The Incompatibility of Christian Morality and Evolutionary Morality

Christianity pretty explicitly states that moral acts should be done for no reason other than that being moral is good/god says, “go be moral.”

“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:2-4

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Hebrews 13:16

“Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” ” Luke 21:1-4

“But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” 1 John 3:17

“Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.” Luke 12:33

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.” Acts 4:32-35

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” Matthew 16:26

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” Matthew 5:43-48

“The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31

The result, of course, is that Christian morality is very communist, and anyone who says otherwise is lying or ignorant. Self-interest is occasionally referenced so far as to say, “don’t worry about giving everything you have away, because god will make sure you don’t starve as a result,” but the general thrust of “don’t store up money, don’t do things for material rewards, take care of each other without regard to whether or not you can pay each other back, don’t make a big public deal out of your piety and generosity, etc.,” is pretty consistent.

Christianity is not necessarily quite on board with “treat everyone on earth equally,” since it is coming out of an explicitly ethno-nationalist religious tradition, but it is clearly moving in that direction.

In western society, this leads to a generalized notion that good deeds should be done for their own sakes, that seeing “gifts” as social exchange is bad and that all gifts should be given without strings attached, etc. Since this contradicts reality, people end up fighting over the implications of, say, buying someone dinner.

In reality, while some true charity and kindness exists (and I encourage it to,) most morality exists because we are descended from people who acted that way. We don’t actually take care of our children because of some divine command to do so, but because people who take care of their children historically had more surviving children than people who didn’t, and thus we are descended from people with child-rearing instincts.

The notion that morality is actually a self-interested attempt by our genes at continued propagation conflicts directly with our cultural, Christian norms of morality.

In general, Christian morality is probably a decent kludge, but forgetting reality is not good. If a moral system leads to its followers actually reproducing less than others (say, Shakerism,) then of course the result is that the followers of that morality die out.

Shakerin’ It

I’ve been reading the Wikipedia page about the Shakers (not to be confused with the Quakers.)

The Shakers believed in Christ’s immanent return to Earth–as a woman. Many of their preachers were female, and in 1770, one of their leaders, Anne Lee, was declared the Messiah. (Thereafter she was called Mother Anne.)

The Shakers had split from the Quakers, taking with them many of the more charismatic members and leaving behind a calmer set of Quakers. Shakers spoke in tongues, danced, shook, and received divine revelations. They believed that God was both male and female and practiced male/female equality in community leadership and structure. They became conscientious objectors during the Civil War, and as you probably already know, had no children.

They are also an example of successful religious communism–possibly because membership was voluntary, control was local, and the lifestyle agrarian.

Shaker communities managed to attract new members and remained economically successful until the Industrial Revolution radically changed the economic landscape, though I’m not sure it’s really the IR’s fault. There were 5 or 6,000 Shakers in the US in the 1800s (remember, the whole population of the US was much lower back then); today there are 3, in Maine.

I feel kinda bad for them.

A few thoughts:

1. There were some folks who adopted almost all of Shakerism, except the celibacy. This “Shakerism Light” sounds very close to what I would believe if I were a Christian. (Honestly, before I learned about groups like the Shakers and religious communism, I always wondered why Christians weren’t all in favor of these sorts of arrangements, as they seemed more Biblically supported than building up treasures on Earth.) A large chunk of my family attends a charismatic denomination, and Shakerism seem to have been popular with people like us.

2. The “Era of Manifestations” (Shakers began having more visions and other charismatic experiences) occurred about the same time as they expanded into Greater Appalachia. Charismatic churches are still most popular in Greater Appalachia, and viewed as low-class by outsiders. Were Shakers regarded as low-class at the time?

3. I suspect the Shakerism survived as long as it did by functioning like Protestant monks/nuns. Many Catholic monasteries have been around for centuries (or longer,) despite not allowing their members to have children, because their stock is regularly replenished from the ranks of regular Catholics. Most monasteries/nunneries in the West are probably hurting for members these days, too, but for Shakers, the lack of a formal relationship between them and other Protestants has probably been especially bad for their survival.

4. There seems to be a general social effect where female achievement and birthrates are negatively correlated. This may be entirely practical, as child-rearing and careers both take time, which is not infinite.

5. Do long-term successful communistic societies require little to no reproduction? With no children, people have more incentive to leave their worldly belongings to the community; with children, people try to amass wealth to support their children and withdraw it from the community.

6. Being religious is probably also an advantage for such communes, as people tend to be on their best behavior when they think god is watching.

7. Perhaps no communist system can thrive in an industrialized society.

Religious Communism

(Note: this is a subject of on-going research. I could be wrong about stuffs.)

We tend to think of “communism” as starting with Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto. Marx was certainly a significant political theorist, but he was actually part of an existing, much larger movement that has its origins in the same reforming impulse that lead to American democracy and many religious communes.

Today we think of “communism” and “democracy” as opposites, but in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, they were more or less the same. Democracy meant a community of people had the right to determine their own laws, instead of the King dictating laws to them. Communism of the day meant that the community had a right to determine their economic fates, rather than the King. In religious communes, in particular, councils voted on both legal and economic matters. Later, the idea of collectively running one’s own country and of collectively running one’s own factory can be seen as the same idea expressed at different levels.

As I understand it, our notion that the government and the economy are two separate entities is fairly modern. 500 years or so ago, the political and economic systems were completely entwined, via that system popularly known as feudalism.

(See also: Anarchism)

I’m still not clear on when or why democracy/communism first became a big deal, but we see at least some interesting groups emerging in the 1600s, with a variety of systems. The Pilgrims of the Plymouth Bay Colony, established a democratic society in 1620, apparently in keeping with Calvinist doctrines. (Though it seems like we could also speak of the precedent set by the Magna Carta, etc.) The colony’s government also administered certain economic concerns, eg, regulating the purchasing of land, but does not appear to have banned private property.

Some Quaker and Shaker groups did hold all property in common. The Diggers, around 1650, were agrarian socialists who attempted to farm on common lands. I believe the Mormons also practiced some form of centralized economic direction in the settling of Utah. And many monasteries and convents have been essentially communistic for centuries.

Some groups were obviously more successful than others, but overall, religious communes seem to have done pretty well, and may have provided much of the inspiration for the secular communism movement.