Introduction
In this post, I would like to talk in the name of atheists and agnostics, as they are not devoted to a religious book for which they should behave in a certain way to avoid punishment. Still, they avoid certain behaviors labeled immoral by the generality of religions because the act either hurts a human being, an animal, an organization, or a community, or it is against the law, or just because it doesn't feel right. The last reason is also one of the motives why certain followers of religion have the same moral basis as atheists or other humans do. They both share the idea that something doesn't feel right, but one side avoids it mainly to not disappoint a deity, while the other side avoids it with their personal feeling and instincts, which differ between individuals and cultures.
Ultimately, we do not need God to judge an act as moral or immoral. That doesn't make it easier to judge what is moral and what is not. An act can depend on a context or a situation for it to be considered moral by some and immoral by others. At the end of the day, morality based on human decisions, independent of the God humans created, will always be more advantageous to human nature as they can not justify any immoral acts by attributing them to a Godly purpose, like killing. Thus, in a secular society, there is no justification for killing, unless it happens behind the scenes as a form of corruption. In a society ruled by religion, there are many justifications for an immoral response toward certain acts, of which killing is just one example. Absolute morality that has no progressive characteristics and no adaptation to its time does not guarantee a healthy society just because its motivation has a divine basis, meaning revelation. Morality should be open to discussion and reasoning for the best adaptation to a situation and individual, by considering the most basic human rights as well, like freedom.
Is a religious society more righteous?
To answer this question, we can dive deep into different research, but this space is a personal blog, and it is not the main question of this post. I will give certain cross examples of serious issues in different secular and religious societies to see in a general way, without trying to prove anything, that immorality is a human issue, not that of God's absence. An easy example we can immediately remember is that prisons exist in every country.
Cross examples
The United States' thirst for oil has ruined the Middle East. Child marriages, thus pedophilia, are common in Muslim countries because Mohamed's marriage with Aisha justifies it. In China, Xi Jinping and the Communist Party are killing and exploiting Uyghurs in the form of genocide. In Sharia-led countries, people are stoned for adultery, and an atheist like me deserves death for apostasy. Vladimir Putin has declared war on Ukraine and has killed many innocent civilians since. Female genital mutilation, which has no benefit and can cause serious harm is a human rights issue that is largely practiced in Muslim communities because Mohamed made it an option and not an obligation, but did not oppose the idea of it. In the secular Republic of Türkiye, which has a Muslim majority, hundreds of women are killed every year. In the whole world, statistically, when women are angry or upset, they either argue or leave their partner, but men kill. In many Arab countries, Black people are seen as inferior and brought from certain African countries to work like people who are turned into slaves by taking away their passports to end up in a vicious circle of surviving by working in very bad conditions.
These cross examples show us that the belief in God does not stop humans from behaving immorally in Muslim countries, nor does His absence guarantee a moral state. It shows us that, whether there is a Godly purpose for the practice or avoidance of a moral or immoral act, the individual will choose how to behave. Thus, calling an atheist or an agnostic someone who is not reliable or trustworthy, now that they do not have a God to fear to avoid, for example, stealing or killing, is the most irrational saying one can express.
From here on, after clarifying this very important information, I can finally tell more about the next part: certain beautiful Islamic morals I will still keep as an ex-Muslim now that I am an atheist, as they are still part of my culture. Yes, being Muslim is more than faith, it is a whole package of cultural codes one always carries with themselves. These morals mostly intertwine with my Turkish cultural background as well, as most Muslims experience their faith differently with the cultural codes of their upbringing.
The following Islamic morals come from my personal experience. They can not be the basis for understanding the whole Muslim community.
Hygiene
Muslims practice a small washing before every daily prayer, but it is not the only practice that keeps them hygienic. I grew up in a household where all my family members always wash their hands before and after doing almost anything. The first competition I might have entered as a child was to be able to wash my hands with cold water because not washing was not an option, but using warm water was.
Like me, a lot of Muslim children do not have the choice not to wash their hands, because almost all Muslim parents control this behavior with the same question: "Let me smell your hands.". It was my quickest rise of adrenaline to rush to the bathroom by laughing so hard if I forgot and saw my grandmother being all serious about it. She would always buy a different hand soap when the old one was finished, and that made us a good tester of all these different scented hand soaps. I remember the different fruity scents, the transparent ones with a Nemo fish on them, the milk & honey ones, and the Turkish brands with a rose or a peach smell, ... This experience is one to remember, but a very strong habit that could only be beneficial for me.
