Reed Secular Alliance

What the Casey Anthony Case Teaches About Morality Without Religion

Leslie Zukor Introduces Daniel Dennett

By:  Leslie A. Zukor

Like many Americans, I have reacted with shock to the gruesome details of the death of Caylee Anthony.  Everything, from Caylee’s teeth being scattered about the crime scene, to the duct tape fastened around the little girl’s skull, has created visceral shock in me, as it has with all feeling Americans.

“What does this have to do with secularism?”  An enlightened reader may ask.  The answer is – it shouldn’t.  No American’s value system should be at stake in a murder investigation, except, of course, the criminal’s.  However, since Americans don’t have the most positive view of atheists, in a murder case, it’s often non-theists who are put on trial.

If God is dead, the religious ask, aren’t all things permitted?  The answer for me, at least,  is a resounding “no”!  I don’t believe in God, yet I rarely lie, nor do I cheat or do illicit drugs.  In short, the extent of my legal transgressions would be my propensity to jaywalk.  I also do confess that I have spat on the sidewalk.  Short of those two violations, I am a decent, law-abiding citizen.

Where do non-theists find ethics, if not in a religion?  I personally believe that morality exists out of our obligations to our fellow earth-dwellers.  Since we share this planet with others, we must treat everybody in a manner consistent with our collective needs and obligations.  This means that I should cause the least pain on others that is consistent with my own welfare.

While we may dispute the finer points of our ethical systems, in the murder of Caylee Anthony, Casey Anthony clearly violated her ethical obligations to her daughter.  She was to provide for that child.  Anthony was also in violation of basic human decency.  Her need to party outweighed her wish to be a mother, so instead of choosing adoption, she did away with little Caylee. 

Despite our differences on metaphysical matters, we can all agree that causing harm to an innocent toddler is not permissible.  And we don’t need a God to justify what common sense tells us.  Perhaps if Casey Anthony realized that this was her daughter’s – and her own – only shot at life, then she would have acted differently.  As a result of Casey Anthony’s actions, two lives have been destroyed, and all that’s left of Caylee – a little girl with a bright future – is ashes.

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 By:  Leslie A. Zukor

First, a confession:  In the four years I’ve been at Reed College, this is the first time I’ve been motivated to do anything for Darwin Day.  For me, Darwin Day was just another silly secular holiday, celebrated by the science-obsessed freethinkers, who lacked knowledge of 20th century social thought.  Although I wouldn’t admit it publicly, I’d taken our postmodern critics way too seriously, to the point of stifling my own freethought activism.

But now I felt differently.  What changed me?  Firstly, the growing realization that my success in college is due to the medical advancements of modern science.  As someone with a chronic medical condition, the only thing separating me from being bedridden is the 11 pills I swallow nightly.  If we accept that science is merely an Enlightenment metanarrative, then psychopharmacology is on an equal plain with sorcery.  And I can personally testify that only real medicine provides me with real pharmacological relief.

Does this mean that I full-heartedly agree with the science and reason freethinkers?  Hardly.  As any rational human being understands, science hasn’t been an unqualified good.  In order to provide us with the best standards of medical care, we have had to test on innocent animals, and even on less wealthy racial minorities.  Furthermore, in our haste to find cures, we sometimes have done more harm than good.  Such is the case with the overprescription of antidepressants, which have led to suicidality in some instances, not to mention mania in incorrectly diagnosed individuals.

While I recognize the pitfalls of science, the more I study postmodern critiques of science, the more I realize that we only have science to thank.  In short, the achievements of science are real and measurable, hardly on par with postmodernism.  For instance, last semester, I asked my Anthropology class to define ”postmodernity”, and no one could come up with a definition, only descriptions of what phenomena are postmodern.  And as we read Foucault in After Structuralism, I realize how murky postmodernism really is, not subject to the same kind of empirical verification as science.  Its achievement – obscurantism.  Hardly the same as science, which has tangibly changed my life.

What did the Reed Secular Alliance do for Darwin Day?  Honestly, not much.  Unlike other colleges, we didn’t have wine and cheese tasting parties, nor did we have an evolution film-showing.  As it turns out, we only hung flyers and put “I support science” stickers with Darwin fish on tables in Commons.  That may not sound like much.  At ”Godless” Reed College, creationists hardly exist, and the only enemy lurks in the Anthropology and English departments.  But for this freethinker, Darwin Day provided me an opportunity to reflect and be thankful – because without scientific pioneers like Charles Darwin, we’d know a lot less about man’s place on planet earth.

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The following Letter to the Editor was printed in this morning’s Oregonian.  At least some Portland residents understand that “godlessness” is not to blame for the January 24th shootings:

Blame schizophrenia

Russell Mathews’ Thursday letter to the editor blaming “godlessness” for the downtown shooting appeared in the same edition of The Oregonian as the revelation that Erik Ayala had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had undergone psychiatric hospitalization as a result of a suicide attempt (Feb. 5).

He subsequently received intensive follow-up mental health treatment while in high school, after possibly making threats about bringing a gun to school.

Schizophrenia cannot be treated by a belief in God and is not caused by being taught evolution. In order for these shootings to have been prevented, we would need a mental health care system that provides the type of care Ayala received as a student and one that could have followed up with him once he left school. We would also need gun laws that don’t allow selling a lethal weapon to someone with a history of mental illness who had shown evidence of being a threat to others.

EVA GOLD
Southeast Portland

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You’ve heard the arguments for why shootings happen.  Poverty, rage, mental illness.  Gun access.  But “godlessness”?  I know it’s counterintuitive, but Milwaukie, Oregon resident Russell Mathews believes a downtown Portland shooting was due to high levels of atheism in this metropolis.  “The young shooter,” Mathews explains, “was probably taught about evolution. He was probably influenced by atheism.  This lack of God leads to dangerous things that even the strictest laws cannot prevent.”  The shooter, Erik Ayala, opened fire in downtown Portland on January 24th, killing two and injuring seven, before taking his own life.

While I normally tolerate all points of view, I have difficulty according Russell Mathews’s position any measure of respect.  In this case, the shooter was schizophrenic, denied neuroleptics in 2000 because he couldn’t show proof of Oregon residence.  Yet under Oregon law, only nine years later, Ayala was eligible to buy a gun.  According to a piece in The Oregonian, “A November 2008 state report says 15,521 adults in Oregon have a serious mental illness and are not covered by insurance or otherwise treated by state programs.” And somehow atheists are to blame? 

I sure wonder what kind of God Mathews worships – a God who is supposedly all-good and all-powerful, yet who stikes innocent people with psychosis and poverty, and doesn’t even have the consideration to give Ayala the neuroleptics that would help him?  Instead of attacking those who don’t believe in God, Russell Mathews would do well to spend his time working to get healthcare for uninsured Oregon inhabitants.  Erik Ayala could really have used it.

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