Christopher Hitchens on Morality without God
Hitchens argued that morality not only exists without God but improves once freed from religious authority.
Hitchens treated the question of morality without God as essentially settled by history. Every moral advance — the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, the recognition of children's rights, the acceptance of homosexuality — was achieved over the objections of organised religion, not because of it. Secular moral reasoning is not only possible without God, it is demonstrably superior.
His famous challenge — name a moral action taken by a believer that could not have been taken by a nonbeliever — was designed to establish the sufficiency of secular ethics. No one, in decades of debates, provided an answer that satisfied him. The reverse challenge — name a wicked action taken specifically because of religious belief — produced an immediate and inexhaustible list.
Hitchens did not deny that religious people could be moral. He denied that their morality came from their religion. When believers behave well, they are drawing on the same evolved moral instincts as everyone else. When they behave badly in specifically religious ways — honour killings, genital mutilation, inquisitions — they are doing something that only religion makes possible.
“Name me a moral action taken or a moral statement made by a believer that could not have been made or taken by a nonbeliever. I have yet to find anyone who can answer that question.”
“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”