Eating habits
1. Quantity: “…one-third for food, one-third for liquid, and one-third for breathing.”
There is this culture of not wasting food in Islam, but it is balanced with a mindset of not overeating. The quote that I used in this title is a saying of Mohamed. Although not all Muslim countries follow this practice, I grew up with a dominant presence of this attitude. It taught me to satisfy my hunger enough by not filling myself just because there is more food. Certain parents may wrongly practice this attitude by focusing only on not wasting food, thus overeating. That was not my case, and because of it, I learned to avoid gluttony, which is also one of the big seven sins in Christianity, not only as an act but also as a mental and physical burden.
2. Respect: waiting for everyone before starting to eat
I learned the habit of waiting for everyone before starting to eat in a soft way, which was my parents communicating with me through eye contact after the first bite I had at the wrong moment, right before all the people were on the table. Even though this eye contact could have different intensities, I had my food after being patient. The raw lesson of teaching me to be patient reflects itself throughout other Islamic practices and ways of thinking.
3. Eating codes
In Islamic upbringing, it is Sunnah (practices of Mohamed: a Muslim can attain spiritual growth if they imitate him) to eat with bare hands. It was not a choice in our household to follow that practice. I guess there are things Muslims choose not to follow, or maybe my family didn't know that it was something that would lead them to attain spiritual growth.
Having parents from Bolu (Türkiye) and being born in Brussels (Belgium), I grew up in two cultures that shared a big love for potatoes. Even to eat our most sacred food, which was fried potatoes both for my Turkish culture and Brussels culture, I was not allowed to do so with my bare hands. It's a different story now, but only for potatoes.
Being a patient person
The mindset of trusting God to the fullest can sometimes make a Muslim passive on different occasions, but one thing it teaches them is to go with the flow and trust the process. That is another way of saying that this mentality teaches how to be patient. To actively respond to certain situations or to try to control how things should go, is seen as trying to intervene in what can not be changed. One verse from the Quran (2:216) is often cited to keep calm and not let the things around you affect you that much, even though it might have been used out of its context. The verse is a lesson for Muslims to live slowly because God knows best.
"Perhaps you dislike something which is good for you and like something which is bad for you. Allah knows and you do not know."
Al-Baqarah, 2:216
To not immediately believe that a bad, unpleasant, or terrible situation is a negative thing is an attitude that teaches hope and tempers pessimism by trusting God. To be aware that a good situation can also be a disguise of something bad teaches you to be aware and to tolerate disappointment, by giving Muslims a more realistic attitude.
Hygiene, eating habits, and patience: three primary morals to live with
Looking at the Muslim community, I know that this experience would be very different considering all individual experiences. In my case, these three values and morals are a package that includes my Turkish background, the Belgian morals and values I grew up with, and the God in Islam for whom all of these practices were justified. These values are the basis that define a big part of my daily life. Hygiene as a value is how I individually take care of my body and is the value that reflects the closest on myself again, like the first layer around my body, figuratively. The eating habits that I learned are another form of taking care of my body, but they also affect my mood and the way I think, for me to communicate with my environment. It is an attitude that is formed by my interaction with food, something that is external. This might be the second layer around the value of hygiene, as it has something that reflects a little more on the environment. Finally, patience might be the layer around the eating habits, thus also around hygiene, not only because it reflects the most on my environment and how I communicate with myself and others, but also because the two internal values have characteristics of patience. They are the first values that taught me and remind me to continue doing these practices even though, at times, it might be difficult.
Conclusion
Three values are not that much, but they have very primary characteristics that influence my daily life and other decisions, like the way I think, behave, and respond. Now that there is no God that motivates me to keep on practicing these traditions, from whom I would unconsciously expect satisfaction and love for behaving the way He ordered us to, for our well-being in the first place, it makes sense that putting a God as the purpose for a behavior is the best way to motivate a community to practice a certain way until it becomes a habit. The emotional approach of the Islamic upbringing towards not performing a certain tradition is that God would be disappointed. Growing up with these thoughts, without first experiencing the world outside my fantasies, I admit that it has been a very good way to make me do certain things, and in this case, for my well-being.
This post is a clear example of cherry-picking morals.
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