fighting injustice, and establishing high moral standards on their own.

2. Ancient Rome (Monogamy and Republic without God)

Rome gives us an even stronger proof.

If human beings really learned morality from their gods, then Romans should have been polygamous and believed in dictatorship. Because that is exactly what their gods taught.

Zeus (Jupiter), the king of the gods, was famous for numerous affairs and acts of deception. Other gods were frequently portrayed as jealous, vengeful, deceitful, violent, or sexually immoral. Their myths contain adultery, revenge, favouritism, and even rape.

And their divine world was not a democracy. It was a monarchy. Jupiter was a king ruling over lesser gods. If you copy that model on earth, you get a kingdom, not a republic.

But what did Romans actually do? The opposite of their gods.

Monogamous marriage was created by Roman law not because a god commanded it, but initially as a human solution to human problems, i.e., how to ensure clear paternity, secure inheritance, and build stable households as the foundation of the state.

It was imperfect at first. A man could have one legal wife but also concubines and slaves. But over time, human reason itself reformed it. Later Stoic philosophers like Musonius Rufus and Seneca argued from empathy and reason that marriage must be a partnership of equals, based on mutual fidelity from both sides. They argued this not because a god told them, but because their humanity told them it was more just.

The same is true for their government. Early Rome was a monarchy justified by divine omens. In 509 BC, Romans overthrew their king. No god told them to do it. They invented the Republic with human reasoning, which had two consuls instead of one king, one-year terms, mutual veto, a Senate, and Tribunes to protect the common people. Cicero explains in De Re Publica that they did it for purely rational reasons, i.e., to prevent tyranny and balance power.

3. Ancient Greece (Human Philosophy instead of God)

Actually, Greek philosophy is stronger than Rome. In Greece, the split between gods and morality becomes absolute.

Did Greek gods teach reason, virtue, and self-control? No. Read the stories. Zeus cannot control his lust. Ares is pure rage. Poseidon destroys cities in anger. If you lived like the Olympian gods, you would be in prison today. The gods were powerful, not moral.

So where did reason, virtue, and self-control come from? From humans who stopped looking at Olympus and started looking at human nature.

Aristotle wrote one of the greatest books on morality ever written, the Nicomachean Ethics. He never says once, "Zeus commands this." Not once. He builds his entire ethics from:

• human flourishing (eudaimonia)
• virtues
• habit
• rationality
• practical wisdom

Epicurus does the same. You will find no god commands, but he bases morality on:

• pleasure
• absence of suffering
• friendship
• reason

Epictetus, a crippled slave with no power, bases all of morality on:

• reason
• virtue
• and self-control

Again, no divine commandments. He says we must live according to Nature and Reason, not because Zeus thundered it from the sky, but because that is what it means to be human.

Greek religion gave us stories of gods who rape, murder, and lie. While Greek human philosophy gave us reason, virtue, self-control, human flourishing, friendship, and inner freedom.

The reason is simple: 

1. In a secular system, evil has one root (i.e. human selfishness.) We fight it by saying "this causes suffering, stop it."

2. However, in a religious system, evil has two roots (i.e., human selfishness + divine command which regularises it). Now you have to fight not just humans, but God himself. That is a much weaker position, and history undeniably proves it as we will see in the examples later in this section. 

So, we agree that non-religious ideologies like Stalinism, Nazism, or Maoism have also caused massive atrocities and suppressed empathy.

However, secular systems never claim to be 100% perfect. We recognise that humans are inherently driven by mixed motives, we have impulses toward empathy, but also dangerous tendencies toward selfishness and tribalism. The crucial difference is that human-based reason can learn from experience, recognise its past mistakes, and reform itself over time. We abolished slavery and changed international laws precisely because our reason and empathy evolved past those historical atrocities.

When a non-religious ideology commits atrocities, it violates fundamental human welfare, and society can eventually course-correct. But when a religion commits atrocities, it often does so not just through individual selfishness, but through "divine command". For instance, if an ideology or religious text decrees that capturing spoils of war makes the women and property of others permissible (Halal), it turns a horrific act into a sacred duty.

