This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and which I’ve actually mentioned in arguments in my personal blog (in Portuguese), about the abortion referendum in Portugal. It was also inspired in part, by posts by TXStorm in the Way of the Mind Forum, and by some parts of Sam Harris’ The End of Faith.

The question is this: are morality and suffering related, or independent? In other words, when trying to figure out if a particular action is moral or immoral, should we consider the suffering that it will cause (both to ourselves and to others) the most important factor? A less important factor? Or not at all?

Well, if reducing suffering or creating joy aren’t the basis of morality, then it raises (not “begs”! I’m sick of that mistake! “begging the question” is a logical fallacy.) an obvious question: then what is the basis of morality? And any answer to that question, unless I’m missing something, is necessarily something arbitrary.

If morality isn’t reducing suffering or creating joy, then it’s obeying something or someone: an authority figure, a god, society, a government, etc.. And, in many cases, obeying those abstract and arbitrary “rules of morality” causes a lot of suffering to many — indeed, it’s one of the biggest causes of suffering in the world.

The biggest culprit? Religion, of course. Nothing and no one separates morality from suffering as well and as much as religion does.

Think about it. Muslims around the world torture their women (there’s really no other word for it) because of their religion. Women in many countries are condemned to lives of pain and humiliation, treated as worse than animals. Now, any “normal”, decent human being would feel empathy for the suffering of millions of innocent women, and would perhaps try to put a stop to it. But Muslim men don’t do it, because of religion. In fact, they are taught since birth that doing such a horror to their women is moral, and that not doing so would be immoral. They are blinded to the suffering they cause, because, to them, morality and suffering are unrelated.

This, of course, doesn’t happen just among Muslims. Take Christianity. AIDS runs rampant in Africa, and yet a Pope tells them that using contraceptives is a “sin”, that it’s immoral. Why? Because God “says” so. Obeying God (an arbitrary commandment) is moral; who cares about suffering? This life is but a test to see whether you go to heaven or not, anyway.

Stem cell research is banned. It could lead to the easing of the suffering of millions, but who cares about that? It’s “immoral”, because God says so. Abortion is another example: anyone who is dogmatically against it doesn’t care about the suffering of mothers and children; it offends their “morality”, so it must be forbidden.

Sex education is a bad thing, because it may lead (horror of horrors!) to young people believing that, hey, sex is not a “sin” after all, but a perfectly natural, healthy thing. And that will not do, since the Bible tells us that sex is “dirty”, and that sex between unmarried people is “sinful”. So people are kept afraid of their own sexuality, are told that any of their desires are “dirty” and “immoral”, and that sex is for reproduction only, and should never give “pleasure”.

Homosexuals are told that their sexuality is “unnatural” and “an abomination”, condemning many of them to lives of shame, of self-denial, of lies. Why? It’s in the Bible. That it will cause them to suffer during the entirety of their lives is irrelevant; who cares about suffering, anyway? Morality is obeying God, and only that matters.

I could go on, and mention the crusades, the inquisitions, the attempts of Christians to ban anesthesia (because it “interfered with God’s punishment against Eve”, believe it or not!), their attempts to prevent the end of slavery (it’s in the Bible, after all), and all the other atrocities committed in the name of religion. But there’s really no need; right now, either you have seen what’s absolutely and utterly wrong with separating morality and suffering, or are sticking — and probably will always do so — to the abstract, arbitrary “morality” of doing what someone (whether real or not) wants. If many suffer… who cares, right? You feel “moral”, and that’s what’s important.