There is an exchange in Braveheart between William Wallace (Mel Gibson) and Hamish (Brendan Gleeson) that goes like this:
Hamish : Your dream isn't about freedom. It's about Murron! You're doing this to be a hero, 'cause ya think she sees ye!For context, Murron is Wallace’s wife who was killed early in the movie. If you recall, the final scene is Wallace lying on the executioner's block and staring into the crowd and thinking he sees Murron walking among the citizens cheering on his death. The sight of her puts him at peace.
William Wallace : I don't think she sees me. I know she does. And your father sees you, too.
I remember talking to an older man in his 70s who, although he probably mostly voted Democrat, gave a rather old-guy conservative take on youth and crime. He thought the problem was a lack of faith since young criminals didn’t believe there was someone in the sky watching and judging their actions.
I thought of the disproportionate number of atheists in the science and engineering community, and how they manage to hold back their impulse to rape, murder, and steal so they can design sky scrapers and discover the cure to terminal diseases, but I said nothing.
And yet, I kinda think the idea has merit.
First, let’s talk about Lindy. Yes, most religions probably have their roots in farming culture. People performed rituals to please the Gods so they would have a good harvest. But for a really long time now, religion has been wrapped up in morality. Religious people believe they are supposed to behave a certain way and someone is always watching, judging.
This general belief has been around for a while now, making it very Lindy and Chesterton Fence-y. In other words, let’s not tear it down just because it is irrational. Let’s try to understand it first, as that might explain why the idea has lasted as long as it has.
When you believe that a God is always watching you, you are incentivized to perform good behavior in public and in private. But when you don’t believe, the private incentive goes away.
Secular humanists are correct. You can absolutely be “good without God.” You can derive your moral code from any of the philosophical traditions. But we are social creatures and we are wired to WANT others to know that we abide by a particular moral code. So we must always be monitoring our statuses within this public square so that others know “I’m with These Guys and I stand against Those Guys.” Another way of saying this is that being “good without God” incentives virtue signaling.
The Chesterton Fence of theistic belief is that it builds a structure that prevents virtue signaling. You don’t need to perform your prescribed moral behavior in public because you know that God is watching you and his opinion matters the most.
So I can give money to the panhandler even if no one is watching me and I get no tax write-off since I know Jesus said “Blessed is the poor,” and God will reward my Christ-like behavior in the next life.
But if I am a secular adherent of Social Justice ideology, I need to put a Black Lives Matter sign in my yard and make Facebook posts every time Trump does a racism. People need to know “I’m one of the good guys!” because there is no man in the sky to see my private deeds of social justice. I need the social validation.
Religion, such as Christianity, is at its worst when it becomes too public and people virtue signal their faith to one another in public. The private virtue signaling pulls back some non trivial portion of theists that would otherwise do things that range from annoying—like protesting outside soldier’s funerals—to dangerous, like shooting up abortion clinics.
But in the absence of a belief that incentives private virtue signaling to some deity, you get a much higher percentage of public virtue signaling that is a net negative for society. This behavior ranges from annoying—like telling people to check their privilege—to hurtful—like getting someone fired because you thought he was making the white power sign.
So while you cannot rationalize your way into believing in God just because you think it provides good public value, you can at least leave alone the faith of a harmless theist who performs his behavior in private.