So, the problem isn't just that humans can be bad, but it's whether our framework allows us to recognise our mistakes and reform, or locks those mistakes in stone forever under the guise of divine perfection.

Let's demonstrate it through an example.

Islamic Slavery:

Slavery has nothing to do with "objective" morality. Actually, the opposite is true, and "objective" morality always guided humanity that slavery is an evil, which should end. 

Therefore, based upon that objective morality, there occurred about 200 important movements in human history against slavery. Here is their entire list and their timeline:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom

However, one wonder that the list of these 200 important movements have no Islamic movements in it, 

Why? 

The reason is simple, when religious laws claim to be absolute, eternal, and divinely ordained from the sky, true institutional reform becomes nearly impossible. You cannot easily update a law that God supposedly authored. When secular societies make mistakes, they fix them. While when religious dogmas encode atrocities, believers are trapped defending them as eternal truth.

Actually, Islamic authorities opposed the idea of abolition of slavery the most. Therefore, Islamic countries were the last on the planet earth who abolished slavery, and that too under immense Western pressure. 

This shows how difficult it is to reform Islam due to this problem of "authoritarian morality". 

Religious Objection 1: Why Should a Human Sacrifice Their Desires Without "Accountability"

A religious argument is that if there is no life after death and no system of reward and punishment, a human has no solid reason to become "good" by sacrificing their desires. If an oppressor lives a life of luxury and dies, and an oppressed person dies suffering, and both turn to dust in the end, morality feels like a "meaningless burden." According to religion, the fear of God for "accountability" is the only power that stops a human from evil even in "solitude."

Morality Is Not a Meaningless Burden

This religious argument overlooks an important aspect of human nature. Showing kindness, helping others, and acting with compassion do not benefit only the people receiving our help. They also benefit us. Modern psychology and neuroscience show that acts of kindness often activate the brain's reward system and are associated with feelings of satisfaction, inner peace, and emotional well-being. In other words, evolution has shaped human beings in such a way that caring for others is often rewarding in itself.

Most importantly, this reward is immediate and real. It is not merely a promise that depends on what may happen after death. A person can experience a sense of peace, fulfillment, and self-respect simply by knowing that they have helped another human being.

The same principle applies in the opposite direction. When a psychologically healthy person knowingly harms an innocent person, even in complete secrecy, there is often an internal cost. No one else may know about the act, but the person still has to live with themselves. Feelings such as guilt, shame, anxiety, or inner conflict can become a burden long before any external punishment takes place.

This is why morality does not depend entirely on external rewards or punishments. Human beings possess internal psychological mechanisms that often encourage compassion and discourage cruelty, even when no one else is watching.

Religious Objection 2: Empathy is Just a Preference Like Liking Spinach? [Preference vs. Perception] 

The most common trick in religious apologetics goes like this:

"Without God, saying 'slavery is wrong' just means 'I don't like slavery, the way I don't like spinach.'"

This is false. It mixes up two completely different things our brain does: having a preference, and perceiving reality.

When you say "I like blue" or "I dislike spinach," you are talking about an internal taste. There is no suffering blue out there. There is no victim. It starts and ends inside you.

But when you see an innocent child starving, your brain is not doing that. You are not tasting something. You are perceiving a real fact outside of you. That child is really in pain. Its body is really breaking down. Its nervous system is really sending distress signals. That pain is an objective fact in the world, whether you like it or not.

Science shows these are two different systems in the brain.

Liking a colour or a food turns on reward circuits, just like the same circuits for pleasure and personal taste.

While seeing someone else suffer turns on a completely different system, i.e., the pain matrix including the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex. These are the same areas that light up when you are yourself physically hurt. Evolution did not give us a "taste" for mercy. It gave us an organ of perception, so we can literally feel a small part of each other's pain.

