Human Conscience and Religion

The Birth of Conscience: How Humans Became Moral Without Allah or Religion

It was almost seventy-five thousand years ago. A group of Neanderthals lived in the Shanidar Cave in Iraq. In that group there was an elderly male whose one arm was useless, one eye was blind, and there were marks of serious injury on his leg. Such a person, who could not hunt on his own, could not gather food by himself – in that harsh prehistoric life he was kept alive for years by the others in his group. When archaeologists found his skeleton, they realized that this man had lived for many years through the service and care of others. Someone would bring him food, someone would clean his wounds. No religious scripture had yet been written, no prophet had come, no temple–mosque–church had been built. And yet a group of humans (or human-like creatures) did not abandon a disabled companion, but protected him for years. I am talking about a time almost seventy thousand years before the origin of Allah and religion.

This story places us before a fundamental question – where did human conscience and morality actually come from? Is it a gift from some creator, or an achievement of humans through the continuity of evolution?

How conscience developed?

Conscience or moral sense did not form in a single day. It is the product of a process of evolution over millions of years. Scientists mainly speak of three processes.

First, kin selection. Those animals that were caring toward their own offspring or close relatives had their genes survive more in subsequent generations. Thus, tendencies of affection, protection and sacrifice gradually became genetically stronger.

Second, reciprocal altruism. When humans began to live in groups, the person who helped others today would receive help himself when in trouble tomorrow. Those who cheated lost trust within the group, and thus in the long run had fewer chances of survival. In this way, cooperation, trust and a sense of fairness became embedded in the social brain of humans.

Third, group selection. Those groups whose members were empathetic toward each other and united survived and reproduced more than rival groups. As a result, cooperative behavior has persisted at the species level.

The structure of the brain also plays an important role here. The mirror neurons in the human brain help us feel the pain or joy of others – from here empathy is born. The prefrontal cortex, which is the center of decision-making and self-control, gives humans the ability to go beyond immediate impulses and judge good and bad.

When did humans master morality?

Anthropology and archaeology tell us that as social animals, the basic forms of cooperation and fairness existed among human ancestors at least five to seven hundred thousand years ago, when Homo erectus or earlier species hunted in groups and shared food. In Homo sapiens, modern moral thought – conscious judgment of right and wrong, the concept of punishment and reward – probably began to become clear about one to two hundred thousand years ago, when language and symbolic thinking developed. That is, long before the birth of organized religion, humans had been practicing morality. No one even knew the name of Allah or any religion then.

Is conscience obtained genetically from birth?

Research says that a seed of morality exists in humans from birth, although a full moral sense is formed through environment and education. In experiments conducted by Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University, it was found that even infants only a few months old prefer helpful characters over obstructive characters – which proves that a basic sense of good and bad exists innately.

However, this innate sense is only raw material. According to Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory, the seeds of several basic moral feelings – care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity – are innate, but family, society, culture and religion give them specific shape. So it can be said that the potential for morality is genetic, but its development is entirely a social process. Studies with twin children have also shown that there is a genetic component in empathy and cooperative tendencies, though it is not a sole determinant.

Do other animals have conscience and morality?

Decades of research by primatologist Frans de Waal have shown that humans are not alone in possessing morality. Chimpanzees and bonobos comfort each other, reconcile after conflict, and protest against unfair behavior. In a famous experiment on capuchin monkeys, it was observed that if one monkey is given a smaller reward and another a larger reward for the same task, the monkey receiving less shows clear irritation and even rejects the reward – which is a primitive form of a sense of fairness. Elephants express grief over dead companions, dolphins push injured companions up to the surface of the water to help them breathe, and even rats have been seen in experiments trying to free trapped companions without thinking of their own gain.

However, there are differences too. Although animals have primitive forms of empathy and a sense of fairness, the capacity for abstract moral reasoning, creating moral rules for future generations, or building universal moral philosophies appears to be most developed in humans so far. Therefore, it can be said that the seeds of morality are widespread in the animal kingdom, but its full development is a unique characteristic of humans.

How long before the origin of religion did the practice of conscience and morality begin?

Organized religion – with specific deities, scriptures, priestly systems – is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history; its widespread development occurred only about eight to twelve thousand years ago with agrarian civilizations. Yet archaeological evidence shows that humans have been engaging in moral behaviors such as burying the dead, caring for injured or sick companions, and sharing food for at least one to two hundred thousand years – which is many, many times older than the institutional form of religion. In other words, morality is not the offspring of religion; rather morality came first, and religion later arrived to give that morality organized form and interpretation, which in turn often fails to meet many modern moral standards.

Would humans become immoral without religion?

On this question, thinkers are divided into two views. One group believes that religion provides humans with an extra layer of accountability – the concept of reward and punishment in the afterlife restrains people from wrongdoing, and religious communities bind people within a shared moral framework. Their argument is that without religion this collective moral discipline might weaken.

Another group, especially evolutionary psychologists and philosophers, believe that morality can survive in a secular way, because its foundation lies in empathy, mutual dependence and social contracts, not in divine commands. As evidence, they point out that various psychological studies have shown that atheists or agnostics, on average, display similar or comparable levels of moral behavior.

The reality is probably somewhere between these two poles. For many people, religion is a major source of moral inspiration, communal cohesion and a sense of meaning – this cannot be denied. At the same time, it is also true that the psychological basis of morality lies deeper than religion, rooted in evolution. Therefore, the claim that “without religion humans will become immoral” is an oversimplification. Both history and psychology show that morality is not entirely dependent on religion, although religion can strengthen it.

Are people in non-religious countries more moral?

This question is controversial, and it is necessary to look at data carefully here. In research by sociologist Phil Zuckerman, it has been found that comparatively less religion-based countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Japan have lower crime rates, higher social trust, less corruption, and often rank at the top of happiness indices. Showing these statistics, some claim that irreligiosity increases morality.

But before reaching this conclusion, it is important to be cautious about causal relationships. These countries are at the same time extremely wealthy, highly educated, equipped with strong social safety nets, and relatively homogeneous societies – all of these factors are directly related to reducing crime and increasing social trust; irreligiosity is only one among these factors and may not be the main cause. Conversely, in many highly religious countries and societies, we also see extraordinarily moral and humane individuals at the personal level, and globally religious institutions and individuals contribute massively to charitable work. Therefore, instead of arriving at the simplistic conclusion that “people in non-religious countries are inherently more moral,” it is better to say: in determining morality, economic security, education, transparency of governance and social structure play a much more direct role than religion or irreligion. This remains a contentious topic among researchers, with no universally accepted answer.

Returning to the beginning…

Recall again that elderly Neanderthal of the Shanidar Cave. The humans or human-like creatures who kept him alive for years had no religious scriptures, no fear of the afterlife or promise of reward, and no one named Allah giving them any instructions. All they had was a deep biological urge of affection, responsibility and empathy toward one another – which is rooted deep in human evolution.

This story teaches us that morality did not come from a single source. It came from the long path of evolution, from the structure of the brain, from the necessities of social living – and later religion, philosophy, education and culture arrived to organize and enrich it in various forms. Humans are born with a seed of morality, but that seed grows into a full tree through family, society, experience and reflection. Its echoes exist in the animal world too – we are not alone.

The most important lesson is that to be moral, it is not mandatory to belong to any particular belief, country or community – morality is a universal potential of the human species, nurtured in different ways in different cultures. So the question is not which religion or which country is more moral – the question should be how consciously we are nurturing that primordial human impulse in our everyday lives, the impulse that once taught a group of prehistoric humans not to abandon their disabled companion but to protect him.