Md. Nurul Haque

Whenever we pick up the newspapers and commence going through them, the headlines of embezzlement of thousands of crores of money, extortion, oppression, suppressions, extra-judicial killing, enforced disappearance, and overall intolerance and atrocities. And the people who are involved in these heinous criminal activities are highly educated, erudite, and primarily upper cast of this materialistic society.

Have you ever noticed that theft and thievery in rustic areas have drastically decreased? On the other hand, people who are so-called educated and financially well-off within urban societies and exercising powers are involved comparatively much in those inhuman and abject activities. What are the reasons behind these moral degradations of society?

To thoroughly investigate and comprehend the answers to this question, we must examine the last two decades' social, educational, financial, and religious upheavals. Our education system has been bankrupted by an infinite, inhumane, competitive immorality of being successful in the mundane sense of success. We teach our students from the very outset of their schooling, even from the cradle to death, the sick competition rather than cooperation. We even teach how to initiate the ominous competition but don’t teach how and when to stop it. When death comes to equal the disparity between people of the upper and lower class, we still partialize them with costly coffin dresses and sophisticated graveyards with golden-marked epitomes.

We have also obliterated religious and moral teaching from our syllabi and curriculum to establish a secular and materialistic society. Here, the ends justify the means. The scales and ideals of a successful personality in society are the abundance of money and wealth gained without any justifications other than humanity and spirituality. That’s why people who are educated and conferred with the highest degrees from top-class universities like BUET and Medical are also utterly aberrated and corrupted. We come to universities to learn knowledge, skills, and attitudes. We may be highly successful in producing graduates with knowledge and skills, but we have failed to instill positive attitudes from religion and morality.

Our education systems are victims of some foreign blueprints that have utterly vacated them from religiosity and morality. We instill sophisticated software in young minds without wielding it with antivirus software. We try to imitate, forgetting our originality, and finally, we end up with mixed-up cocktails.

So, the British educator William James warned about the consequences of education without moral teaching. The idea is that teaching just the "three Rs" (Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic) without ethical or moral instruction could lead to creating educated but immoral individuals. The original quote paraphrased is:" Teach the three Rs (Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic) without the fourth 'R' (Responsibility/ religion), and you will get Rascality." This emphasizes the importance of moral education alongside academic learning.

Here comes another question: is it possible to teach morality without religion? The obvious answers are subject to heated debate. Some say it is feasible to impart moral values without resorting to religion, as moral values can originate from impartial principles rooted in empathy, social responsibility, and ethical deliberation. By comprehending the intricate relationship between humans, individuals can construct a moral structure rooted in the inherent principles of compassion, fairness, and justice. Philosophical ethics, such as Kantian deontology or utilitarianism, offer elaborate frameworks for assessing morally correct and incorrect behaviors without depending on faith-based beliefs. Moreover, moral literacy can be transmitted by employing societal conventions, analytical reasoning, and cultural anticipations, cultivating moral agents within a secular framework.

Nations such as Japan and Norway integrate secular principles to impart moral ethics without depending on religious beliefs. Schools in Japan prioritize moral education by implementing a "Moral Education" that centers on societal principles, including accountability, respect, empathy, discipline, and cooperation. Teachers promote students' contemplation of the repercussions of their acts and cultivate collective concord, a principle well ingrained in Japanese culture and customs.

In Norway, schools employ a humanistic and philosophical methodology to impart knowledge about ethics and citizenship, emphasizing individual rights, empathy, tolerance, respect for others, and critical thinking principles. The curriculum advocates for democratic ideals, equality, and the importance of comprehending different viewpoints, intending to cultivate socially accountable individuals. Both nations prioritize ethics by emphasizing communal values, national identity, and a commitment to responsible and respectful living rather than strict adherence to religious doctrines.

However, hollowness, immorality, debauchery, warmonger attitudes, brutality, rape, and suicides in the first world countries like America, Canada, England, and other countries endorse the proof that they are all walking shadows. Social security and development prevail in those countries due to the stringent implementation of laws and rules. Again, whatever rules and regulations come, they are generated from religions and instinctive faiths. Secularism itself is a religion based on a faith of religionlessness. Without faith, man cannot live at all. Man’s stubborn independence from religion ultimately compels him to surrender to any superior power or entity that is faith in God or religion. So, teaching morality is impossible and utterly ineffective without religion and belief.

Every religion has some truth and universal messages that can illuminate its followers and refrain them from indulging in immorality and aberration. Religions are like waters in different places with different names, like ponds, lakes, rivers, and oceans, but the real essence is water. So, we should inculcate the culture of abiding by the respective religions with love and respect so that our nation gets rid of all kinds of crimes and heinous activities.

When the Arabs were the worst creatures with all sorts of crimes like incestuous sex, defamation, killing female infants, looting and slandering, and whatnot, they were suffering from acute crisis, financial bankruptcy, social degradation, and spiritual deviation. Islam and its prophet could solve the issues by addressing and developing strong and vibrant finance, and all the problems could end. But our prophet came up with a solution of a faith-based moral society that holds materialism on the one hand and spirituality on the other hand. That solved all the problems, and that continuously continues.

The writer is an assistant professor of English at IUBAT and a PHD candidate at Universiti Putra Malaysia.