The modern atheist movement seeks to expel religion from all public spheres, bringing the secularization of Western societies to the possible maximum. To this end, its ideologists are working out a comprehensive critique of religion and in particular Christianity. One of the important directions of this criticism concerns morality. Among other objects to be denounced, the motivational and psychological aspect of the influence of religion on morality is singled out here. The aim of the article is to give a generalized analysis of the views of the new atheists on the essence of religious (mainly Christian) motives that determine the behavior of believers, and to show their predominant incorrectness. In the beginning, we consider the types of individual motivation ascribed to believers when they commit morally good acts or abstain from bad ones. Although the quality of these actions themselves is beyond doubt, the motives behind them – if they are specifically religious, and not purely human – are most often reduced to egoism and reprehensible, as those critics believe. Having made the necessary objections we proceed further to their thesis that religion is the main source of tribalism fraught with violence. It is proved that, contrary to this thesis, the world religions are oriented to unification, not division of humanity. Besides, it is argued that as a tendency of our nature tribalism has many manifestations, and religion opposes to the most dangerous of them being a unifying and conciliatory force. At the end, the idea is developed that the considered accusations of religion are a symptom of the deep disunity caused by the modern cultural wars. Moreover, the responsibility for these wars lies primarily on groups and movements hostile to Christianity.
ethics, secularism, culture wars, egoism, tribalism, fear, love of God.
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