IRVINE–The idea that morality is impossible without faith in God is an endlessly-repeated theme of several Fox News Channel talk show hosts. “This idea must be challenged,” said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.
“It implies that man has no reason or purpose to be moral; it implies that no rational standard of morality is possible; it implies that in questions of morality man must suspend reason and blindly submit to faith or blindly obey some authority’s ‘revelations’ or ‘mystical insights.’ To imply that we have no earthly reason to be moral is profoundly immoral.
“The purpose of morality,” said Dr. Brook, “is to discover and teach the principles that lead to life, achievement, happiness, success, joy. There is only one means to discover and understand these principles: reason. A proper morality, one for living on earth, requires rationality and independence of soul, not faith and obedience to self-appointed interpreters of an alleged omnipotent being. A proper morality looks not to the supernatural but at man’s nature and the reason why he needs values–and then defines the values he must reach and the virtues he must practice to reach them.
Dr. Brook concluded: “Properly understood, not only does morality not require faith in God–morality is incompatible with faith in God. The moral is the rationally accepted and chosen, not the mindlessly believed and followed.”
