To claim that religion is necessary to restrain one’s behavior is to unwittingly confess that, absent divine surveillance and celestial reward or punishment, one’s moral compass would spin wildly into chaos. It is a startling admission—not of piety, but of latent barbarism held at bay only by metaphysical threats. Such a stance does not elevate religion; it debases the individual. It suggests that virtue is not chosen but coerced, that goodness is not intrinsic but externally imposed.

This argument, often deployed in moments of rhetorical desperation, reveals more about the speaker than about the divine. It is the last refuge of belief when reasoned defenses have crumbled, a trembling appeal to utility rather than truth. It implies that even if the deity is a fiction, the fiction is still useful—like a mythic scarecrow warding off the wolves of human impulse. But what does it say of a soul that requires fear to be kind, or hope to be just?

Morality, if it is to mean anything, must arise from within—from empathy, reason, and the recognition of shared humanity. To outsource it to divine command is to abdicate responsibility. It is not a triumph of faith but a surrender of conscience. And if the only thing standing between a person and savagery is the fear of hellfire, then we must ask not whether religion is necessary, but whether such a person is safe among us.

This is not a philosophical high ground—it is the moral basement. A search not for transcendence, but for the lowest denominator of decency. 😉

©️ Beatriz Esmer