Explaining Religious Belief, Part Three

Another attempt to explain the origin of religious belief appeals to ethics; essentially, the theory says that God was invented in order to encourage us to behave. This theory begins with the observation that a certain amount of fear is often necessary to ensure ethical conduct. Prison is partly justified because we want to lock up people we are afraid of, but prison is also meant to strike fear into potential law-breakers. That is, we want potential law-breakers to think “Gee, if I steal this car stereo, I might be caught and then have to go to jail. I don’t want to go to jail. Therefore I will not steal this car stereo.”

Even though this system works fairly well, it is certainly not perfect. The obvious shortcoming is that the law is not omniscient, and so if law-breakers believe that they can outsmart the law, then they will not hesitate to commit the illegal action. With children, we have solved this problem with Santa Claus. Parents discipline their children when they catch them being bad, but we can’t always catch them. So we teach the song “he knows when you are sleeping/ he knows when you’re awake/ he knows when you’ve been bad or good/ so be good for goodness sake.” This leads some to infer that God is to adults what Santa Claus is to children.

Last week, I dismissed the theory that religion was introduced for the sake of comfort as implausible on the face of it. This time, I cannot be so dismissive, because we can indeed observe instances in the Scriptures when God is introduced in order to ensure ethical conduct. For example, if a Hebrew caught his friend doing something immoral, he might ask, “Do you not fear God?” This kind of fear is greater on two levels: first, God is omniscient, so unlike the law, God sees all. And second, God has the power over life and death, unlike any human power.

Do you believe that religion was invented for the sake of giving us orderly societies? Why? And if you (like me) do not share this belief, how would you respond to this kind of skeptic?