Ethics not contingent on religion

I was amused by Don Sullivan’s letter to the Hungry Horse News (Dec. 19) in which he stated that the underlying cause of the shootings of 26 adults and children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on Dec. 14 was due to a decline of religion in America. Moreover, I was personally offended by his self-righteous assertion that moral behavior is strictly contingent on adherence to the Judeo-Christian ethic.

For starters, one does not need an imaginary friend to behave morally. Contrary to what Sullivan says, nonbelievers do not automatically regard others as subhuman. Ethical treatment of each other (the Golden Rule) in fact preceded any religious belief. And moral behavior by both the religious and the non-religious, therefore, is not contingent on any religious dogma but rather on parental guidance and common sense.

Theologically speaking, in fact, devout Christians — by virtue of Jesus’ “dying for our sins” — have no ethical imperative whatsoever. They can do as they like to their fellow human beings without fear of divine retribution (although in some cases certain ritualistic niceties, such as confession and “penance,” are required to avoid the “fires of hell.”

Sullivan apparently has forgotten that on Sept. 11, 2001, nineteen devout followers of the very same God of Abraham that he worships hijacked four airliners and used them to kill 3,000 innocent people. (We’ll leave it to Sullivan to tell us whether there was school prayer in the hijackers’ home countries.)

And mysteriously, Sullivan makes no mention of the religious beliefs of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza and his mother. For the record, they both attended St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newton, Conn., where several of his victims’ funerals were conducted. And Adam, in fact, attended school at the church for a time.

On closer examination then, America’s religious “morality” isn’t about “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It’s about public expressions of faith. Someone having the Ten Commandments displayed in his shop window or on the tailgate of his pickup truck tells me nothing about whether he would cheat me in a business transaction, run me off the road, shoot my dog — or bomb an abortion clinic, beat a homosexual to death, sexually molest a choir boy or massacre innocent school children.

Finally, Sullivan’s blatant insinuation that adherence to the “Judeo/Christian ethic on which America was built” is the only guarantor of ethical behavior is an insult to every Buddhist, Hindu, animist, atheist, agnostic, pagan or adherent of any of the hundreds of other non-Christian, non-Judaic or non-monotheistic religions practiced in this country. But as any student of current events or history can tell you, religion has never been about religious tolerance, has it?

Richard E. Wackrow lives in Polebridge and Whitefish.