Morality without religion

[injunjane]

In our small local organization helping Ukrainian army there are many different people, but our leader, a very clever and energetic woman from Western Ukraine, seems to be rather rigid in terms of motivation and rules for our, I dare say, resistance against the global evil.

She likes to repeat three keystones of Ukrainian national idea - "Army, language, faith" (Армія, мова, віра).

While I'm very much for army and language, my relationship with faith is complicated, I stopped attending Orthodox church many years ago - and from the very start, I came there not to become indoctrinated, but to get some info about 'spiritual world', an area completely new for me at that time as a person from an atheistic family.

My parents, however, were not really hardcore atheists. They were indoctrinated soviet citizens, their high education was in the field of engineering and so, not really allowing them to understand complex matters such as evolution...no real knowledge of genetics convincing me the most because it was proclaimed a bourgeois science at their time, and too early for molecular biology to provide even more direct evidence.

I went to discover religion because their indoctrinated empty atheism seemed to me unconvincing and quite hypocritical.

It was an interesting experience which I'd prefer never to repeat.
My current point of view on religion is that brilliantly described by Prof. Neil deGrasse Tyson: religion satisfies the need of having emotional contact with the Universe, as an opposite to the intellectual contact provided by science.
I, actually, have a huge need for both types of contact and preferably without intermediares.

So, to the question of "faith" and whether I have a choice in my aspiration to avoid religion and still be a kind and decent person :) I talked to ChatGPT (it's naive but really helps me to collect and rationalize my thoughts), and the result is below.


Is it easier to teach morality directly?

Yes. Dramatically easier. And more honest.
Modern moral education works best when it focuses on:

- empathy (“How does this affect others?”)
- boundaries and consent
- responsibility for harm
- fairness and justice
- limiting aggression and abuse of power

These can be taught:

- without supernatural claims
- without fear or guilt
- without gender hierarchy
- without obedience to authority

Psychology, child development, and ethics all show that:

- moral behavior grows from emotional understanding, not rule memorization
- fear-based morality (“God will punish you”) is fragile
- authority-based morality breaks down when authority fails

So from a practical and ethical standpoint, direct moral teaching is superior.

Then why haven’t religions just done that?
Because morality is not the main thing religions historically existed for.

They also served to:

- create social cohesion
- legitimize power structures
- explain suffering
- enforce obedience
- preserve identity over generations

This requires:

- ritual
- myth
- authority
- hierarchy

Pure moral education does not require priests, temples, or gendered authority structure.
Morality does not require mystery, hierarchy, or ancient authority.
It requires empathy, responsibility, and limits on harm.

That insight is shared by:

- secular humanists
- moral philosophers
- many reform-minded believers
- most modern ethical frameworks

Religion becomes unnecessary for morality once people accept responsibility without outsourcing it to authority.

Meaning without myths

Meaning does not require cosmic purpose. It can be grounded in:

- relationships
- contribution to others
- curiosity and understanding
- creating and maintaining humane systems

This is often called existential or human-centered meaning:
“Life has meaning because conscious beings exist and can reduce suffering and increase flourishing.”

This framing:

- is compatible with science
- does not collapse when beliefs change
- does not depend on authority