Because moral considerations lie hidden behind religious attitudes?

Question

Does " This is important, because moral considerations lie hidden behind religious attitudes to other topics that have no real link with morality" mean "this is important, because, although other topics have no real link with morality, but if we take a look at the religious attitudes towards the "other topics", we can find there are moral considerations (of the religious people) hidden behind them"?

Context:

Many religious people find it hard to imagine how, without
religion, one can be good, or would even want to be good. I shall
discuss such questions in this chapter. But the doubts go further,
and drive some religious people to paroxysms of hatred against
those who don't share their faith. This is important, because moral
considerations lie hidden behind religious attitudes to other topics
that have no real link with morality. A great deal of the opposition
to the teaching of evolution has no connection with evolution itself,
or with anything scientific, but is spurred on by moral outrage. This
ranges from the naive 'If you teach children that they evolved from
monkeys, then they will act like monkeys' to the more sophisticated
underlying motivation for the whole 'wedge' strategy of 'intelligent
design', as it is mercilessly laid bare by Barbara Forrest and Paul
Gross in Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent
Design.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

NL888Does " This is important, because moral considerations lie hidden behind religious attitudes to other topics that have no real link with morality" mean "this is important, because, although other topics have no real link with morality, but if we take a look at the religious attitudes towards the "other topics", we can find there are moral considerations (of the religious people) hidden behind them"?

It's essentially a restated form of the same sentence, but with the clauses in a different order, so yes, the meaning is the same. If you understand your own paraphrase, then you understand the original.

CJ

NL888 · Answer

Thanks.
But the problem is that the author (Dawkins) immediately gives us an example of one of the "other topic" - Darwinian evolution, which sarcastically has real link to morality (the passage or the context is exactly under the chapter title "The root of morality: why are we good?"). Because according Dawkins, Darwinian process, rather than ***, gave birth to morality.

CalifJim · Answer

NL888But the problem is that the author (Dawkins) immediately gives us an example of one of the "other topics" - Darwinian evolution, which sarcastically ? has a real link to morality (the passage or the context is exactly under the chapter title "The root of morality: why are we good?"). Because according to Dawkins, the Darwinian process, rather than ***, gave birth to morality.

I don't see anything sarcastic here, so I think you may have intended to use a different word.

According to Dawkins, the Darwinian process, rather than ***, gave birth to morality.

That may be true, but according to the text, that's not what religious people believe. They believe the opposite. They believe that ***, rather than the process of evolution, gave birth to morality. So the two views are in conflict.

Dawkins seems to be saying that the religious people don't object to evolutionary theory on its own, but on the grounds that it competes with their own religious view of the origins of morality. As he says, the religious people don't seem to have any rational objection to evolution. Instead, they have "moral outrage" against it. (Of course, Dawkins believes that this moral outrage comes about through evolutionary processes, and the religious people think the moral outrage comes through ***.) Nevertheless, it is not entirely clear to me from this passage what Dawkins's point really is. Maybe you have to wait until you get further into that chapter before he explains it in greater detail.

CJ

NL888 · Answer

I did use the word "sarcastically. But if "other topics that have no real link with morality" referred to ""other topics that the religious people think have no real link with morality", that will be okay, no irony there. But I am not sure whether Dawkins means to be this.

CalifJim · Answer

NL888I did use the word "sarcastically. ... no irony there.

If I understand what you're aiming at here, "irony" is more to the point than "sarcasm", but I don't think Dawkins would see the irony, nor do I. At worst we might accuse him of giving an example that might lead to some confusion.

NL888if "other topics that have no real link with morality" referred to ""other topics that the religious people think have no real link with morality"

I don't see that reference in the given passage.

Dawkins's claims amount to saying that there is nothing in the theory of evolution by natural selection that makes it subject to judgments in terms of morality. It's science. There is no component of the theory that puts it into the world of morality. There's nothing in it that states, for example, that people should be honest, that they should not steal or kill, or, indeed, the reverse advice, that people should lie, steal, and kill. All of the explanations within the theory of evolution are based on observable facts and scientific reasoning. In that sense, it is neither moral nor immoral, and it makes no sense for people, whether they are religious or not, to say that the theory is moral or that it isn't. ("no real link with morality") Yet, the objections of religious people seem to be based on their assessment that the theory itself is immoral (because it leads to conclusions that contradict some of their religious beliefs).

That claim (above) is actually separate from the claim that morality is the result of evolution. Now we're considering systems of morality as the products of evolution, as Dawkins sees them, not about whether the scientific theory of evolution is a moral theory. Dawkins claims that morality came about naturally through the processes of evolution, not because a divine being talked to human beings and told them that they would be moral if they just followed certain rules that were specified.

CJ

NL888 · Answer

Good point.

But Dawkins is apparently using scientific reasoning to push the scientific theory - the Darwinian theory of evolution by national selection forward.

NL888 · Answer

Typo:national selection --- natural selection

Because moral considerations lie hidden behind religious attitudes?

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