"People think our ethical principles come from religious denominations, but ethics are much longer standing." -- Hal Fishbein, psychology professor photo/Lisa Ventre

Blaming moral decline on the devil has been more than a slogan for some. Yet others at the University of Cincinnati say attaching society's morals to religion carries unexpected dangers.

“The biggest problem with our culture is that people think ethics is religion,” says philosophy professor Larry Jost. “Principles of ethics appeal to anyone of good will and intelligence. Giants of philosophy did not argue on the basis of religious principles. And that's for a good reason; there's lots of disagreement on the texts.”

Obtaining consensus on religion is tough enough within a single denomination, but the problem is compounded in the United States where religious freedom has attracted a wealth of varied traditions. “We've made it trickier to find a common set of moral principles to use across society,” Julian Wuerth of philosophy says.

The lure of simple solutions from religion grows stronger as life gets increasingly complex. “We want encyclopedic answers to all of life's toughest questions,” Jost says. “Religion wraps it up in one ball of wax.”

Psychology professor Hal Fishbein (memoriam) agrees that faith issues are not the foundational structure that many believe. “People think our ethical principles come from religious denominations, but ethics are much longer standing,” he says. “They were in the hunter-gatherer society from the beginning, which likely extends back 1 million years.”

Archeological and anthropological research shows that “humans and nonhuman primates evolved as members of closely knit subsistence groups,” he explains. “Members of the same tribe were relatively safe with and could count on nurturance from same-tribe members.

“Moral characteristics develop very readily in an environment that demands it. For humans, the predisposition was inborn. It's the way we were designed to operate.”

Those remarks, however, do not downplay the importance of religion in society. Jost uses a Judeo-Christian illustration from the Ten Commandments.

“It may not have occurred to the early Jews that adultery was bad unless God told them,” Jost says. “After all, temptation to commit adultery is pretty great; it's all over the Old Testament. So for those who believe in God, it's a good thing that he did tell them.

“But why is it wrong? Not because God said it was wrong, but because of the pain and suffering it causes another person. If God made us, then he understood we needed instructions, so he told us what was wrong.”

The bottom line, he explains, is that “we ought to see a logical difference between moral beliefs and religious beliefs.”

One UC alumnus has made his appreciation of both moral and religious beliefs evident to the whole world. In creating “The Waltons,” Earl Hamner, CCM '48, took the memories of his family singing Baptist hymns around the piano and shaped them into one of the country's most enduring images of family values.

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." -- G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936

“We should treasure the time-honored values that have stood us in such good stead all these years,” Hamner says, “to love our country, revere the flag, honor our mother and our father, love our neighbor as ourselves. When I was growing up in Virginia, those values were drilled into me, but we also need to put some effort into independent thought.

“I was told that I was my brother's keeper, but I learned that we had enslaved a good many of our brothers. I was told all men were created equal, but I saw women pretty much consigned to activities suitable only for the bedroom and the kitchen. I learned that I should do unto others as I would have others do unto me, but gay people seemed to be scorned and reviled.

“How true is everything we have been taught? How reliable is the information we are given? It is incumbent upon us to question and decide for ourselves exactly how valuable the 'traditional' values are in today's society.

“Happily today, the slave cabins exist only as museum exhibits, and while gays still have some strides to make toward full acceptance, that dark sad closet is almost empty.

“I believe that each of us is a work in progress. We believe we were created in God's image, but what if we were created as less than perfect and are reaching for a more God-like image? And so as we grow more in God's image, does it not make sense that we modify the old values to help us reach for a more perfect life for each of his children?”

Of course, there is a difference between modifying old values and abandoning them. Hamner, who wrote the screen adaptation for the movie “Charlotte's Web,” believes many television producers have done the latter.

“People want more family programming,” he told electronic-media and journalism students while he was on campus in April. “They want programs they can watch with their children without being embarrassed. They want programs about people like themselves, who aren't necessarily criminals or in need of lawyers.”

Nearly 13 years ago, the first President George Bush testified to Hamner's position as a role model in the industry when he announced at the Republican National convention, “We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.”