Conflicting arguments

In his piece ‘The secular belief conundrum’, David Marinelli appears to conflate his definitions of the secular, and atheism, with the traits of a dark triad personality, into a theory that non-believers are “[u]nfettered by ethical or moral considerations”, “believe themselves to be God-like, to be free from consequence” and are thus the cause of political corruption.

The word secular means “not connected with religious or spiritual matters”, and nothing else. We have been unable to find any respected authority which includes “the lack of a moral code”, or that “secular people are, by definition, amoral, and materialistic” in its definition.

Similarly, atheism is simply an absence of belief in the existence of deities. That atheists believe “every man, woman and child exists only for his or her own sake and live accordingly” is an extrapolation not supported by evidence.

For example, countries such as Canada, Japan and the Scandinavian nations, in which levels of religious belief are comparatively low, don’t have greater-than-average levels of crime or other social problems.

There are moral and amoral religious people as there are atheists. Photo: Shutterstock.com

We agree with Marinelli that “[m]orality stands on the pillars of reciprocity (fairness), empathy (compassion) and truth (reality). When these precepts are applied in our personal life, at community level and at national level, we get the best results, the most harmony and well-being and the least conflict. This is how nature’s healthy ecosystems work”.

But morality is not the sole preserve of religion. We have evolved as social beings. We live in communities, in which life is much happier if its members are cooperative. Of course moral norms are often shared across different religions; but they are also shared within non-religious world views, which date back to antiquity.

We also agree that “[e]ach of us has our very own personal reality that we construct with our behaviour”. Religious and non-religious people alike cannot be all lumped together into moral and amoral cohorts. Rather, there are moral and amoral religious people, as there are atheists. So while we cannot answer “what do secular people believe?” for all atheists, we can definitely provide the Amsterdam Declaration of 2022 [https://humanists.international /what-is-humanism/the-amsterdam-declaration/] as an example of what secular humanists choose as their fundamental principles. We leave it to the reader to judge whether these are moral or amoral.

These clarifications aside, the most worrying aspect of Marinelli’s article is the implication that political and corporate elites have Machiavellian and psychopathic traits – because they are, he claims, “secular”. We are not qualified to assess whether any members of our political or other elites have dark triad personalities, but to seek to link the absence of religious belief with a psychological disorder is, to say the least, a step too far for the many, even in Malta, who are non-religious.

Christian Colombo, chair, and Joanna Williams, committee member, Humanists Malta – Valletta