This is a topic I see frequently because religion offends radical atheists and they have to try to disprove it to make it go away. Perhaps I should also post this in my Nation of Wusses blog - nah.
The whole foundation of this complaint is really pointless. It's like the one that I like to point out about the Jesus story which goes like this: When Jesus was born of a virgin there were already similar stories. In other words, since someone thought of the idea before God caused it to happen, it's not true. And that's like saying that since some science fiction writer thought of a futuristic idea, then when that futuristic idea happened, it didn't really because somebody already thought of it.
Which did come first and does it matter? That, of course, depends on how things really happened. If the Adam and Eve story is true, religion happened first because the original couple didn't know the difference between right and wrong. If, on the other hand, Moses was some power-crazed maniac who used religion to manipulate the masses, and there was no religion before that (a wonderful concept to those radical atheists), then morality came first. Does it matter? Not a bit.
Morality is caring about other people. If you give something that is meaningful or valuable to you, you are committing an act of morality. Where morality came from is irrelevant. What is relevant is why you are being moral. With most people, including religious ones, the reason is that they care about another person. Beyond this level of caring there is the higher level of caring for a reason. Anyone, for example, can care about his or her own children. That's mostly natural (some people don't). But there is a level beyond that which is embodied in the Golden Rule - treating others as you would wish to be treated. Even an atheist can do this and it won't even offend me. Nor will I accuse him of acting religiously.
Religion in its pure form is realizing that you are responsible to a higher Power. Knowing that a higher Power gave you life and expects you to follow his guidelines as you would follow the guidelines of your father who also expects you to be responsible. Those guidelines, according to Judaism which has studied them most, are the proper relationship to God and, as an image of that relationship, how you treat your fellow man (that means fellow human for the non-literate feminists out there).
Morality is a good thing. Any atheist or anyone else can be moral. The difference is that religions have sets of morals explaining how one should treat others just as societies have sets of morals. Not everyone agrees on the topic of drugs but a society has to make a determination on how to deal with the drugs and make that a law in order to preserve that society. In the same way, a religion has a set of laws by which all its members are uniformly expected to act in its society. There are good and bad religions. There are good and bad societies. This has no bearing on God. God is perfect while religion may not be perfect. But without religion this world would not be as pleasant as it is.
The Laws of Moses, all 613 of them, were originally the rules of a society named Israel. There were many enemies, many diseases, and so on, and the children of Israel were for all practical purposes a brand new nation coming out of Egyptian subservience. The 613 guidelines Moses gave them to live their lives by put order and discipline into their society. If they had had the attitude of many modern Americans they would never have made it to the promised land. We ourselves know that in times of war the rules have to be tightened up a good bit (except lately due to the ignorance of how such things work). Many people criticize the Bible for its eye for an eye outlook. What those people don't understand is that that concept was an improvement over other societies' laws of the time. It didn't specify how one should be punished by considering their class in society. Now everyone had a single rule that made everyone equal. That's better than we have in our 'enlightened' 21st Century America. I will inevitably discuss other so-called Barbaric laws in future articles, not now.
Another drastic difference between morality chosen by the individual and religious morality is that it is necessary for the masses to agree upon what is right and what is wrong. This is impossible when each person decides for himself. As an example - and I am not telling people whether or not they should smoke - there is a war in our country on the matter of smoking. What I will refer to as the radical smokers have the opinion that they should be able to smoke anywhere and if you don't like it, go away. What I will refer to as the radical non-smokers have the opinion that smokers should not ever smoke anywhere. So all smokers must be legislated out of existence. People have asked me what they should do if two people are together and one person believes something is okay while the other person doesn't. I simply say: Be polite. If it bothers the other person, don't do it while you are around them (this includes foul language, young people). In the case of smoking there used to be a polite phrase repeated millions and millions of times - Mind if I smoke?
There are few things people agree on if they're honest with themselves. Whether something is right or wrong is one of them. Sure, we almost totally agree on the big ones but all those little things in our lives such as how fast we should drive our cars - well, that's a different story. If each person decides what is right and wrong we will have chaos unless there is something or Someone to be responsible to. Very few people can control themselves as well as they think they can. Therefore it doesn't matter whether religion came first or morality came first. What's important is to be moral and consider the feelings of others.