So the question for the apologist is simple:

Is a child's hunger a real fact in the world, or is it just a matter of personal flavour? If it is a real fact, then responding to it is not a subjective preference. It is a response to reality.

A psychopath who cannot feel this is like a colour-blind person who cannot see red. His blindness does not make red subjective. It means his perception is broken.

We are not saying empathy alone gives us a complete moral code. But you cannot dismiss secular morality as "I like / I dislike" when its foundation is perceiving real suffering in real living beings. That is objective in a way that liking spinach will never be.

Religious Objection 3: Secular Morality Cannot Exist Without God (The Philosophical Trick of the Is/Ought Gap)

In this debate, the biggest weapon of the religious side is that famous principle of philosophy known as the "Is/Ought Gap". Their argument goes like this:

Science or reason only tells us what is happening in the world (Is), it can never tell us what ought to be (Ought); therefore, without God, morality cannot exist at all, and that is why non-religious secular ethics does not exist at all.

But the truth is that human history outright refutes this claim. Whenever humans laid the foundation of moral values, they never even needed to go through this philosophical confusion.

Just look at history. Confucius, without any heavenly revelation, gave a complete moral system based merely on human compassion (Ren) which is still followed by one and a half billion people today. Buddhism derived an entire philosophy of ethics from the facts of life's sufferings (Is) itself. In history, no one ever waited for an Ought to descend from the sky.

The reason is so simple that this was never a problem of practical life in the first place. When an ordinary human sees a child in pain, in his mind "the child is in pain" (Is) and "the pain should stop" (Ought) do not become two separate and complex philosophical sentences. They are two sides of the same human experience. Even an ordinary animal, when it sees its child in trouble (Is), without waiting for a book or law from the sky, rushes to save it (Ought). The simple fact is that nature itself has embedded the "Ought" inside the "Is".

That is why, in the practical life of a common human, this whole cycle of Is/Ought is a complete "non-issue" when it comes to forming ethics.

Whereas the compulsion of the religious apologists is that since secular ethics (which are based on human compassion, reason, and well-being) prove to be just as effective and often even better without the existence of God, the traditional religious position is left with only one counter, i.e., to take refuge in philosophical subtleties (like the Is/Ought Gap) and erect a theoretical wall. Therefore, they deliberately keep trying to entangle the issue of morality in this philosophical question in order to confuse the common reader and the seeker of truth.

So whenever this Is/Ought issue is raised by religious circles, never fall into their trap! Instead, ask them the first question: prove that at any point in human history, any human ever needed to solve this philosophical puzzle while creating a moral system?

The second religious objection and its answer

When this Is/Ought trap fails, the next objection raised by religious groups is:

Okay, granted that some moral systems were created, but what was their fate? The Charvaka system disappeared, Greek philosophy considered slavery justified, and the Confucian system considered women inferior. They had no final and absolute criterion to correct their own mistakes. On the contrary, divine commandments provide a permanent criterion against which every age can be judged.

But this objection also reveals a hypocritical side of reality. Unlike the religious people, we secular people never claim that our ethics are one hundred percent perfect or final. We allow open criticism of our ethics, we test the results on the touchstone of reason, we debate, and we change ourselves according to the demands of time and circumstances.

That is why within secular systems there is an active system of "self-correction", along with a clear criterion of well-being, survival, and reduction of suffering. The abolition of slavery in today's practical world, and the voices being raised against gender discrimination, have become possible only because of this process of self-correction.

In contrast, religious groups present our system as if our reason has remained stuck forever in Charvaka, Confucius, or Greek philosophy and is something stagnant. Whereas the real tragedy is the opposite; religious ethics are so tightly locked in the shell of their respective traditional gods and old codes that self-correction there is either impossible or centuries pass in the process of reform.

Therefore, the greatest asset of secular ethics is its 'ability to admit mistakes'. We say 'our ethics are not perfect, but they can be better'. While the greatest burden of religious ethics is its 'claim of perfection', because of which they are forced to hide their mistakes with justifications instead of correcting them.