Morality and Religion

I do not know if it is politics that confuses people, causing politicians to forget that they are servants of society and overstep their bounds by trying to lecture people, or if it is those who are already confused who enter politics. I seem to have jumped right into the subject, but let me first mention a few real-life events before we get to the main topic.

In the past, I used to order books for my profession from a bookstore in England known as the Economist Bookshop. In one response to my order, they informed me that the book I wanted was in stock, but since a new edition was being printed, they asked which one I preferred. Now, let me ask you: Can you imagine a bookstore in our country displaying such behavior? Honestly, I am a bit skeptical about this. Did the bookseller in England act this way out of fear of God, or by following the honest code of conduct gained and internalized by a civilized society? 

Let us look at another example. I was once serving on the Tax Council. Tradespeople who did not provide sales receipts to customers were given closure penalties. The tradesmen's union was demanding that this penalty be abolished and converted into a monetary fine. In an article, I had read that among the options of monetary fines, imprisonment, and social pressure for the effective implementation of taxes in England, the most effective was "social pressure." With this view, I defended the Tradesmen's Union's position in the Commission. In response to this defense, the finance officials developed a counter-argument I had never thought of before: "Professor, these rules work in reverse here, because a taxpayer who is penalized for tax evasion in one way or another is not met with social punishment, but rather with praise such as 'Bravo, how did he do it? Let us find a way too, we might even get out of the fine.'" So, how should we interpret the behavior of our people, which finance officials have learned from their long experience? Should we not wonder whether people lack the fear of God, or if the system itself is pushing people toward irregular behavior? In that case, is it the society that is far from the fear of God, or the political administrators who drag society into such quagmires? 

It is stated in holy books that the Supreme Creator sees what is done even in the most remote places and is aware of everything. This abstract expression is subject to interpretation. Its meaning may be that a person is personally responsible for every action they take, there are no loopholes, and they must be responsible for every action under their own supervision. A weakness in a person's understanding of morality means abandoning such personal control and responsibility. This is why the subject of morality goes hand in hand with the subject of conscience. The fact that an act committed in pitch darkness, where no one can see or reach, is still within the knowledge of the Supreme Creator means that this act is within the knowledge and responsibility of the person committing it. Therefore, every event, no matter how secretly it is carried out, disturbs the conscience of the doer, and it should. This is secular morality: being aware that the person who commits an act that no one else can see or hear is responsible for that act. This means that moral consciousness is nourished and elevated by conscience. A person without a conscience can find all sorts of excuses for the immorality they commit. 

We encounter hundreds of examples of this every day. An example? How can the elimination of those who are exceptionally successful in public personnel exams by showing them as unsuccessful in interviews due to party connections or views, and pushing them behind those who received lower scores, be linked to conscience first, and then to morality? Let us go even further: how can the promise made to society before an election that interviews in public employment would be abolished and success scores would be taken as the basis, and then continuing the same old practices after the election, be linked to any understanding of morality or accounting of conscience! 

Before closing this chapter, let us take a look at the Academics for Peace case. Can morality and conscience be found in a project where, after occupying prosecutors and judges working with the public's taxes and depriving a few thousand academics of their professional activities, the final stage is transformed into a matter of freedom of expression by a single vote(!) at the Constitutional Court? What kind of moral and conscientious dimension can there be in spending the nation's taxes in this way? How are we to explain the senseless pressure and partisanization of the press and academia from a moral perspective? 

The operation of the state mechanism, the working conditions and positions of members of parliament acting as if they are deputies of the party leader rather than the nation, and many other issues, as everyone knows, have no aspect that can be explained by morality or conscience. It is clear that a series of events that we could count endlessly have nothing to do with morality or conscience. I wish they did; then the state would be better managed, things would be more understandable, and Turkey's international reputation would be higher. 

So, how is it that politicians are constantly preaching religion to the public and linking the issue of morality to religion and the fear of God? Before we move on to discussing this issue, let us mention a very famous approach in psychology. It is this: a person constantly talks about the area they feel is lacking in themselves and their organization. For example, an aggressive person suppresses the pathology within them with implicit defenses such as saying that aggression is wrong. This is exactly how the issue of morality and the conscience that accompanies it works. Politicians who hide behind morality are actually hunting for votes by giving messages in their statements to the nation about how religious, moral, and God-fearing people they themselves are. The AKP is not an ordinary political party, but the politicized image of a reactionary-sectarian social structure. Just as the political power's dragging of society away from modernity and science can be digested with some understanding of morality and conscience, it is trying to hold and herd society with the fabric of religiousness and reactionism. 

If the Imam Hatip community had philosophical knowledge about all the world's religions and knowledge about Kant's moral philosophy, they would interpret and understand the verses of the holy book and the hadiths not literally, but by their meaning. It is well known that most provisions or statements in sacred texts have metaphorical meanings.  For example, in the provision that the world was created in six days, surely the six days mentioned are not the days of the week. Similarly, in the beautiful saying "paradise is under the feet of mothers," it is not literally meant that paradise is under the feet of mothers; it is meant that the path drawn by the mother, who is tasked with the nine-month pregnancy, subsequent care, and especially guiding the child in terms of truthfulness and honesty, is the path to paradise, and that it means knowing the value of the mother and following her teachings. Analogously, it is said that the shadows of scholars and teachers are long. The interpretation of this saying is similar. That is to say; this saying explains that the knowledge and grace of teachers will continue and develop even after their death through the students they have raised and guided. 

Morality and conscience cannot develop in an abstract environment. The fact that the West is seen as more moral is perhaps a result of the wealth and social protection circle they are in. When we look at our Turkey, there is no need to say much here, because after handing over the country to crony companies and imperialists, the situation is obvious, and this situation is also within the extraordinary knowledge of the politicians who preach morality to society. Such a society is prone to moral collapse. If politicians are responsible for the social and economic situation and the course of events, and if social conditions are effective on general moral and conscientious values, is the reason for the fear of God and the understanding of morality and conscience that politicians, who have dragged society into this state with the economic and political policies they implement, constantly preach to society, an externalization of their own inner anxieties, or is it deceiving society in the name of God? If politicians could look at the issue from this perspective as well, they could be more useful to both themselves and society. 

Fear of God, morality, conscience and political administration, the social benefit of Quran courses, the attitude of members of parliament, and even the attitude of the entire political structure; in terms of all these fabrics, does the massacre of an 8-year-old girl in the village of Tavşantepe(!) consisting of 10-14 families, which concerns us all closely, and the ensuing process, not contain many things that should be seen from social and political perspectives?