In ancient and medieval times religion was practically the only moral beacon for people. Different beliefs provided moral guidance systems various in depth and complexity. However, in present-day society religion ceased to play that role. In the theoretical situation where no gods and celestial beings are taken into account, nothing would change for me in terms of behavior.
The key ideas about how to behave in society were given to me proportionately by my parents in the process of upbringing. My family is not very religious and all the advice they give me they take from their life experience and the life experience of their friends, colleagues, and parents. Some fundamental moral issues such as killing other people have never occurred in my head as it is some kind of inherent knowledge in a civilized society. I do not kill other people not because it is punishable by law but because it will be an improper and inhuman action. The structure of society itself and the relative abundance of civilization benefits such as accessible food, water, and shelter has long diverted humanity from killing each other for them.
Even if people knew that God is not watching them, I doubt that religious people would resort to violence and massacre others in that very instant. I am inclined to believe so partly because of the absence of a need for such an ultimate measure, and partly because it is punishable by law. Some experts say that it is a fact that the laws of human society were built upon common sense and biblical (or equivalent) religious laws (Sia, 2008). Even if that is so, the absence of God would not undo these laws and would not erase the fact that the punishment for non-compliance will not find a person responsible for a crime.
Another argument is that the materialist culture has become dominant in many countries around the world. More and more people are now obsessed with achievements in their current life period (Milner & Browitt, 2013). Religion promises that most of the punishments and rewards for misdeeds will come in the afterlife so, in this life, one has to be decent and worthy of God’s blessing. Nowadays the values have shifted. Since science has not yet found solid proof of the existence of the afterlife, there is less concern for the latter. Furthermore, there is no proof that actions in this life will influence the afterlife even if there is one. An alternative, non-religious view on morale and ethics of behavior could be gathered from chivalry or collective gentleman’s or lady’s code of behavior that could be found in the literature (Foucault & Carrette, 2013). With the abundance of sources of moral guidance, people chose to believe in different things that gave them some sort of purpose in life and justification for their actions. It is difficult for a grown person to shift his or her paradigm but even if they realize that their current set of beliefs ceases to exist, they usually seek another. There would most likely be a ‘crisis of faith’ but I do not believe that major rampage would follow.
All things considered, I do not share Dostoyevsky’s point of view and I would not conduct myself differently. In the modern world, moral values come rather from family upbringing and materialistic culture upheld by the rule of law than from religion. Since people tend to find moral guidance from different sources, an absence of one will be substituted by another.
References
Foucault, M., & Carrette, J. (2013). Religion and Culture. Florence, KY: Taylor and Francis.
Milner, A., & Browitt, J. (2013). Contemporary cultural theory: An introduction. London, UK: Routledge.
Sia, S. (2008). Ethics and Religion. New Blackfriars, 89(1024), 702-709.